Jim’s “out and about with GBRf” thread

[class"66"]

More interesting photos jim!!

[The Lurker]

I was watching The Autistic Gardener last night and the garden backed onto a line somewhere in South London. One of the autistic apprentice horticulturalists was very distracted by passing trains, and there were many shots of him saying" I can hear a freight train coming. Oh its Colas Rail, and then a number." . It wouldn't have been Jim but it made me think of him and this thread.

[Markmiller2008]

a few from yesterday, basford hall to hinksey and back to bescot

 

basford hall

 

57s on the flask train

 

66 shunting

 

my loco arriving

 

and coupled up to 34 coalfish

 

and off i went, first stop bordesley loop where a few things went past

 

voyager

 

chiltern 168

 

172

 

168

 

68 heading for wembley

 

 

 

then on to dorridge

 

68 heading for stourbridge

 

 

and into hinksey, dropped the wagons off and headed back to bescot

 

ready to depart hinksey

 

and into bescot

 

going back again later to pick up the same loco to take back down to didcot with a train (and ultimately slough) 

 

Hi Jim,

Was this the night i photted you through Leamington?

 

Il post that photo tomorrow once ive got home and edited it.

 

Mark

[big jim]

Quite probably the same day, you were out photographing me twice that week!

[Markmiller2008]

Hi Jim

 

The below photo was on the 18th, the only night i think i had my camera as the 68 charter was coming through.

 

 

Colas 70804 by Mark  Miller, on Flickr

 

 

 

Mark 

Edited July 26, 2015 by Markmiller2008

[big jim]

lovely picture

sorry its taken so long to reply, back from the wilderness (solway firth) for a few hours so i have 4G on the ipad and can finally see pictures on the forum

 

EDIT: actually mark, its not the same night, you photographed 804 and my pics are 806, i defiantly waved to you twice that week!

Edited July 28, 2015 by big jim

[big jim]

a few from today, made my way from our caravan back to crewe in readyness for work later tonight, caught the train from wigton to carlisle then on to crewe

 

just so happened that the cumbrian coast train was one of the loco hauled sets with a DBSO 

 

arriving into wigton

 

sheltering from the rain!

 

DBSO

 

37402

 

tour de france 158

 

another DBSO with lots of measuring equipment on the front

 

you wait for one......

 

heading back out to the coast

 

 

thats it for now, heading back north later with the logs 

[big jim]

Interesting night last night, started off by noticing that the sleeper was running late into crewe, so much so my train arrived before it whereas the sleeper is normally a good hour in front, i overheard one of the platform staff saying it was running at a reduced speed

 

So off i set, dropped the other driver off at warrington and i continued north, got stopped outside wigan, contacted the box via the gsm-r at the red signal and got a 'wait' so i sat and waited until he rang me to say the train in front had failed and i would be needed to assist him, await signal and for him to call me back

 

A good 40 mins went by before i got a call, i was going to buffer up and push him into the rear platform at wigan station before setting back onto the mainline to continue north , the driver of the failed train had placed emergency protection down and i had the authority to pass the signal at danger and proceed to the protection point to pick up the driver, his train was a class 90 which had failed with total loss of power

 

Picked him up and going by the latest rules had to run over the 3 detonators he had placed down which was fun at 01:30!

 

Buffered up, coupled up and once we were set to move i pushed him forward into the station, he still had full control of the brake, just no power, so we didnt attach the brake pipes, we basically braked our own individual trains, we of course were only moving at walking pace anyway

 

Once in clear i uncoupled and under the watchful eye of the local MOM (mobile operations manager) set my train back behind the junction signal before waiting for it to change to a proceed aspect to continue north, thankfully i was 45 early before wigan so after all the messing about only ended up about 30 late from there

 

Just one pic of my train coupled to the rear of the failed car train

 

Before i set off again i checked realtime and could see the sleeper was 77 late from crewe so it must have had big problems, he was however just south of warrington by now

 

Got a good run before preston box put me in at barton and boughton loop to let a class 4 past, by now the sleeper was in preston and only 10 mins behind me so i thought he'd hold me and let him pass but no, once the class 4 went i was back out, must be going in at carnforth, no, straight through there, grayrigg it is as i had a feeling the sleeper was catching me up, no, past there too, definatly tebay then, again, no, greens all the way, penrith seemed unlikely and i was right, straight through there too, finally dropped into kingmoor at about 05:10 and had run round and was about to set back when the sleeper finally went past, looking at RTT once id finished shunting revealed that it had lost futher time between lancaster and carlisle and when it passed me it certainly wasnt going as quick as it normally does!

 

Right behind that sleeper was the 2nd northbound service (edinburgh and glasgow train) which was at a crawl too as it was running on restrictive aspects behind the first sleeper then to top it all the southbound sleeper went past running about 3 hours late with 66710 up front and a 67 providing the ETH, not a good night for the caledonian sleeper at all by the looks of it

 

The final thing to pass was the failed car train, this time with a pair of 90s up front, they must have managed to find a spare one on warrington to pilot it

[acko22]

Jim,

 

Sounds like you had an interesting evening then by all accounts!! Although detonators at that time in the morning!! Bet the locals must have loved been woken by that!

[SM42]

I'm told the sleeper had some problems south of Rugby which meant it could only run at  a reduced speed, hence you had a good run Jim as you were faster than it was.

 

Andy

[big jim]

Yes, ive since found out it had wheel flats so was restricted to 50mph

 

The southbound 66/67 combo never made it to london either apparently, 66 failed at MK but there was also a fatality in the watford area which stopped everything

[DRS Crewe On A Mission]

So last night a DBS 90 failed on the cars, a Caledonian electric loco failed on the sleeper and 66710 also failed on the sleeper going the other way?

 

Am I right in thinking that the operator is fined for loco failures?

[WCML100]

sounds like an interesting night for you then haha

[The Stationmaster]

So last night a DBS 90 failed on the cars, a Caledonian electric loco failed on the sleeper and 66710 also failed on the sleeper going the other way?

 

Am I right in thinking that the operator is fined for loco failures?

They aren't 'fined' as such but they have to pay a 'clear the line' recovery fee which was originally £1,000 and I presume that by now it would have at least doubled from its 1994 level.  (the money is paid to whichever operator's loco etc is used to do the recovery so it looks as if Jim earned his employers 'a bit extra' by shoving the other train out of the way).

[DRS Crewe On A Mission]

Thank you for letting me know.

 

It probably doesn't cost the operator with the failed loco as much as what I thought then. I was thinking a fine to be paid to Network Rail or something along those lines (no pun intended). It's good that the money paid to the other operator isn't too much as this doesn't have too much of an effect on the operator with the failed loco. So really when it comes to these situations the FOCs have to work together even if they are rivals. It also provides an interesting experience for the drivers involved as it's not every day you have to "shove" a train from behind.

[Steadfast]

Presumably on top of that recovery fee there's also the delay minutes Mike? They can add up very quickly!

Something I've been meaning to ask you Jim, but keep forgetting to is the bell that rings on a 70- what's it for? It's ages since I've been involved in a situation with more than one 70 on a train, but from memory it's when the driver is de isolating a trailing loco or any other similar operation, there seems to be a fire bell type noise ringing all the time, I think it was a top and tail train with the rear loco being fired up on arrival at the yard that is the usual situation I've noticed it, but like I said I've not spent much time around 70s lately.

I didn't realise isolating a class 70 took so much time though, especially compared to a 66 or a 59 with the E70 lever

 

jo

[big jim]

Something I've been meaning to ask you Jim, but keep forgetting to is the bell that rings on a 70- what's it for? It's ages since I've been involved in a situation with more than one 70 on a train, but from memory it's when the driver is de isolating a trailing loco or any other similar operation, there seems to be a fire bell type noise ringing all the time, I think it was a top and tail train with the rear loco being fired up on arrival at the yard that is the usual situation I've noticed it, but like I said I've not spent much time around 70s lately.

 

 

the bell is simply a warning alarm, the best way it was described to me is "it goes off to warn you that the loco is about to do something" rather than there being a problem with the loco, it goes off when isolating a loco as its warning you the loco could roll away (obviously its coupled to a train etc or it will roll away!)

 

when firing up a loco it goes off to warn you the loco will be starting, much in the same way a 66 has the starting claxons

[big jim]

few more pics

 

one from last night, not fantastic but it was pitch black and raining hard

 

 

and some from this evening, caught the train from carlisle to crewe to work the logs back there later

 

156 coming in from newcastle, this departs carlisle for middlesborough

 

TPE 350

 

tyne yard to kingmoor service

 

 

pendolino

 

 

hopefully tonight will be a better trip north than yesterday

[The Stationmaster]

Presumably on top of that recovery fee there's also the delay minutes Mike? They can add up very quickly!

 

jo

Yes, good point.  Delay minutes apply in all cases but obviously if there is a train failure and it mucks up/delays other operators it can indeed turn into big money.

 

I haven't got a clue what figures are involved - back in the late '90s my TOC was on £100 per minute and we also got hammered for early running.  Nice bit of contractual debate there as that was a nonsense and the Trackies couldn't contractually make it stick and we had one train which regularly ran early and didn't delay anything else in the process.  In the end after considerable 'debate' they agreed to write-off our bill - just as well as it was just over a million quid (built up over 3 - 4 years I should add)l

[big jim]

Ive got in my head a figure of £300 a minute and thats going back to the early 2000s so it may well be more now

 

As stationmaster says its a complex beast this 'delay attribution' take for example last night, that made us late into kingmoor which in turn could have knocked our log loading time, if the southbound logs then left late as a result then the delay could be traced back to the inbound delay and ultimatly the failure of 6x52

 

If then as a result of us running late we delay say a passenger service they will 'claim' the delay off us however we can then claim the delay off the FOC who failed last night, similarly if that delay then escalates and delays another service (or many others throughout the day) then the various toc/foc will trace the delay back to origin even if its from a previous day

 

Im not sure any money physically changes hands either, it could be that minutes are wiped off 'the tab' as it were

 

As a driver its quite important to be aware of 'delay attribution' so you can report anomalies in a schedule where delays are occuring, i remember back in fastline days we had a liverpool to ironbridge job that gave you 3 minutes to cover a certain stretch of line which was an impossibility short of doing 50mph round a 15mph curve, so it was highlighted and found that the schedule was indeed wrong, it was adjusted accordingly and no more delays were incured from that point

 

As it happens im currently stood on crewe station awaiting my train and the sleeper is about 2 hours late, a knock on effect from yesterday, that being the driver of yesterdays southbound service has not had sufficiant rest to be able to work the northbound service on time this evening, that could impact on other services later in the day or even on me later if i have to make an unscheduled stop in a loop to let him pass

 

And you thought it was just pull a lever and go!!

[The Stationmaster]

I don't know what the process is nowadays Jim but it used to be balanced to take account of pluses and minuses before any money changed hands.  In addition there was a system known as 'benchmarking' which was supposed to be used to take out inconsistencies but in my experience wasn't because hardly anybody understood it  (a consequence mainly of the process being dealt with by access and contract people who normally had little or no understanding of either operating or, even more importantly train timing - thus benchmarking should, if used correctly, have resolved your incorrect timing until it was corrected).

[hammy]

Brilliant pics as ever Jim but one question about you pushing the class 90 and car train as I'm a bit nieve had you still got your load behind your train the class 60 I'm guessing by the lights

[acko22]

One thing that has suprised me, Mike you said how you use to get penalties on early running services!!

Now I understand if an early departure causes delays to on time services but if not why fine the operator. Plus couldnt the arguement be that a service leaving early ultimatly comes down to the signalbox allowing the service depart early?

Edited July 30, 2015 by acko22

[The Stationmaster]

One thing that has suprised me, Mike you said how you use to get penalties on early running services!!

Now I understand if an early departure causes delays to on time services but if not why fine the operator. Plus couldnt the arguement be that a service leaving early ultimatly comes down to the signalbox allowing the service depart early?

In our case the most common train regularly involved used to gain time in running because there was an empty path in front of it.  This meant it could legitimately gain at least 5 minutes without hitting any other train for time but in addition a certain signalbox usually also kept the train ahead of the empty path out of the way as well if it was losing time although invariably it wasn't further delayed as a result.  So all rather silly but the clowns in Trackie land piled loads of delay minutes onto us from our early running.  We were in a situation where we couldn't alter the times because our paths had to fit heavily constrained situations at both ends although one occasion I upset our commercial people who were cheerfully talking up publicity about future train acceleration and reduced journey times by telling them I could give them an even bigger reduction in journey time from the following week if they wanted it on that particular train.

 

It all came back really to a lack of understanding of the use of benchmarking and nobody (in the access arena) being bright enough to apply it.

[big jim]

Brilliant pics as ever Jim but one question about you pushing the class 90 and car train as I'm a bit nieve had you still got your load behind your train the class 60 I'm guessing by the lights

Yeah my train was still attached, only 700(ish) tons and he was about 800 tons so no problem moving it, as the train was still attached thats why i needed the MOM to set me back, if i was just a loco i could have changed ends once he was clear and moved clear of the signal