rodent279

This is true, and pre-national grid, coal fired power stations tended to be smaller, more localised affairs feeding a town, or several feeding a city, not big multi-MW affairs feeding large geographical areas, with a voracious appetite for coal. Point is, it's a big scenario with lots of interdependent moving parts with complex relationships-you can't just look at one part of it and say "bigger engines", or "bigger wagons". I think @rockershovel is right-Britain just wasn't big enough to justify changing the relationship between all those interdependent systems.

Imaginary locomotives like that really need imaginary railways to run on, so let's suppose that the two London - Scotland routes had, after the grouping mandated the use of auto couplers of the US Janney type, which are stronger than conventional UK couplings fully fitted freight trains This reduces, possibly eliminates the need for slow, unfitted goods trains, limited in length due to coupling strength and loop size. Then there might be the work for such large, powerful locos. Of course this would require a seismic shift in how coal traffic was handled-the tens of thousands of short wheelbase 10/12t coal wagons, largely privately owned, would have to go, and be replaced with fully fitted, preferably bogie wagons of say 50t capacity. This would require changing colliery & distribution yard track layouts to accommodate longer wheelbase wagons. All this would require the cooperation of colliery owners and coal merchants, which is why it didn't happen. Then there is the tens of thousands of general merchandise vans, many of which were railway owned, but still had to negotiate short radius curves in the thousands of small goods yards across the country. So it would really require a concerted effort on the part of all the railways, colliery owners, coal merchants and other general merchandise carriers. This requires government action, and this is another reason why it didn't happen. We preferred to just muddle through rather than tackle the problem. Even if it had, I still somehow doubt there would be the traffic to justify a fleet of fast powerful 4-8-2's.

So they are running Mk1's with doors that don't operate and toilets that do, that passengers can't sit in, with mk2's with doors that do operate, and toilets & air con that doesn't, that passengers can sit in. One might ask what's the point? Is this to avoid fitting retention toilets in the MK2 stock, or fitting CDL in the MK1 stock? Or are they just trying to make a point? They look more and more like the sad old drunk trying to pick a fight with anyone who comes close.

Ah yes of course .... Possibly self unloading cargo?

That seems like a laughably half @$$ed solution.

I wonder what was unloaded there?

That would equate to boring Chipping Sodbury tunnel in around 3 months, all other things being equal. It took something like 3 years back in 1897.

Interesting reading these reports of tunnelling progress in the modern era. Looking at a book on the GWR Badminton line, which was built between 1897 & 1904 from Wootton Bassett to Stoke Gifford, the rate of progress was reported in Sodbury tunnel to be 5 yds per week, and in the shorter Alderton tunnel at 27 yds per month.

Point is, to be familiar with using non-CDL fitted slam door stock, you have to be at least in your 30's, and then only in certain parts of the country.

So, to be used to using slam door stock on your own, not as a child with an adult opening the doors for you, you'd have to be say about 10-12 in about 2005, which would put you early 30's now. To be used to using non-CDL fitted slam doors on the mainline, you'd have to be about the same age in about 1992, so 44-ish now. So there will be plenty of parents of say 7-15 year old now who will have little if any experience of slam door stock, and possibly a few grand parents as well. That's exactly what one of the prime markets of the Jacobite will be-parents of kids who are HP fans.

You might remember seeing it as a toddler, but to be used to using it in everyday service you'd have to be 5-10 years older.

Early 1990's I think. So 30 years ago, and to be used to them as a traveller you'd have to be in your 40's now.

I think you'd have to be at least 30 to have experience of slam door stock in mainline service, at least 40 for that stock not to be CDL fitted, and probably in your 6th decade to have experienced a mainline railway where slam door stock without CDL was the norm.

Parents may well be responsible, but does the "brute" deserve death or serious injury because of the negligence of another person misusing a door, or from a malfunctioning door? Anyone who thinks that it is not worth trying to mitigate that risk needs to take a look at themselves. I'm all for personal responsibility, but time and again real world experience proves that it is not enough.

I think this is probably the most succinct explanation of the need for CDL that i have seen. It is a fact that people cannot be trusted to alway act sensibly, within the rules and with consideration for others. And it is a fact that equipment (I.e. manual door locking mechanisms) can an do fail. CDL, whilst I am sure not infallible, adds an extra layer of protection against either misuse or malfunction of slam doors. We need to remember that not all "door incidents" were caused by numpties who deserved to be removed from the gene pool. The argument that "No-one has thus far been killed or injured" (ttbomk) on the WHL steam excursions is, as has been stated above, a shoal of red herrings. There is nothing special about that line or the trains that makes it exempt; rather, the opposite. The associations with the Harry Potter films, the fact that it stops on Glenfinnan viaduct, and the fact that a large proportion of passengers will be there for the Harry Potter connections (and therefore not necessarily familiar with trains, let alone slam door trains), makes it a matter of time before something untoward happens.