phil-b259

In one sense that’s not a problem - adding more ballast to restore the profile is something that goes way back to the pre-grouping era and not simply a modern phenomenon However repeated topping up of the ballast does suggest the embankment had been slumping / sinking for quite a while and has long been in need of repair work.

That in itself is surprising given the many initiatives being pushed out by the NHS / Whitehall to widen access to services, promote competition and give pharmacists a more active role in the healthcare process. Certanly requiring to attend the surgery to pick up a prescription or the necessary medication would be incredibly frustrating (not to mention downright inconvenient) for those whose work / childcare patterns rule it out as a viable option...

So not scanned every single time (as happens to all Eurostar passengers and their baggage) So still double standards when it comes to how the rules are applied to the railway versus road based travel*.... *Though adb968008 has made some interesting observations as to why this might be the case.

Or maybe just that if you have a phone with said app on it then you no longer have to carry round a physical ID card. In other words its a physical ID card or a phone (fully charged up and able to open the required app) is required for compliance with the law. Also given mobile phones are equipped with security measures like requiring a face scan, a fingerprint or a numerical pass key to be entered before a user can do anything then in actual fact they are a far more secure way of carrying your ID around! Thats because if its stolen then (1) the theif will not be able to get access to the ID app and (2) if you have registered your device with your network provider than they can send out a 'kill device' message which immediately turns the device into a worthless paperweight once it has logged onto a mobile phone mast. If a thief makes off with a physical ID card by contrast there is no way being able to obscure / destroy the information printed on it.

Which is all very well until your repeat prescription is not issued because you have not gone through what in now considered the 'correct approval process' It would be something of a pryic victory if your refusal to change how you do things only ends up having a negative effect on your health.

Both Nieither basically - which is why a mix of Euston, Waterloo, Terminating at Ealing Broadway and of course the usual turnaround at Reading options are being worked on. I suspect that they will be split by service groups - South Weat of England services may well use Waterloo, Bristol / South Wales services use Euston with the balance that cannot be accomadated spinning at Ealing Broadway / Reading

You miss the point. If you were travelling through the port of Dover or on a Eurotunnel shuttle would you expect the contents of your car to be x-rayed and all persons get out and March through a scanner? Eurostar is a train NOT a plane, stop treating it like one! As such the security measures which apply to Eurostar (or any competitor) should totally match those in operation at Dover or Folkestone when they process motor vehicles because (1) the countries connected by both services are identical and (2) and their occupants because a sane analysis of the threats to life due to terrorism (or indeed the risks of smuggling) will show there is no meaningful difference between the two (in many respects transporting motor vehicles provides even grater opportunities for smuggling). Foulounoux has highlighted that checks at the likes of Dover / Folkestone are primarily intelligence led - not the lazy and systematic detailed examination of everybody and everything before boarding used by Eurostar - and that is the sort of approach which should have been adopted rather than this ‘strip everyone of everything metal and walk them through airport scanners procedures. Comparisons with airports (with respect to security needs) are largely invalid - airports deal with flights from a huge number of countries whose risk levels vary widely - very different from a facility which only deals with travel to EU countries (Dover, Folkestone, St Pancras) and can, broadly speaking, assume a certain level of risk applies to all those who pass through the facility and taylor what they do to that narrow passenger base. And I repeat a bomb going off on a ro-ro ferry could cause just as much loss of life as a bomb set off in the channel tunnel and a car stuffed with drugs will cause much more harm that a person carrying them in their suitcase will…..

Stop making excuses - rules is rules! Lines have to be drawn somewhere. There is substantial profit to be had from the Jacobite operation so if WCR don't want to lose out on lots of revenue they will find a way..... Its not as if their entire coach fleet consists of Mk1s after all.....

TOO RIGHT!!!

It should be about making them compliant - however given there is hard evidence they cannot be trusted to abide by any interim measures the ORR may require then it entirely reasonable to turn round and say "you have had your chance" and ban any unfitted WCR stock from the national network. There is a saying " your reap what you sow" and the fact WCRs attitude to safety requirements being ignored - particularly with its actions with last Summers Jacobite means they only have themselves to blame for this. And that is NOT WCR bashing - its simply due process. If there was evidence that Belmond, the folk at Tysley etc had shown similar disregard for the ORRs mitigating measures then I would be calling for their stock to be kicked off the mainline until it was CDL fitted too.

As far as I know an ORR inspector has never turned up twice in the space of 3 months and found legally binding agreements were not been met! The whole point of the ORR issuing derogation is they can have confidence that any conditions the ORR specify will always be complied with. That goes for anything being inspected by the way - be it a food inspector and a restaurant which is repeatedly found to be overrun by rats / mice, a nightclub found routinely chaining up emergency exists or even a TOC who repeatedly fail to fix their depot lighting / remove hazards from authorised walking routes even after the owners have insisted such things will not happen. Granted the entire charter train industry may not have been progressing as fast as the ORR would have liked with respect to CDL - but if operators can prove 100% compliance with any mitigating measures the ORR insist on then, from an inspectorate / regulation point of view the risks are obviously being controlled / managed properly so - it follows that requests to defer fitment will have been far easier to accommodate. And that is the nub of regulation - TRUST! Its impossible for inspectors to be everywhere at once - so their is an implicit requirement that the regulating / inspecting body has to be able to trust those who it works with. People who are complaint and helpful can expect to be trusted and subjected to less scrutiny / restriction than those who cause problems - its as simple as that. Once a company is shown not just once but twice not complying with the regulations then the regulator is quite within their rights to take a harsher line. As such WCR have bought this on themselves by their sloppy operating methods - had the ORR inspectors not found any issues with the way the Jacobite was being staffed the first time they visited last year then WCR might well have found the ORR more amenable to a more flexible timeframe. As things stand the ORR have every right to not trust a word that WCR say and that will onl;y change when WCR proves itself worthy of being trusted again! Running to the courts does nothing to change that fundamental truth - if anything it makes it worse.

You miss the point - modern manufacturing methods are NOT built around not testing everything which comes off an assembly line. It instead relies on reams of paperwork (which is supposed to show that the manufacturer has processes in place to check and correct defects themselves before the items leave the factory) and some random sampling of the products when they arrive at their destination. This is because inspecting everything is labour intensive (thus adds considerable cost to the manufacture of the product) plus risks the possibility of damage during the examination process. Now obviously the exact percentage of the shipment which is inspected will vary is determined by a number of factors - the perceived value of the item (or more accurately the profit that will be made from its sale) and crucially whether there have been problems with that manufacturers products in the past being key drivers here. If the items are from a new supplier then the sampled number might be quite high - if its an established supplier with a good record then the sampling number will be low. It also needs to be remembered that once a item has been unpackaged for inspection that may mean it cannot be sold as 'new' - particularly if additional assembly is needed, plus the factory who made the item can always try and claim that the defect (e.g. a broken detail part) occurred as a result of clumsy handling during inspection.

IIRC nothing different from what vehicles have to do when passing through the port of Dover, which isn't much - just a quick visual scan by the passport person that the photos in the passports offed up match the identity of the occupants basically. Obviously for freight they both Dover and Eurotunnels have x-ray scanners but these are more geared to looking for illegal migrants or, in the case of Eurotunnel other heat sources (which could lead to a repeat of the various fires that have occurred since the tunnel opened). Certainly there is no requirement for people to vacate their vehicles and march through a security portal while their car gets x-rayed - which is what would happen if the measure demand 'essential' for Europstar were replicated for ALL users of the tunnel.... Not for the first time we see blatant double standards applied - rail passengers facing intense scrutiny despite the transit being between 4 well matched countries who routinely exchange information about illegal activities / threats and who all have good levels of policing etc, but road users face minimal checks (even though blowing up a car ferry would be just as devastating as blowing up a Eurostar)

And where exactly in Stratford would you build this new Termini? While at one time Stratford may have had lots of spare / underused land which could be employed, a certain thing called the 2012 Olympics and the extensive redeployment/ regelation it bought about means that there areas around the current station are heavily built up with residential tower blocks and of course the Elizabeth Park green space. No you can forget ANY chance of repurposing Stratford as a Termini. Which brings us back to making the Optimum use of St Pancras…. Now while there are undoubtedly improvements which can be made ranging from more staff, extra passenger handling infrastructure etc which would help the bottom line is unless there is a radical change in how governments chose to regulate cross channel traffic with respect to security* and immigration requirements then the international platforms will always be significantly constrained as to how many trains they can handle compared to domestic platforms which do not face restrictions on simultaneous arrivals and departures from either side of island platforms or mixing arriving and departing passengers (both of which are done every single day within the EU without the world falling in I might add!) *Which has more to do with Willy waving about how ‘tough’ Governments look than a realistic assessment of threats - a terrorist setting off a bomb on a Ro-Ro passenger ferry would be just as catastrophic as someone doing the same on the channel tunnel - yet I don’t see all motor vehicles and their occupants requiring to pass through x-Ray scanners etc.

Indeed - going through the process of buying a house a president and virtually everyone requires us to use Passports / driving licences in a specialist anti-money laundering app* on the phone. God knows how people without that or a photo card driving licence would do it…. * which compares them to a selfie you take there and then plus reads the biometric data from the chip in the passport too.

Thats RMweb for you. But it’s also what makes it an interesting forum to a degree - more human and less robot like if you will.

Seeing as I carry round a photo ID driving licence in my wallet all the time (and no I’m not going to the bother of putting it in there every time I am going to drive a motor vehicle - nor waste my time presenting it at a police station because I got stopped driving while not having it with me) then, yes I am ‘OK’ with that possibility as you put it. That assumes whatever regime is put in place doesn’t have a procedure to deal with that - maybe something like you have two weeks to present yourself to a Police station with your ID, which is exactly what happens if you cannot produce your driving license when stopped by the Police when driving a motor vehicle.

Apparently that is mainly due to South Korean ‘K Pop’ band who shot a music video there a few years ago. ’k pop’ fans tend to be fanatical in their devolution to their idols and apparently many make the pilgrimage to the Severn Sisters / Birling Gap to get photos - which usually includes them standing perilously close to the cliff edge and jumping up into the air…. Given the unstable nature of the chalk cliffs this is a very unwise action - there is a reason why the National Trust say keep back from the cliff edge. The other thing these visitors had a tendency to do was offer £50 notes to pay for bus fares in the pre-covid days (the frequent bus service between Brighton and Eastbourne now having gone cashless) which caused no end of issues. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/world/europe/seven-sisters-cliffs-tourism-pictures.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4982586/amp/Sightseers-taking-pictures-Seven-Sisters-cliffs.html

There are 4 Travelodge hotels very close to Kings Cross / St Pancras and 3 Premier Inn hotels in the area too. Naturally it being central London they are a bit more expensive than you might be used to but they do at least take the guess work out of things in terms of what you get for your money.

The platforms at Ashford have been modified to be compatible with UIC stock (Network Rail got a grant from the DfT to do it) - just in time for the Pandemic to hit and all Eurostar services from Ashford be withdrawn. Ebsfleet and St Pancras have been compatible with UIC stock from the outset - Stratford may be compatible if the temporary modifications applied to them during the 2012 Olympics are removed. But more widely, its true that the traditional UK platform profile is incompatible with UIC gauge stock and whats more making it compatible is likely to make in non compatible for UK gauge stock! And its not just platforms that are an issue in the UK - things like shunt signal, signs, bridge parapets / girders etc are also foul of UIC loading gauge. This caused problems with HS2 which was originally supposed to feature a mix of UIC and UK gauge trains calling at stations along it - the proposed solution being to include retracting bridging pieces on the UK gauge stock to remove the big gaps that would be present as a result of having to simultaneously accommodate the wider UIC gauge trains at the same platform. (Now that a certain party has have slashed HS2 to bits there is no need for it to accommodate UIC gauge trains so the platforms can be adjusted accordingly)

Indeed there has - a couple of Kernow products spring to mind but these required immediate payment typically at the time the models left the factory - waiting till the model arrived on the shelves / ready for dispatch at pre-order prices wasn't an option. But such policies are quite different from the general honouring a pre-order price from 5 years or so ago (which with the gestation period of some models from Bachmann and Hornby was a real posability) right up till when the models reach the retailers shelf - and they are only possible because the hit the retailer takes on the profit margin is considered acceptable. I've pretty much exclusively bought steam models - including from the likes of Hattons, Rails & Kernow with none of them explicitly guaranteeing to honour pre-order prices with no strings attached. Sales of model railway items tend to be on a small scale volume wise so as a business strategy its still a stupid policy in general terms to guarantee to honor pre-order prices come what may. In reality such policies only makes sense if the business is 99% certain the price they have to pay the manufacturer etc won't go up (or go beyond a certain level) as that eats into the profit margin and can easily lead to the retailer making a loss on the sale. Do that too many times and it can cause serious financial problems for small traders (if you are someone like Tesco or Aldi then making losses on individual products doesn't matter too much because the loses get dwarfed by the profits).

Every single retailer I have bough from since re-entering the hobby well over a decade ago HAS NOT 'guaranteed' pre-order prices! What they have said is that if the price goes up (i.e. the manufacturer has raised the price they charge the retailer before delivery) then the retailer will allow me to cancel with no penalty. If Hattons had such an absolute pre-order price guarantee then thats plain stupid business practice - its only a sensible practice where the manufacturer is also able to guarantees to never to raise their prices they charge the retailer or the retailer is able to lock in the manufacturers price at time of ordering.

I’m not missing the point - but the bottom line is that to move the pellets on the rail network they need real wagons! No wagons - no fuel - no power generated = massive losses. Plastering the sides with adverts is this incidental - seeing as they have to be painted anyway. By contrast they manifestly do not need toy trains to generate money nor attract dither business. If they need additional marketing material then branded pens, golf balls, keychains, usb drives, etc are much easier and cheaper to procure, plus far more likely to be used / picked up by the intended audience than toy trains.

That rather misses the point that the real wagons were required for business purposes - regardless of whether they were covered with colourful ‘advertising’ type liveries or mated all over battleship grey. Toy trains by contrast are not something which is needed for business purposes and as such are a completely different thing to new wagons.

Again, just because something is a ‘waste of time’ for you personally does not mean it is a bad idea for business as a whole. Rails prime motivation is to make as much money for its owners in the most efficient way possible - and if it means it loses out on a few overseas sales or overseas sellers end up paying more due to the use of the e-bay platform then it is obviously a trade off they consider worth paying.