BR(S)

Government press release: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rail-franchising-reaches-the-terminus-as-a-new-railway-takes-shape My understanding is that talks are now on-going regarding financial settlements from TOCs to government based on their previous franchise contracts. This will be reported on in three months. I have no links to further details of that though, if anyone else can oblige.

Which is exactly a way of people looking at things that might not make WFH quite as viable as people think. Just because work is being done in someone's home doesn't mean that some sort of "human rights on my soil" claim now overrides the need to protect sensitive data and so on. As always with such a huge change in the way things are done, there are so many issues to be properly worked through. It's inevitable though that various protocol breaches will come to light in the near future, given the rush to WFH in March.

The best we can do so far to see what level WFH will eventually reach is look at the "what are you likely to do?" surveys being carried out by a number of institutions. These seem to suggest that a mix of home and office working will be the future, with previously 4 or 5 days per week commuters reducing their trips to 2 or 3 days a week. Employers will have to assess what effects this will have on their business with regards to productivity but, again, they have little data so far (the usefulness of WFH during a pandemic might be different once normality resumes; there are a few businesses I'm avoiding as their WFH model is of no use to my needs). In terms of the railway, it has carried on largely untouched during recent financial downturns, but I'd be very surprised if this is the case this time. An announcement on the Emergency Measures Agreements following government/TOC discussions is due either tonight or tomorrow morning, as the original ones expire today.

Likely to be announced this week. See the railforums.co.uk thread for the full Telegraph article if you don't have a subscription. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/09/12/franchises-scrapped-lockdown-rail-costs-rise/ https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/rail-franchises-to-be-replaced-with-fixed-fee-contracts.209076/

Class 101 used to move freight: 51196 51197 2 241085 by Steven Clements, on Flickr

Part 10 now available in shops (Smiffs at least).

And some from another old layout, Highgate Wood Sidings:

Some from my old layout Bromley North:

Reminded me of one Twitter post I saw a few months ago where a mother reported that her young daughter asked her whether we all had to stay at home during Covids 1 to 18.

With thanks to the posters who didn't ignore my last paragraph and have given their experience of passenger numbers! I'd appreciate more over the coming weeks as we enter August and the first day tomorrow of the "back to work" directive. Mid-September will no doubt be the time for an increase of commuters, though the railway is unlikely to again see the packed peak trains of pre-March 2020. At the moment, people travelling to work 2 or 3 days a week with the rest of the time working from home seems to be the way it'll go, but who knows?

The official figures will of course be released in time, but yesterday and today were the first days since March that I've felt positive about passengers returning to the railway in significant numbers. My experience is only for the Thameslink route (Brighton and Sutton parts), which was helped by the nice weather and London and Brighton being on the route, but the main take home for me is that it seems the biggest hurdle has been overcome: people are not afraid to use trains and don't see them as mobile Petri dishes. Many trains throughout Friday morning with leisure travellers looked like rush hour commuter trains, with people standing shoulder-to-shoulder. There were equally healthy loadings today. My current observations on the Thameslink route, regarding the three main passenger flows, are: Leisure travel looks to be returning to pre-pandemic levels; Airport travel would seem to be growing on a level proportional to the increase in flights. Still a long way to go with this of course, but it's looking good (Luton Airport more than Gatwick Airport); Commuter travel still at very low levels, but I appreciate September will be the first month to see what happens with this, and into next year will be required no doubt, as some firms have told staff there will be no return to the office until early 2021. I'd be interested in other people's passenger loading experiences on other routes, while we wait for the official figures! I appreciate some might not be happy about such high loading levels at the current time, but I'd appreciate it if this thread could just be used to discuss current loading observations.

Kernow/Bachmann 117 in chocolate and cream for £285: https://clarkrailworks.com/collections/oo-gauge/products/Bachmann-oo-35-500z-class-117-3-car-dmu-gwr-150-chocolate-cream-excl-for-k-m-r-c

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-53332103

I want to do a renumber and rename of 59002, as Alan J Day is too late for my era. It looks like a straightforward case of putting etched name and numberplates over the printed ones (all the nameplates appear to be the same shape, so hopefully even that will be easy). Does anyone know of any livery variations on the Alan J Day version that might make this less straightforward?

Not a bargain as such, but this looks like good value for a nicely weathered example: https://www.hattons.co.uk/548789/bachmann_branchline_32_440_po_class_24_1_d5135_in_br_green_pre_owned_weathered_slight_wear_to_outer_cardboa/stockdetail.aspx