RfDforever

Thank you for the responses to my query about 125 mph running on the WCML. Despite the impression some clearly have, it is NOT the case that tilt is only used infrequently on a few well known curves; I travelled yesterday, and on the short section Northbound between Roade and Kilsby tunnel (the section where Mr Stephenson meandered around Northamptonshire to keep his line nearly level before diverting via Weedon in case the French got stroppy again) I counted 7 left leans and 6 to the right - mainly pairs in quick succession on S-bends. Maybe this is exceptional, though.

To give an idea of the wanderlust of the ex S.R. BY; one (777) was the front vehicle in the Peterboro-Liverpool St (via Ipswich) mail train in March, 1950 which, after passing several adverse signals in fog, collided with a freight train at Witham Junction. In 1969, all surviving ex SR BYs had their lighting removed and were regarded officially as former brake vans. Sources SR Passenger Vans, Oakwood Press, and the accident report in Railways Archive.

The time advantage of 125mph trains seems to be marginal at the South end of the WCML; looking at Open Train times for WTT times from Milton Keynes to Euston the Virgin start to stop times for Pendolini are only about 1 1/2 minutes (North Wales = Voyager services slightly slower) quicker than London Midland trains that are similarly non-stop between these two points. It's also worth pointing out that despite the publicity about the 350/1's being uprated to 110 mph 350/2s can keep time when used on the Crewe service and fast Northamptons - and this has been confirmed anecdotally in conversation by drivers (when travelling passenger, I must add) I'm also confused that all 125mph trains on the WCML tilt (apart from W'hampton Stafford) but this is for passenger comfort, not line safety we are told. Not sure why the other main lines manage 125 without tilting - are they really less curvy? Some off peak services (including Anglo-Scottish) are single Voyagers and do not seem to be at all overcrowded - unlike the situation on XC, which seems much more in need of extra capacity.

Thanks for all the responses. It's interesting that ones relating to other franchises refer to the response of platform or station staff. In the case of the former, I have never seen any on LM. For station staff, Coventry, Rugby and Milton Keynes have only Virgin Trains staff as far as I can tell; and once the booking office closes at Northampton there's just the security man so I'm still a little wary that there may be any staff about to organise a bus. The discussion also mentions rail replacement buses more generally, and an experience I had in the 1960's may be of interest. With a fellow spotter, I travelled to Doncaster one Sunday to join an RCTS organised works visit. Returning South, we were travelling (by dmu) towards Sheffield when the train was terminated (I forget where) and we boarded a Rotherham Corporation double deck bus for the section to Masboro'. Now buses are slower than trains and you may need to hurry to catch the forward connection when the bus arrives; but I was mildly surprised that when we turned into the station people were really rushing down the stairs, pushing others out of the way (we were downstairs). Then glass fell past the windows, followed by light metal then some big heavy castings. Puzzling at first. What had happened was that Masborough had a rather splendid cast iron and glass porch over the road entrance presumably designed in the days of horse drawn coaches. Of course Victorian architects planned it to clear the height of horse drawn carriages but not double deck buses...

I thought of a sure-fire way to find details of the routes allocated between the two new lines, but I was disappointed. Curiously, NRES shows trains as "operated by London Midland" up to the last date, 21st January, available. The new franchise is not far into the future, but the basics don't seem to have been thought through yet. On the assumption that the change of franchise is overnight Sat/Sun 9/10th December there is also an oddity. As far as I can make out, the last Saturday night workings shown in printed timetables will be the 5 Euston departures at 02.00 (Sunday) , all buses to Milton Keynes each with different stopping patterns, the last of which arrives at Milton Keynes at 05.20. The first Sunday morning service in the published timetable that I can find is the 06.20 bus, Northampton - Milton Keynes. I think that these buses are all organised by Network Rail to allow for engineering work.

London Midland have a long-running driver shortage which results in short notice train cancellations. This has recently included the last Liverpool-Birmingham and the last Worcester; tonight, the 2254 Birmingham-Northampton is cancelled; NRES helpfully advises that the alternative is at 08.06 tomorrow, What happens to the passenger intending to catch the service? I am thinking not just at New Street, where there might just possibly be staff around, but at intermediate stations where the only staff, the booking clerk booked off about 12 hours before? New Street is, I think, closed overnight - are you evicted into the street? How common is this on other TOCs, and what do they do when it happens?

I think there's a similar case near the Weetabix factory (post past) but might this one be excusable on signal sighting grounds???

The new "LNW" livery shows a yellow area the full height of the gangway door. Bearing in mind that this has "H & S Implications" does anyone know why the present 350 fleet varies between half height and full height? I thought I'd cracket the logic 'til the 350/3s turned up...

Point taken; but I'm far from sure this really was the reason. Curiously, intriguing details of the current scene like this (and there are others) are often not explained. Probably be a "Questions - Prototype" thread in 2057...

Just an observation but I'm puzzled. In the new livery, there is an area including a passenger door that is light grey with darker diagonal stripes. This is very similar to the colour scheme originally applied to passenger doors on Pendolini; but which was over painted with a single colour (dark grey) because, as I understand it, of complaints from groups representing visually impaired people. I'm not sure what the problem was (though I have been told it involved the fact that the interior of the door on the opposite side was similarly painted, making it difficult to work out whether the nearer door was closed or open) but wouldn't the same objection apply to the SWR livery?

I hope that the platform screen information when two GWR sets are coupled together is better than that provided on the midland main line. There, if there are two Meridians coupled together, the screens display the coach letters of each set in alphabetic order. This does not tell you whether the coach you are looking for is at the front or back of the set. There also seems to be the practice, also possibly used by Virgin with double Voyagers, of putting all reservations in one set. If you're travelling on an open ticket, by the time you realise that there are no seats in the set you've joined it's too late to move to the unreserved one. Just a matter of thoughtful communication and it's hard to understand why EMT find it so difficult.

Continuing on the subject of the 28/11/64 railtour; those in the front half of the train (including me) were told to get off at Upperby, with the remainder going to Kingmoor. Buses ran between the two points so tha everyone visited both sheds. I was disappointed because I thought Kingmoor was the far more interesting shed and, because of late running, the light was fading before when we got there. However, I did get a few shots at Upperby and the best was one of 46255, just withdrawn. To show the results that could be obtained from a Brownie 127 in good conditions there's one on the mega-bash; Sunday April 10th 1965 but the shed and number of the Q6 is somewhere ion those spotting notes. Thank you for the invitation to join the thread

I took a Brownie 127 photo of Salmon Trout on that very day! But I arrived on a jinxed railtour from Birmingham. A very poorly late substitute Brit that, when it did finally get up to a reasonable speed somewhere south of Garstang & Catterall then deposited its fire plus metal bits on the track. Eventually worked forward by a Black 5 that went round the curve at Penrith VERY fast. Were you on the tour, or did you just busk it with the crowds? I even took some colour prints with my own Brownie (on a mega bash by coach to every English shed N of Wigan/Staveley), and ,when sunny, got good results.

With reference to the query about NE coach prefix; these appeared during 1965, and eventually applied to everything used on NE-originating trains including catering and sleeping cars and pre-BR standard stock. The June 1966 RO provided a number list of many vehicle types so lettered. I suggest (and am happy to stand corrected) that the reason was as follows; for a long period after nationalisation, the Eastern and North Eastern Regions had a joint CM&EE organisation but at some date, possibly 1964-5, they were separated. It would then be logical to distinguish the two regions' stock at that point.. The NE prefix was adopted at about the same time as the G of the GE one was being painted out and it may be that the two are connected in that the same reorganisation brought the GE line independent management back under ER control. Of course, it wasn't long before the ER and NER were merged.

With reference to deciding whether buying daily tickets saves money by comparison with buying a season ticket; the discount offered by an S.T. may be more than is widely realised, particularly for long distances. There's also no restriction on travel times for a S.T. but this may limit the choice of discount daily tickets, and, of course, advance tickets are train time specific which may not be convenient if you have a job where you can't just pack up and go at a specific time. To take an extreme example; a weekly season ticket from Northampton to Preston (routed via MK so thereby valid on VWC) is £202, and an anytime return (to allow travel before 9.30) is £127. Although I appreciate that this is not a creditable commute (though that begs the question why is it available) it means that, in this case, more than one journey per week is the cut-off for a ST being the better value. I'm not sure whether the discount reduces for shorter journeys.

May I make two points - it's always worth thinking about what a statistic really means. The statistics are "Passenger journeys by ticket type". For season tickets, the reduction is, therefore, of journeys and not necessarily number of tickets bought. The reduction in "journeys" might be commuters travelling on a smaller number of days, but it might also be the result of making the journey without change of train where previously a change en route had to be made. Key performance indicators sometimes react perversely when the situation self evidently improves - in this example by introducing through trains.. In the last few years there has been publicity about saving money by booking point-to-point for a journey - there was a report in a national newspaper that, allegedly, a football supporter saved money by buying 24 (?) individual tickets. Because I doubt that there as an algorithm to capture this the result would be 24 passenger journeys. One would expect that there would be an underlying rise in the passenger journeys statistic as a result of this behaviour (obviously more likely to be a much smaller number of legs), as it does seem to be on the increase. I'm also not sure how the number of journeys by season ticket holders can be captured. Automatic gates might go some way but there are not universal and those that do exist are often open. The annual PTS, where people count passengers, does not distinguish between ticket holder types - it's hard enough to count accurately 800 boarding a train without obtaining that detail.

I only have first-hand knowledge up to 2000, but certainly in those days, our (freight) customers did something more direct than writing - they 'phoned. And not to their MP, but to the business. They certainly made us aware of operational shortcomings. For example, they might have (hourly-paid) unloading staff idle because a train that should have arrived hadn't, or their production line was about to stop because their inwards components train had been delayed. Long before "Delay Repay" was dreamed up, many freight contracts involved penalty clauses - for example, in the case of the delayed components, road transport had to be found and hired in at our expense. Bear in mind that almost all freight customers in those days each provided income measured in £m's. The sector/business organisation then had the line of communication to make those at fault aware of their shortcomings. Spoiler Alert. Writing to your MP as an unhappy passenger resulted in his or her assistant sending off a formulaic letter to BR. This ended up with the regional PR&PO, who sent a formulaic reply. This reply was then "A to B'd" to the constituent. At no point was anyone who might, if the complaint was justified, be at fault involved in the loop. But even a first class long distant season ticket holder wasn't in the same league as far as threat to income went.

Thank you for the responses about freight traffic levels on the MML. Back in the early '70s I joined the section then called 'Freight Marketing Manager, Earths & Stones' at an RHQ (later titled, more zippily, B.M. Construction) and, at that time, block stone trains were very much on the increase, but in recent years there seems to have been a decline. Obviously, there's not much need for BOS lime now but I would have thought that the demand for construction materials was still there. The explanation of the need for the reinstatement of the former goods and slow lines is interesting to me, with the stories of trains waiting path. It was ever thus, as they say. All trainload freight traffic in the many years I worked in freight marketing had good operating ratios - down to 20% - and we persuaded customers to invest in 75 mph wagons with the promise of quick transits. Unfortunately, the average speed of a 75 mph class 4 freight train was in reality around 30-35mph, with customer disappointment often vented (though not at those responsible) as a result. This was because the operators based their priorities on train class, and, routinely, a late running class 2 train, formed of 75 max stock (think AM10's, many dmu) would be given precedence at a junction over an on-time class 4 - and, within a couple of miles, the class 2 would stop at a station, delaying the freight. Bearing in mind that, in contrast to the high profitability of the freight, the passenger train was probably loss-making, it all seemed very strange - but, of course, in that world, impossible to change. We lost freight business directly as a result. There were other factors causing loss, of course, but to elaborate them will reveal other serious shortcomings... Presumably, in the modern Network Rail world though, freight train paths are not as remunerative as passenger ones, so it's sound business practice to sideline them.

I accept that this scan is rather dusty, but I think it is of some interest. In April '67' on a three day coach bash, I visited North Blyth to find a 204 extracting a sold loco from the scrap line. That was one of the BR built Ivatt 4s in the line and it seemed at the time to highlight the strange times when a BR built loco with 'mod cons' was going for scrap when NER built or designed loco were still going strong. But who would have thought then that the tidy-looking loco extracting steam locos for scrap would itself meet the same end within two years?

I know that this is discussions NOT questions but I am puzzled... Reinstatement of the second track on the slow lines between Sharnbrook and Kettering seems to be taking place; but what traffic will use it? The only station on this section is Wellingborough, and for passenger trains to be able to call there on the former Up Slow alignment would require not only platform reinstatement but also extension of the (very recently constructed and massive) footbridge. Freight traffic does not appear to me to be heavy enough to impede an increase in the passenger service - but perhaps my perception is wrong?

I'm fairly sure that the reason for running XC trains via Coventry was primarily to serve Birmingham Airport, not Coventry. Living in Northampton (population rather more than 200,000 - yes, larger than Milton Keynes) I'd really like to be able to travel to the North by rail without either travelling via Milton Keynes (and pay extra) or via Birmingham (and stop at every village, not to mention a halt built to serve a now long closed car factory). But the privatised railway seems to be operation- led rather than service-led; a criticism often levelled at BR but which never seems to be heard nowadays.

It may be that you intended this to be representative at 50% cutoff (for a 2 cylinder loco), but of course steam is admitted to each end of the cylinder in turn so could be even more.

Pete the Elaner's post brings back unhappy memories of my commuting days when they involved London Underground. For instance, I arrived at KX+StP to travel to Padd when, not unusually, there was a strike, with some lines running almost normally and others having no service. In the event, the Circle/ Hammersmith was not running, but the Victoria was. Plan B; Vic to Oxford C, Central to Lancaster Gate and a short walk. So I enquired if the Central Line was running. The answer; "The Central Line does not stop at Kings Cross" When LUL were told to think of their passengers as customers the only difference I detected was that the jobsworth yelling "let the passengers off the train first" (yes, we know that's a good idea - but please don't shut the doors and go before we can get on) changed to "let the customers off the train first" delivered in the same menacing tone. Of course, posters on LUL smugly told how wonderful we thought the service was, proved by surveys. I was commuting on the Northern Line at the time. I expected my journey to be dire; stations evacuated because of overcrowding (because there was a long gap in the service) newly delivered trains breaking down etc. At my destination, I was met by a man carrying out a survey for LUL. His only question was "did your journey today meet your expectations?" As my journey had all the unpleasantness I expected, the truthful answer could only be "yes". So, by sophistry, presumably LUL could count that answer as "Yes, aren't we wonderful?"

My post was intended to suggest why trains in the West Midlands corridor were heavily loaded and to wonder what income the TOCs received. I clearly didn't imply that action, such as segregation, should be taken - and well loaded trains should cheer any rail enthusiast, providing revenue also increases. The XC conductor guards that I have chatted to regarded it as impossible to do full ticket checks for the four possible travel legs between Wolverhampton and Coventry (and, also, between Manchester Piccadilly and Stoke) but perhaps the large number of passengers who pile on at one station and off at the next do indeed have tickets; and the introduction of barriers at the stations served by VWC and XC, again from conversation with a small sample of booking clerks, has massively increased morning peak ticket sales at stations like Hampton-in Arden so presumably has also reduced fare evasion on those companies.

I made a return trip down the MML from Wellingborough last Sunday. By the time I returned a number of track panels had been placed in position on the former Up Slow alignment South of the site of Isham & Burton Latimer station (i.e. where the Weetabix factory is). These seemed to be fully ballasted and ready to take a train - except that there are no other tracks in position to the North until the point where the former Up and Down slows converge into one track, or South before Finedon Rd.. To the South of Isham & BL, it looks like a signal gantry has a support in the middle of the former Up Slow formation, but I'm not sure. Further Southwards to Wellingborough there are track panels lying about and some ballast has been laid. North of Kettering, an immaculate double track alignment sweeps away from the Leicester line towards Manton; who could have thought, when this line was closed to passengers in the '60s, that this sight would one day return? Northamptonshire becoming the all-electric county (remember, until 1974 it included a stretch of the ECML) is sadly hampered by lack of progress between King's Sutton and Aynho Park...