Jump to content
 

royaloak

Members
  • Posts

    4,599
  • Joined

Everything posted by royaloak

  1. Because no Government would be stupid enough to have a 'Nationalised' industry where one group of workers going on strike would be able to basically paralyse the Country, privatisation was all about divide and conquer, I am not saying that was the reason for privatisation but I am sure it did have a bearing on it.
  2. Because they were only supposed to be in service for 10 to 15 years while everything was electrified and the APT took over so it wasnt worth the expense, that plan didnt quite work out though.
  3. Not by choice, blame the lack of a sensible electrification policy and lack of suitable trains.
  4. I am no expert but I think I detect just the slightest hint of sarcasm in this post?
  5. Which is why a lot of classic racing or rally cars have had their original magnesium wheels replaced with alloy ones, magnesium simply ages.
  6. But you basically have the same number of staff members operating over twice as many trains.
  7. I would hazard a guess that these have been a bit popular so a rerun would be a serious possibility, when would depend on what sort of mood Hornby are in.
  8. All standard releases are now limited in number, they are produced as one batch and that is that, the days of thousands and thousands of the same model being produced year after year are long gone.
  9. So that begs the question, what is the difference between the old broom and the new broom?
  10. Oh dont worry SM has got it, the biggest problem is the 'crewplan' computer program, bung all the information and agreements in it and it will churn out compliant diagrams, what it wont take into account is what happens during disruption which is where a decent roster clerk should then look over the diagrams and 'adjust' them for resilience, unfortunately that doesnt happen so we end up with 9hr54 diagrams with 4 hours driving, minimum break then another 4 hours driving on them, what could possibly go wrong. Exeter now do Exeter to Paddington and back to Exeter before they get a PNB, Plymouth now do Plymouth to Paddington 1hr4 PNB (minimum required is 57 minutes) then back to Plymouth, so if they are 8 minutes late into Paddington it will impact their back working. We then get the company going on about managing our fatigue, oh the irony. When I was at Exeter they put a poster up asking us why we thought the number of incidents was on the increase, but at the bottom it had 'diagrams are not the problem' in bold letters, so they did know the reason but didnt want us to tell them! Drivers and Guards are now worked about 2 and a half times harder than they were under BR, but as soon as there is a hitch the timetable will fall apart because there isnt any resilience in the diagrams and there arent any spares any more, in fact its now normal to have uncovered diagrams on a daily basis due to lack of crew.
  11. The Fast trains wont be on the ECML though will they, they will be on HS2 so why waste money trying to speed up the ECML?
  12. 10 yes definitely. 2) Yes probably 3) Definitely not because then HS2 would cease to be a HS route, its to take the long distance trains away from the WCML, ECML and to a lesser extent the MML, HS2 needs to be have its first station at Birmingham to make the best advantage of its HS moniker.
  13. Or trains and crews are worked harder than before so there isnt the resilience there used to be to absorb late running, we now have a LOT of diagrams where we have the bare minimum break in London so any delays on the way up will result in our back working starting late while we have our legally required break, whereas our break used to be longer so even if we were 10 or 15 minutes late our back working could still leave right time! It works on paper because "we dont diagram for delays" is the standard answer. Of course there are those who think its disgusting that they are being delayed while the driver has a 'cup of tea' forgetting (or not caring) we might have just driven for three and a half or four hours straight but that is just the ignorance of people these days!
  14. Steam hauled trains on the main routes are a pain in the arris simply because of the number of and the speed of current services they have to vie with, I can see ABDs point about excursions being electrically hauled out of the capital to a convenient location before hooking the steamer on for a nice meander around the countryside, but even then only being able to do 100mph will still be a limiting factor.
  15. A steam hauled train only needs to be able to keep up with the stoppers if it is routes on the slow/ relief lines, if it can quickly get to (and maintain) 60-75mph it should be able to keep out of everything elses way as they start and stop in front of and behind it (depending on calling patterns of course), the same as freights are pathed. A steamer isnt going to be able to compete on the fast/ main lines.
  16. I was wondering what having diarhia dioriah an upset stomach had to do with it and then realised the last word was kits with a 'K' and not 'bits' with a B. Yes I know its spelt diarrhea.
  17. The problem with great crested newts is that while they are rare on mainland Europe they are quite common over here, although, like you, I get the feeling its the same ones turning up at all these sites, maybe any which are caught and relocated should be microchipped so they can be checked.
  18. So there is an upside to the Chinese doing it!
  19. I wonder how long the rails would last if they were made out of Chinesium instead of proper steel?
  20. They only lasted until Monday because there wasnt anyone in on the weekend to sign the paperwork. At least the interiors and windows had been removed by the last load of 'passengers' to save the scrapyard doing it.
  21. By ignoring half of our H&S laws and running roughshod over land acquisition most definitely!
  22. 4 wheel CCTs were definitely running on November 21 1983, I remember photographing a couple in Plymouth on the day I moved to Yorkshire.
  23. But the point is the passengers on it dont care what electric (or diesel) is on the front, they are only interested in the steamer and they like a variety of them.
×
×
  • Create New...