Titan

From what I recall the limitation on HST power output was the cooling system. The new engines are more efficient and produce less heat, so in theory can be safely run at 2,500bhp without overtaxing the cooling system.

There are seven times as many rules in the Highway code about overtaking compared to being overtaken. Your lack of knowledge on the subject tends to suggest that you are not very familiar with this publication. I suggest that if you read it you will find all the answers you are looking for.

Highway code 104. Do not increase your speed when being overtaken. Slow down if necessary to let the overtaking vehicle pass and pull in. That is the exact wording and no amount of wordy protestations or attempts to blur the issue will get away from the fact the you suggested the opposite as a 'better still ....and absolutely legal in every respect' option.

What about Beethoven? After he was buried he de-composed...

Not quite, it is against the highway code, if not actually illegal, to accelerate whilst being overtaken.

Two tyred surely...

I can see at least two..

Indeed, and I remember stories of Rom River bribing BR drivers to do the shunting when the tiny Planet locomotive they had broke down (again). Is there not another Witham in the Peterborough area? I know there is another on the Western.

Not only that, who is going to want to travel all the way from Norwich to Bristol on a slow suburban service with many stops? And if it is an Intercity train then you would be talking new build specially to comply with crossrail requirements = £££££ for the benefit of just a few passengers?

Anything that is substantially as Brunel designed it is listed. Many of the brick overbridges date from the original line and are therefore listed, including ones widened to four tracks later on by adding an arch or two, even if they don't really have any other significance. This is not very helpful if clearance is tight. I would have thought it would be an idea to perhaps list a few of the better examples, but almost all of them? On an arch bridge it often looks like there will be clearance for OLE, the shape means that there is usually enough room to get the wires through as well as having enough space for supports if required. In these cases the critical bit is in fact how close the edge of the pantograph gets to the brickwork, which will almost certainly be the main problem for the example shown. This means that instead of track lowering, if there is space available a track slew may well get the required clearance, something more likely on the GWML than elsewhere!

That really hits the nail on the head. The design post GRIP 4 has been rushed through, short cuts attempted, and still has significant errors and omissions. The ironic thing is if it had not been rushed it would probably have been finished by now if you subtracted all the time wasted (and still being wasted) on abortive/repeated work...

Damn Text speak...

Sorry, but I was Assistant Electrification Engineer on the ECML Working for Balfour Beatty just before the accident at Hatfield happened. My desk was next to the P-way Engineers, and I know exactly how the defects were managed because I witnessed it first hand, something you and the writers of those reports did not. I was working with the people that ended up in court. Saying it was not a Railtrack priority was more of a gross understatement than a gross simplification, if you knew what actually happened.

Coach brakes are much better than locomotive brakes, so the longer the train gets the shorter the stopping distance becomes. I think that the shortest train a 125 is allowed for 125mph running is five trailers, as below that there is insufficient brake power. It is pretty much the same story for all locomotives, for 100mph running I think a Deltic needed at least six coaches in tow, light engine it was not supposed to exceed 60mph.

Actually I am the 16th, and I am working on it..

This is rather far from the reality. The track that failed at Hatfield had been known to be defective prior to the accident. So much so that the replacement rail was already lying in the four foot awaiting fitment, where it had been for about six months prior to the derailment. Railtrack just did not give it the priority it deserved, because it was inconvenient and cost money that they would rather pay in dividends. You can see the replacement rail in this picture:

So it is still not clear cut, if the car is stationary and he is deemed to be exercising proper control (a stationary car can hardly be deemed not under control, especially if that is exactly what is intended), then no offence has been committed, If he is not in control of the stationary vehicle then he can't be deemed to be the driver and no offence has been committed. I have a feeling the above is full of holes but theories need testing!

If you read the whole of the thread you refer to the evidence is there.

It's the same Engineers doing the Great Western as did the Liverpool - Manchester. Different project, different equipment, different rules and ideas and different management.

You are aware that the car was stationary and not being driven, and was neither 'not under proper control' when the pictures were taken? Does that help?

But I think the jury is still out!

Unfortunately it is the ones at the top who are inexperienced and it is them who make the decisions. The way that OLE design process has previously been carried out was very traditional, but also very logical, there was a critical path in that x had to be done before y. But because x takes longer, it was decided to do y first so something could get built quickly. Then it is discovered that x does not fit with y and you have to redesign it all, which may mean removing already installed structures and installing new ones... There are still many experienced ex BR Engineers out there, (and some good other ones too), it is just that no-one is listening to them or asking their advice!

Unfortunately many of the mistakes cannot be unmade, and some of the full effects have yet to be felt.

There appears to be only one pile in the picture, just behind the man with the survey station. All the other covers do indeed seem to be over drainage chambers. I would say the other 3 people are two lookouts and a COSS.

It is difficult to tell what they are surveying, if it was for a buried cable they would probably have a CAT scanner (which in this case means Cable Avoidance Tool!) But even they only tend to work when there is current flowing, for example I had to ask a Station Manager to turn the lights on during the day to ensure we could detect the position of the lighting cables running through the platform. It also does tend to look like the sort of surveying equipment that P-way would normally use, OLE surveys normally require just measuring from the running edge of the rail, for which a hand held laser or even a good old tape measure suffices. It is also good practice to use GPS to measure the exact location of a pile, as this can give accurate xyz coordinates which is useful for getting the correct ground level as well as horizontal position. All that is is a GPS receiver mounted on a stick, programmed to give the exact position of the end of the stick. It is very accurate, provided that the operator does not push it too far in to soft ground reducing the ground level by a few centimetres! However by now all survey work really ought to have been 100% complete. It gets a lot more difficult to change the design to suit once half the piles are already in...