Royal train tour announced

[melmerby]

57 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

 

Looks like they are on the bus as the train is heading North and looking suspiciously like it's going to Wolverton

Rail Replacement Service?

[PerthBox]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody has got wise to people tracking the train on various sites which show stuff like TD information - after all there has been enough of it on here and I'm sure that this is one of the less excitable sights for that sort of thing.   Message there for NR for the future perhaps?

 

BTW the Royal Train headcode is 1X00; 1Zxx indicates a special train (which is what this one would be anyway).

It hasn’t run with an X headcode for about 25 years now. These days regardless of who is or isn’t on board it runs with a randomly selected headcode in the 1Zxx series (except, obviously, 1Z99). 

[Swifty11]

Royal train arrived back at Wolverton around 17.30. That's it for this time folks! 

 

As PerthBox says, I've been fortunate enough to see the royal on several occasions and it has always been a 1Zxx.

My notes have a variety of previous head codes: 1Z20/21, 1Z39/40, 1Z60 and 1Z88. 

As a result, unless you knew it was running or made an educated guess, it's not that easy to get a shot of it. I had seen in the press it was due to visit Cardiff so having seen it had left Manchester Victoria heading westbound I gambled on a Warrington routing and it paid off but that's not always the case.  You can view royal engagements on the website but for obvious reasons it doesn't show how they will arrive. When we had a Royal visit in Warrington I was hopeful of the train but unfortunately not, helicopter. It was a long wait at Winwick Jn put it that way! 

[Gilbert]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Rail Replacement Service?

Royal Rail Replacement surely?

Some Youtube from Bristol from Kev

 

 

 

 

[50002Superb]

Will it stay / be stored at Wolverton?

 

if so is it easy to see from anywhere?

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, 50002Superb said:

Will it stay / be stored at Wolverton?

 

if so is it easy to see from anywhere?

If you do a Google Street around the periphery of Wolverton Works you will find it is surrounded by high walls and lots of hedges, so not much chance of seeing anything.

If it is there it will be under cover in a locked building.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, PerthBox said:

It hasn’t run with an X headcode for about 25 years now. These days regardless of who is or isn’t on board it runs with a randomly selected headcode in the 1Zxx series (except, obviously, 1Z99). 

Less than 25 years because it was definitely still 1X00 for a Royal Train in the late 1990s,.  A Special Train (i.e. one not conveying the Monarch) has been numbered as 1Zxx for many years so this current one would be using a 1Zxx number or numbers in any case.

[Not Captain Kernow]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Less than 25 years because it was definitely still 1X00 for a Royal Train in the late 1990s,.  A Special Train (i.e. one not conveying the Monarch) has been numbered as 1Zxx for many years so this current one would be using a 1Zxx number or numbers in any case.

Definitely - it was 1X00 when we conveyed HM from Moorgate to Luton Airport and that was in 1999.

[PaulRhB]

It’s run as a 1Zxx since the early 2000’s to make it less conspicuous with the freedom of data allowing Traksy, Real-time trains etc to show maps. It appeared as gobbledegook on those as a result the last time it ran on our patch making it impossible to tell from test trains etc unless you knew. X headcodes seem to appear in full so I guess there’s a filter option that certain codes conceal the train like they do for some FOCs that have their trains codes concealed for business reasons. 

[melmerby]

13 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

It’s run as a 1Zxx since the early 2000’s to make it less conspicuous with the freedom of data allowing Traksy, Real-time trains etc to show maps. It appeared as gobbledegook on those as a result the last time it ran on our patch making it impossible to tell from test trains etc unless you knew. X headcodes seem to appear in full so I guess there’s a filter option that certain codes conceal the train like they do for some FOCs that have their trains codes concealed for business reasons. 

 

1ZXX is fairly easy to find, (even the scrambled freight codes often show correctly on Railcam's data)

 

e.g. 353A currently on RTT is 3S50 on Railcam

Edited December 9, 2020 by melmerby

[PaulRhB]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

 

1ZXX is fairly easy to find, (even the scrambled freight codes often show correctly on Railcam's data)

 

e.g. 353A currently on RTT is 3S50 on Railcam

There’s often quite a few 1Z’s around though. You can’t hide it completely on there or in reality, it’s not trying to be an invisible train just not predictable in advance. Plus as others have observed it ‘disappears’ at night usually   

[adb968008]

6 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

There’s often quite a few 1Z’s around though. You can’t hide it completely on there or in reality, it’s not trying to be an invisible train just not predictable in advance. Plus as others have observed it ‘disappears’ at night usually   

Failed on that, I was able to pick most/enough of the route in advance.

 

i was hopping about trying not to say it, though I did share my guess work with several who pm’d me.

There is a few tweaks they could make to hide it better, but as they worked so well, i’ll hang on to them until I get lucky and see it again. The one and only time I saw the royal train was totally at random in one morning c1990 in Warrington, though I did see HMQ on the opening Metrolink tram in 1992... far less palava about that, they published the times inadvance and the route.. well that was obvious.

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by adb968008

[PaulRhB]

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Failed on that, I was able to pick most/enough of the route in advance.

You will get it on the day but not before, as I said it’s not intended to be invisible just hard enough to predict to offset a planned interference. They are realistic about that and it has plenty of protection. It’s use is also dictated by threat levels and if they are higher then they use helicopters etc. We used to only get the notice in a sealed envelope at the start of the shift handed over by the manager. The internet and especially social media has made that level of secrecy impossible so they have just changed other things. 

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

You will get it on the day but not before, as I said it’s not intended to be invisible just hard enough to predict to offset a planned interference. They are realistic about that and it has plenty of protection. It’s use is also dictated by threat levels and if they are higher then they use helicopters etc. We used to only get the notice in a sealed envelope at the start of the shift handed over by the manager. The internet and especially social media has made that level of secrecy impossible so they have just changed other things. 

Not so, if I sound smug, I am.

 

i’d already clicked Edinburgh (via Glasgow), Manchester and Cardiff before it had left Wolverton to go to Euston.

 

Indeed I told someone via pm, the very platform and time range for Edinburgh, when someone on here was talking going on about Aberdeen.  I elected not to write openly the times or platforms on here in advance as I did want to respect the secrecy, though on pm anyone who asked I shared my rationale. 

 

I was a bit confused between Leeds and Blackburn, obviously no one was going to guess Batley, but I was in the right space.

Bristol & Reading I clicked when it was in Manchester still at about 6pm.

Where I fell over was predicting p10 at Reading, i stopped thinking of it as a royal train at that point and putting it as a charter train, thinking it might use VSOE paths to London from Reading, but again how was I to know they were going by road to Windsor Castle.

I was right on the money advising one person at Didcot (i think i was 2 minutes out).

 

it wasnt too hard to work it out, as I said, social media, especially twitter, facebook.. people talk, baker atlas did the work, I just then looked for gaps in the timetables to make the big sections fit...the little ones didnt matter. It was obvious going overnight  to Scotland wouldnt involve say the MML or S&C or Cumbrian coast for example... so its one of two choices, one of which has regular night service.. the other doesnt.

 

Ironically October 2019 I did a 5 day trip with my little one, over pretty much the same route, so I was probably advantaged as soon as Yahoo in the US broke UK media silence and published 3 of the cities on sunday afternoon.

 

Never would have guessed where it spent the night in Wales, I just happened to see it disappear up a drain.. that was just luck.

 

So all in all I think I did ok, if it wasnt for covid and work i’d have commited cash and been on the road with my camera, on the basis of the guesses i ‘d made, 6 people did use my guesses and ive seen their videos and thanks.

so in one line... yes it is possible to figure it out in advance. it was a challenge i very much enjoyed. But Realtime trains is more about validation, Tracksy was to see if I was right, but they arent tools for prediction... old school Baker’s Atlas and Social Media did that, plus my wife giving me tea and wondering why i’d become obsessed about a train I stood little chance of seeing...

imagine my activity when I am planning a mission (like this coming saturday between 6 and 9 am) ;-) .. my cameras are already on charge, tanks filled in the car, and fresh masks, maps & street view studied, north and south facing, sunrise time checked, 8 shots already planned...my layout also works on a similar basis of scheduling, diagrams and planning... its my OCD at work.

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by adb968008

[eastwestdivide]

Somebody called from Dover ports, looking for a short term planning and preparation expert...

[beast66606]

There's a "tell" when it's going to stable overnight at Hooton which is why I was waiting for it many years ago