A little bit of late night entertainment on the ECML

[ejstubbs]

I came back home to Edinburgh from down south on VTEC's last train of the night last night.  I picked it up at Peterborough, and thought we might get delayed behind the late running Leeds service which departed about five minutes before us but in fact we were running more or less to time until we had a 20 minute hold between Doncaster and York due to a "trepass incident".  We were running up to 25 minutes behind schedule after that, and departed Berwick 22 minutes late.  However, the train guard announced that our ETA at Waverley was only 12 minutes behind schedule and I thought "this might be interesting".  So with Google Maps and a GPS speedo running, I kept an eye on our progress.

 

For the first few miles out of Berwick we didn't get up to more than 75, presumably because of speed restrictions.  Once the line got a bit easier, though, you could definitely feel the man up front making the most of a continuous run of green signals (I imagine there isn;t much else out and about on the ECML at that time on a Friday evening).  Even in the dark it was obvious we were "making progress" whenever practical, and the GPS confirmed it.  Being somewhat keen to get home (having missed the earlier train) I couldn't help giving an little inward cheer every time we passed 100, and there was a goodly amount of 110mph+ running, with 124* showing a couple of times.  We rolled in to platform 2 bang on 00:40 as promised.

 

I happened to catch the driver on the platform and took a moment to congratulate him on a good run.  The huge grin on his face as we chatted about it told you everything you needed to know about how much he had enjoyed being able to let 91111 stretch her legs a bit.

 

It was very refreshing to have what can sometimes feel like a bit of grind at the end of a long day, when the train sometimes seems to be dawdling reluctantly towards the end of its journey, enlivened by a bit of fun with 500-600 tonnes of train and 4.8MW of motive power!

 

* Although the fastest I saw on the GPS that evening was 128 on the HST that took me from Stevenage to Peterborough.  Not bad going for a 40-year-old train, I reckon.

[jamie92208]

I came back home to Edinburgh from down south on VTEC's last train of the night last night.  I picked it up at Peterborough, and thought we might get delayed behind the late running Leeds service which departed about five minutes before us but in fact we were running more or less to time until we had a 20 minute hold between Doncaster and York due to a "trepass incident".  We were running up to 25 minutes behind schedule after that, and departed Berwick 22 minutes late.  However, the train guard announced that our ETA at Waverley was only 12 minutes behind schedule and I thought "this might be interesting".  So with Google Maps and a GPS speedo running, I kept an eye on our progress.

 

For the first few miles out of Berwick we didn't get up to more than 75, presumably because of speed restrictions.  Once the line got a bit easier, though, you could definitely feel the man up front making the most of a continuous run of green signals (I imagine there isn;t much else out and about on the ECML at that time on a Friday evening).  Even in the dark it was obvious we were "making progress" whenever practical, and the GPS confirmed it.  Being somewhat keen to get home (having missed the earlier train) I couldn't help giving an little inward cheer every time we passed 100, and there was a goodly amount of 110mph+ running, with 124* showing a couple of times.  We rolled in to platform 2 bang on 00:40 as promised.

 

I happened to catch the driver on the platform and took a moment to congratulate him on a good run.  The huge grin on his face as we chatted about it told you everything you needed to know about how much he had enjoyed being able to let 91111 stretch her legs a bit.

 

It was very refreshing to have what can sometimes feel like a bit of grind at the end of a long day, when the train sometimes seems to be dawdling reluctantly towards the end of its journey, enlivened by a bit of fun with 500-600 tonnes of train and 4.8GW of motive power!

 

* Although the fastest I saw on the GPS that evening was 128 on the HST that took me from Stevenage to Peterborough.  Not bad going for a 40-year-old train, I reckon.

Sounds great. But dhould there be an M instead of a G in the last but one paragraph. I would have loved it.

 

Jamie

[ejstubbs]

Oops  thanks, duly edited.  Got a bit carried away there!  (By my rough calculation, with help from the Pedia of Wiki, it would take four Torness nuclear power stations to generate the electricity for a 4.8GW loco...)

[mjkerr]

The majority of East Coast (franchise) services between Edinburgh and Newcastle run obstructed
If services are close together, then they are usually timed 10 minutes apart, and maintain that with clear (green) signals most of the time

The line speed is mostly at least 100mph, and apart from Morpeth, there are several sections of between 110mph and 125mph
Sadly there aren't many sections of 125mph, and as a result aren't maintained for very long

Ironically, the last time I travelled from Edinburgh to Newcastle (to Kings Cross) I ended up being delayed
I travelled on the Cross Country service, swapping to the East Coast at Newcastle, to take advantage of travelling by HST
However, a Level Crossing failure resulted in a delay of 30 minutes
Looking out towards the rear I could see the front of a Mark 4 DVT, of the service I was to swap to!

[big jim]

Dont rely on gps giving you a wholly acurate speed reading, i tried out 'motion X gps' a few times while driving for chiltern and it returned a maximum speed of 110 due to loss of signal in a tunnel and it triangulating your position, in reality 110 would have made the ATP put the brakes on a 168!

 

I did used enjoy having good runs on the passenger services , particularly on a 67 as you can hear it working hard and responding to you powering up and down, its always nicto have passengers thank you too on arrival

 

Similarly having a good run on freight is enjoyable if somewhat slower, it doesnt happen often but a few times ive done didcot to leicester non stop with the coal when i have been running late, one occassion we managed didcot to toton in one run, thankfully i had a trainee so we swapped places en route!!

[jamie92208]

One of my few footplate rides was on a National Power 59 to Maltby and back. It snowed and the ECML was clogged so on our way back we were put main line at the south end of Decoy yard and the driver was able to open that up to notch 8 and leave it there. We were doing 60 as we came through the centre roads. The noise behind the can was great. I'm not sure that some of the passengers waiting on Platform 4 appreciated it though cause they were shrinking back despite us being a full track away from them.

 

I was taught to thank the driver by my dad and this was always welcomed.

 

Jamie

[The Stationmaster]

It is interesting to look at Realtime Trains  information for this train.  Obviously a bit of rounding occurs because of recording points not exactly matching timing points but it was record as 21 late leaving Berwick, and with one exception is shown as 21 late all the way to Dunbar, dropped a minute from there to Drem (actually 45 seconds) making it exactly 22 minutes late at Drem and the same at Prestonpans.  It then made up 8mins 30 seconds to Monktonhall Jcn but in reality that was only a nett gain of 30 seconds as there is 8 minutes Recovery Time in that c.2 mile section  (again the slight inaccuracy of recording points can be misleading but it was definitely running fast to knock 30 seconds off the booked 2 minutes for a 2 mile section!!).

 

So having pulled back to a recorded 13mins 30 seconds late at Monktonhall Jcn it lost 30 seconds to Portobello (which suggests to me that the Monktonhall Jcn recording point is some way from the Timing Point) which it passed 14 late.  It was recorded as 15 late (actually 15mins 30 seconds) late on WTT time at Waverley so it dropped a bit more time running in from Portobello but again recording points can have an impact.  Realtime Trains shows the arrival as 00.41.30 seconds.  So in fact it didn't actually make up any time at all - in fact it lost time!

 

Not too difficult for the Guard to make the prediction he did - if he knew the difference between WTT and advertised times and that there were no TROSs on between Berwick & Edinburgh he could calculate the arrival time fairly precisely all other things being equal (which it seems they were).  21m15s late depart Berwick, minus 8 minutes Recovery Time =13 minutes (and perhaps 15 seconds) late into Waverley, so add the 13 minutes to the WTT arrival time and you get 00.39.  Tell the punters passengers the train will arrive at 00.40 and you've added a minute for luck - easy when you know how