50 years since the first day of diesel and electric only timetabled service.

[The Johnster]

I agree, but not wholly.  A lot of investement was still taking place post 1968, though not in locos; the railway had enough of them to run the trains and while there were undeniable problems,  by and large they were powerful enough to keep time and reliable enough to turn up at the start of the working day.  The investment was going into replacing relatively new but steam age in concept rolling stock with air disc braked bogie or long wheelbase wagons, and the mk2 coaches, and upgrading the better mk1s.  The very long standing problem of 9' wheelbase loose coupled mineral wagons was finally being addressed with MGRs; this involved the NCB and CEGB spending a bit of cash as well.  The replacement of wooden sleepered chaired track with concrete sleepered CWR continued and MAS signalling, in very comprehensive area schemes, was steadily provided in more and more places.  Journey times were coming down even before HSTs; line speeds were rising and high speed junctions were being laid.

 

Traffic, especially wagon load freight, continued to fall, and it was this more than anything else that enabled the elimination of steam so quickly, along with pre-nationalisation design coaches at the same time.  To say diesel or electric power replaced steam is not quite right; steam went and diesel and electric remained right enough, but had traffic, especially freight traffic, levels remained the same over that period twice the number of new locos would have been needed and there wasn't enough money to pay for them; widespread steam use might have lasted until the mid 70s as it did in Eastern Europe, for not dissimilar reasons.  The difference was that in the Soviet Bloc countries the massive motorway projects were still decades into the future, and the wagonload freight business was very healthy.

 

It is remarkable that no new locos were ordered except D1961 for 5 whole years 1968-73, though some new emu stock appeared, all mk1 based Southern units.  At no other period since Cap'n Dick sent a loco from Penydarren down to Abercynon to settle a bet in 1804 had there been such a hiatus.  Locos were being withdrawn thoughout this period, mainly the less successful Modernisation Plan type 1s and 2s and the WR hydraulics, which suggests that the demand for locos was continuing to decrease.  No shunting locos have been built at all since 1964.  

 

BR, a much maligned nationalised industry, coped extremely well with the massive problems it faced in the 60s and 70s; a well modernised railway with some of the best stock in the world came out of it and most improvements since have been minor and stylistic.  There were massive failures and the railway seemed at times to be deliberately sabotaging itself; Beeching's one positive achievement was to release it from the bondage of 'common carrier' status, but that seemed then to be taken as an excuse to gift whole tranches of traffic to the lorries; pigeons, livestock, milk, fish, newspapers, parcels, even mail ultimately.  And the APT was as much a disaster as the HST was a success.  

 

But old mistakes rooted in Victorian greed and competition were corrected as well.  The Great Central was a surplus railway that should never have been built,  and had the LNW and GN quadrupled out to the sources of their mineral traffic like the Midland did it wouldn't have been.  The Midland's Manchester route might have been pretty, but you could hardly justify it as a through main line against the electrified LNW; a similar, and no doubt equally unpopular, argument might be made for the disposal of the Waverley and G&SW route out of Carlisle.  

Edited August 9, 2018 by The Johnster

[Nearholmer]

The other thing that is usually forgotten is that the ever-evolving saga of "what on earth do we do with the main works now we don't really need them?" was in full-swing through the 1970s, as was the gigantic task of clearing-up a huge amount of surplus victorian tat, and and the flogging of surplus land was getting underway too.

 

To use a garden analogy, the BRB of 1968 was in charge of a giant weed-patch, with a small number of neatly-tended paths through it; it took a good twenty more years, perhaps more, to really clear all the weeds and lay a new lawn and flower-beds. And, just as BRB got the new garden 85% finished, they were evicted and replaced by new tennants!

[Davey]

The other thing that is usually forgotten is that the ever-evolving saga of "what on earth do we do with the main works now we don't really need them?" was in full-swing through the 1970s, as was the gigantic task of clearing-up a huge amount of surplus victorian tat, and and the flogging of surplus land was getting underway too.

 

To use a garden analogy, the BRB of 1968 was in charge of a giant weed-patch, with a small number of neatly-tended paths through it; it took a good twenty more years, perhaps more, to really clear all the weeds and lay a new lawn and flower-beds. And, just as BRB got the new garden 85% finished, they were evicted and replaced by new tennants!

 

And the new tenants just love their weed patches!

 

Davey

[Mike Storey]

All true, but it highlights another important point - the French President is an elected office in its own right, with powers which do not depend upon the support of any given political party (although as several POTUS have demonstrated, a sufficient level of support from one side or another is essential).

 

There’s no doubt though, that French Ministries exhibit a continuity of purpose rarely to be found in the U.K.

 

Well, the difference being that the French President and POTUS are heads of state, whereas we have a constitutional, unelected head of state with very limited powers.

 

But what is also true is that none of the SNCF reforms could be happening without the support of the majority of both houses of the French parliament. The President of France has been unable to pass domestic (non-terror) legislation without that support since the creation of the Fifth Republic. You will note that the present inhabitant of the US Presidency has been enacting (or trying to enact) legislation, always traditionally the purview of Congress, by citing "security" concerns. 

 

Having lived in France for over 6 years now (and having owned property here for around 20 years) I find your suggestion that French ministries exhibit a continuity of purpose completely at odds with experience. The abrupt changes of policy, funding and implementation between changes of President have been extreme, to say the least. There is no continuity. There was, some decades ago.

[62613]

Hi There,

 

Is this the video you were thinking of ?

 

 

If not it's a good one any way.

 

Gibbo.

The one I was thinking of was made for, and shown on, TV; the BBC, I think

[TT3]

The one I was thinking of was made for, and shown on, TV; the BBC, I think

Is that a maroon coach at 1:14?

[bingley hall]

Is that a maroon coach at 1:14?

 

Slow it down and it's DMU green.

Edited August 10, 2018 by bingley hall

[keefer]

The one I was thinking of was made for, and shown on, TV; the BBC, I think

That may have been ones made for the Open University, probably for Engineering Dynamics or similar.

 

I certainly remember the POP train and investigation into wheel hunting etc.

[keefer]

Is that a maroon coach at 1:14?

It's 2 x 4-car cl.123 Inter-City DMUs in blue/grey but with one green vehicle

[62613]

That may have been ones made for the Open University, probably for Engineering Dynamics or similar.

 

I certainly remember the POP train and investigation into wheel hunting etc.

Am I also right in thinking that BR derived some benefits from the APT programme, however indirectly. For instance, don't the 2nd generation DMUs have air suspension? And that wheel/rail interface work must have led to something?

[newbryford]

Am I also right in thinking that BR derived some benefits from the APT programme, however indirectly. For instance, don't the 2nd generation DMUs have air suspension? And that wheel/rail interface work must have led to something?

 

A lot of the wheel/rail interface stuff was used in future developments - including the Pacer family. (Although there will be some that say this wasn't a benefit.....................)

 

The electric APT-P had body mounted traction motors with Cardan shafts to the gearbox on the axle. This was adopted for the Class 91.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Nearholmer]

The wheel-rail dynamics subject was very important indeed for freight wagons, many of which hopped off the track, for no obvious reason, when freight trains started to run above snail's pace in the mid/late 60s. The research into causes and solutions of that probably had a more direct bearing on the pacer than did APT, because it allowed an understanding of how to keep four-wheeled vehicles stable at speed ........ I have a dim recollection of being shown a Pacer experimental chassis in the same lab/workshop at the RTC as was being used for wagon research.

 

Quite a bit of knowledge from APT was fed forward via GEC-Alstom into the pendolino breed, although the tilt mechanism is rather different.

 

When I watched the video above, I kept thinking that the basic premise of a train that could run at high speed on twisty track was right, but I also kept remembering that a lot of bitter words were said when APT was canned, about how poorly it had been run as a project, in fact I think it was what led BR to start adopting formal project management approaches, as opposed to having engineers lead the show.

[Edwin_m]

Am I also right in thinking that BR derived some benefits from the APT programme, however indirectly. For instance, don't the 2nd generation DMUs have air suspension? And that wheel/rail interface work must have led to something?

All new bogie passenger stock designs had air suspension from the early 70s onwards, including the Mk3 coach plus the PEP-derived and Mk3 design EMUs as well as all the Sprinters (but not, ironically, Pacers).  So if this came from the APT programme it would have been a very early spin-off, roughly contemporary with the APT-E. 

[Gibbo675]

The wheel-rail dynamics subject was very important indeed for freight wagons, many of which hopped off the track, for no obvious reason, when freight trains started to run above snail's pace in the mid/late 60s. The research into causes and solutions of that probably had a more direct bearing on the pacer than did APT, because it allowed an understanding of how to keep four-wheeled vehicles stable at speed ........ I have a dim recollection of being shown a Pacer experimental chassis in the same lab/workshop at the RTC as was being used for wagon research.

 

Quite a bit of knowledge from APT was fed forward via GEC-Alstom into the pendolino breed, although the tilt mechanism is rather different.

 

When I watched the video above, I kept thinking that the basic premise of a train that could run at high speed on twisty track was right, but I also kept remembering that a lot of bitter words were said when APT was canned, about how poorly it had been run as a project, in fact I think it was what led BR to start adopting formal project management approaches, as opposed to having engineers lead the show.

Hi Kevin,

 

I have worked alongside chaps that had previously worked upon different projects at the Derby RTC, one of which Geoff Armstrong, regaled me with a story of what happened when someone wondered what would happen to the toilet discharge at 125mph.

 

A quite simple test was instigated to be carried out on the next test run, that of a gallon of white wash down the toilet pan of the leading coach. When 125mph was reached the toilet was flushed resulting in a white leading bogie of that particular coach fading to grey along the valance toward the trailing bogie of that coach.

Worse still the aerodynamics of the train caused a general updraught that drew in the miasma of white wash such that it covered not so much the side of the rest of the train but very neatly coated all of the leading edges of all of the projections sticking out from the coaches, the ones that makes you turn particularly green were the door handles, YUK !

 

As for wheel to rail interface dynamics, having ridden as many miles as I have upon steam locomotive footplates I am still amazed that any of them stay on the track at all, especially over Chat Moss.

 

Gibbo.

[Clive Mortimore]

Wow this is interesting, wheel specification (I hope the p4 gang are reading), difference between British and French politics and the HST. 

 

Well today definitely is the 50 anniversary of the first all electric and diesel day on BR standard gauge tracks.

[The Stationmaster]

Am I also right in thinking that BR derived some benefits from the APT programme, however indirectly. For instance, don't the 2nd generation DMUs have air suspension? And that wheel/rail interface work must have led to something?

 

I can remember a job at Derby Research on the Vacancy List in 1969 which was basically about the wheel and rail interface - suspension investigation was already getting underway by then.

[Enterprisingwestern]

Wow this is interesting, wheel specification (I hope the p4 gang are reading), difference between British and French politics and the HST. 

 

Well today definitely is the 50 anniversary of the first all electric and diesel day on BR standard gauge tracks.

 

Hmmmm.

 

Mike.

[Titan]

Hmmmm.

 

Mike.

 

Sounds like an electric, but which one?