Mike Storey

Yes, is the answer, but what and where is a little muddled right now. As for this bridge, it needed re-building, so will be built to the OLE standards required right now. What might indeed happen (and what should have happened some years ago) is that the OLE clearances demanded should be reduced to their original BR Standard, as opposed to the European UIC standard, to which there should should (and could) have been a reasonable exemption request, which was never sent. As everyone seems to be blaming everyone else for that, very expensive, error, I guess we will never know why. But, if that is pursued, then such works should prove to be more affordable in future.

That is true of fixed block systems, and TVM430 (as well as TVM300) is one of those. It merely replaces track side signalling with in-cab signalling and advises the driver on a maximum speed, based on the traffic ahead. It still uses relays, for goodness sake. That is why I clearly stated that the advantages described require Level 3 ERTMS, which utilises moving block.

Mussolini didn't just make the trains run on time then.......!! Interesting how they developed the refrigerated container system (albeit tiny containers), but that this seems to have been abandoned post-war?

Very interesting, thanks. I had no idea Transfesa made wagons for Interfrigo! I wonder what and where the latter wagons were used for?

Dust is the greatest problem, that is true, but that is a relatively minor issue. As the scenario is so frequent in the UK, especially further north, it is crying out for modelling. Having peeps standing around with protection, furled or unfurlled, when rainfall is imminent, actual, or just passed, is difficult to represent currently. There are a few more figures with unfurled umbrellas, so perhaps not impossible. Perhaps I am a lone voice, but I would relish the chance of gloss finishing so many of my buildings, structures and formations/fields etc, with a number of puddles to match.

Is that the case? If signal sections are spaced currently for the worst performing train braking/speed ratio (likely to be a freight train), then moving block should enable subsequent trains to run at closer headways. If one freight path is booked per hour through a section, taking, say, 10% of the pathway availability in that hour, then the remaining passenger trains should be able to utilise a far lesser percentage per train, greater than simply transiting the same "block section" faster, thus more paths. At least that is how I have seen it explained at an IRS presentation. As for maximum speeds, Pendolinos have been held back from their top speed of 140mph since introduction, specifically due to signalling constraints. I suspect 8xx series could manage more too. But this does all require Level 3, it is true.

I guess the key issue is the name. "The Digital Railway" does not really cover what the programme is trying to achieve - automated train control using moving block, with minimal lineside equipment, giving a theoretical ability to fit more trains into the same space, to allow higher running speeds where appropriate and to facilitate faster recovery from peturbation, with not least, much lower lifetime costs. Bit of a mouthful. But the key discussion should perhaps be just how effective will the current plans be to meet those objectives, particularly within reasonable timescales. Much of the debate on here has been sceptical. But how much of that is well informed, or, as from my perspective, completely out of date with how this stuff really works. I remember SSI as being heralded as the be-all-and-end-all tech when it first arrived, and it was a great advance for many of us, for sure. But this new system(s) seems to be a world away, or is it? Perhaps we have to wait a while longer to find out. 2024 for the Moorgate Line, at least, and 2029 (earliest) for the southern end of the ECML.

I cannot find a thread about the creation of Great British Railways, so I am starting one here for comments. It may not be the most interesting, romantic or appealing of subjects, but it will surely have one of the most influential impacts on the future of rail in the UK. So, perhaps, some comments now are worthwhile? I attach an article from the Railway Gazette, which identifies the shortlist of six potential locations for its HQ, as a starter for 10. https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/six-locations-shortlisted-to-be-great-british-railways-headquarters/62025.article?ID=z9xqh~9nh9h9~ttxt~W4ik~Ky0gk&utm_campaign=RG-RBUK-Filler -070722-JM&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=RG-RBUK-Filler -070722-JM What I have never found so far, is a distinct and concise explanation of exactly what GBR will do, and what powers it will have, and how this will benefit over what we have now. Any offers?

Interfrigo vans were Italian built and owned, and did not start to appear on BR metals until around 1972/3 (after the first diagrams were constructed, which continued until 1977). That would appear to narrow down this photo to sometime between 1972 and 1976 - I would suggest more likely 73-75, because the 71's were less and less used by '75. Several hundred of the Interfrigo vans were built, although I have no idea how many of them made it to the UK. I have a vague recollection that Transfesa supplied some refrigerated vans, but I believe these merely involved shoving a load of ice into the end compartments, rather than true electric refrigeration, as on the Interfrigos. Not sure why the Italians needed full refrigeration but the Spanish did not. Does anyone know?

What IBO? Never heard of it! It may have existed when the Golden Arrow was running, but that had ceased by the time I was there (75-77), with just the Night Ferry operation still going, so maybe that just opened in the early morning, if it still existed as such. But I think I recall seeing the baggage vans being unloaded and the contents deposited on tables along Platform 2, for people (or their chauffeurs) to collect. The only other baggage anyone would have been interested in, other than for the Night Ferry, was PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance) which I think, by then, was little used. Perhaps it was still open for that, but I never noticed it, and no-one, in three years, ever mentioned it!

Or you are just getting "old", like many of us on here! Personally, I hate most of the "new" rolling stock and locos, since the 1980's anyway. But I do like the Class 70, just because it is an ugly basta*d.

True Mike. We have several like that on the new-ish LGV Atlantique, down these 'ere parts. I am not sure how it affects energy consumption, but they did not seem to be too worried about it then. It might well explain how the cost per mile was so relatively cheap. I think it might be different for HS2, with its green targets?

I remember the telex code SUDESTIA, even though we had to break into the Continental Ticket Office (the "Aquarium", with its strange turquoise tiling) to use the telex machine, as we were not allowed one of our own in our Nissen Hut, in the Info Office. It was used mainly to book seats and sleeper berths across Europe, but we sometimes had to send or receive telex's for customer service or some other emergency. But I wonder where SNARGATE DOVER sent/received its telex's from in WW1, as the Lord Warden Hotel was not actually taken over in that war, although most of its "guests" were military, and it was actually closed in 1917 until hostilities ceased. There must have been somewhere else on or near to Snargate Street where this occurred, unless it was one of the best kept secrets ever. In WW2, the hotel was requisitioned, by the Navy, and was officially called HMS Wasp (which according to Lord Haw Haw, was sunk by a U-boat in the Channel!). I note, in perhaps final, note OT to this subject, that the building has now been re-named Lord Warden offices, being home to many freight forwarders and some HMRC and Border Force activities too.

Snargate Radio perhaps derives its name from Snargate Street, just behind the old Lord Warden Hotel. The name Snargate probably originated from the River Dour, which was a large river then, which had begun to silt up at its estuary with the Channel before the Normans came. So a "snare-trap" or snare gate, was installed to prevent rubbish building up in the estuary itself, sometime in the 11th or 12thC. Snare-gate Street, was built to one end of this, and was elongated when enough silt had built up under the cliff, and its name had by then been shortened to Snargate (by the 14thC.). The Snar Gate was built as an extension to the old city walls (up to Cow Gate), and stood where the York Street roundabout now sits. (Source - my delvings into East Kent history over the years, part of which used the Babington Jones history of 1907, now out of print I think.....). But I guess the telex code explanation for Snargate Radio is just as good. But why they chose that instead of, say, SRMarine Radio, or similar, especially when it was originally in Morse, I just don't know. Perhaps they did not expect the Nazis to know where Snargate was?

I concur with that. The latter could also be used at older layouts' ticket gates where you had to give or show your ticket to an actual person..... That could be very useful. Also, I believe you have only one figure with an umbrella actually up (in modern 00 anyway). Unusual to see that? I think we need a few more! That would bring a new ambience to my layout anyway....

Many thanks - that makes more sense than my teenage recollections! But just one point. Although Snargate radio was run by BR's Shipping and International Services Division (S&ISD, not SR), I am pretty certain they were passing messages for Townsend Thoresen ferries too, as I saw their notepaper regularly, when calling in. Although, even though I was working exclusively for the train ferries, I was paid, according to the payslips, by BR (SR). Whereas, when at Sealink Victoria, my payslips showed S&ISD. Bizarre. I do recall we had to ring Snargate from Victoria, with the loadings of every boat train (as part of the job required one of us to go out to the gate of every departure and count passengers on), and they would ring us with the back loadings. Not that we did anything with that info, other than file it.

Yes, to the first. The ramp was used for cars that would be driven on to, or off, the ferries, as opposed to being transported by rail. As for Snargate Radio, it was, at the time, the primary communication channel for all cross-channel, and, I think , but am not sure, trans-channel shipping. It was on the top floor, or second from top (it was a lot of stairs to climb), of the old Lord Warden Hotel, built right next to the old Dover Town station, which became railway/military offices during WW2 and was re-named Southern House by the 50's. All messages were in English. I do not know much else about it, as I was only allowed to enter to deposit or collect consists and other messages for our Chargeman, or for the Sealink rep. (a person whose title I never knew, but who liaised with the Chargeman.) The messages were either consist summaries of the wagons being loaded, or on their way to us, including occasionally fault or maintenance details of the wagons themselves, or ones about changes to ships, timings, ballast (for the rising dock) or other matters pertaining to the shipping operations. I did not read too many of them in any detail. You were not encouraged to stick around upstairs! I believe it shut several years later, in favour of a more modern comms and radar centre on the top of the cliff (which I think is still there, operated by the Coastguard). I think I am right in saying that Snargate comms centre was established during WW2, so its kit and organisation was probably outdated even by my time. The whole building was eventually sold off anyway. Just as an aside, when I managed to get a permanent job after my work at Dover, with Sealink strangely, at Victoria, I was placed into a WW2 hut (which had been the temporary mail room, when the original was bombed in WW2), stuffed with 9 desks and a supervisors desk, where we answered public enquiries, on E/M/L shifts, about all train-boat-train services across Europe, for the whole of the UK. The set up reminded me of Snargate radio, with its antiquated switch phone gear, WW2 bomber headsets and mechanical counting box, with a loud buzzer that went off when more than 10 calls were waiting! There were 21 of us, on shifts, and we did not even have a rest room, just a tiny kitchen with a kettle and disgusting fridge, and the toilet was outside, down the alley to the side..... it really was a whole lifetime ago! No wonder we all used to escape to the pub for our 54 minute lunch breaks, when on 12/14 hour shifts (most of the summer at least). I stayed there for three whole years, when I could easily have got a promotion elsewhere after one, because only three of us were men and the rest, not men, not old and bar one, not married......

I support all of that, having been a junior shunter on the linkspan for a summer in 74 or 75. Although I basically only made the tea, and ran paper consists to and from Snargate Radio (where they would be transmitted/received to/from Dunkerque), I saw what and how the chargeman shunter organised loading. I would occasionally be needed if two men were needed to relay the shunter's commands from the rear to the propelling driver(s), but otherwise largely stood and stared, just making sure the lamps and tackle were in the right places. Little did I know that, only 7 or 8 years later, I would be making out the 6 part consist forms for the empties we used to send from Sittingbourne (AJ Woods ex-onion, for Spain, and bamboo furniture vans for Italy) and Bowaters French China Clay bogie tanks for France and Italy) back across the channel. They were an absolute bu88er, and five copies had to be placed on each wagon, in a plastic bag. Why (apart from the odd furniture van), I have no idea, as they all left us as block trains. Your description now gives some meaning as to what happened, after some 40 years!! I attach a pic which might help towards understanding how Dover worked, at least for the car and Transfesa trains. I believe this was taken in the early 80's, but I stand to be corrected - it is one I have had on my hard drive for many years!

Not sure if this has already been on here, and I know nothing about the photographer, the date or the location, but it was on my hard drive. But I am posting it because of the detail it shows so clearly. Likewise, the second picture, which as well as a good 33 shot, also shows just what the SR had to use for dirty ballast trains until some of the newer (or converted) stock came along. It is pictured at Gravesend, and I would date this as around late 70's, which is when I think that multi-storey car park was built - it was definitely in use by 1983. (But I could well be wrong - any better suggestions?)

For me, it has to be somewhere I have experienced, in real life. But that is harder done than said, especially trying to fit a prototype layout into the space available, and still make it look authentic as well as interesting - that is where the real work lies. Some people have done it very well indeed, but most of us tend to do as much as we can, and live with it!

Virtually no rain forecast at Silverstone for tomorrow, but then look what happened today ......

I just wonder how really serious this is, but you could not make it up!

I fully understand the scepticism about timescales - even when I lived there in the 2000's, there was endless talk of the grand plan, not least the station quarter, but only minor things were ever done. In fact, NR probably did more than almost anyone since then, with the new platforms (and Werrington). However, of the more recent delays, the key problem appears to have been how to access government funding, which (assuming the 6 July application is approved by the end of the year, as stated) now seems to be resolved. What I cannot see in any of this is the extent to which third party funding has been promised (beyond NR and LNER). This is clearly going to cost more than a £70m grant.

Notwithstanding, they claim to be able to do it due to a 30% reduction in traffic due to the station scheme. That seems to be awfully optimistic - the station traffic is primarily before 09.30 and after 16.30. The roundabout is pretty busy all day long? Incidentally, the scheme, or the one next to it, appears to show the disappearance of both the old railway buildings towards the Riverbank (unless they are still there under all the new architectural treatment shown). I thought they were still listed?

For comparison, here in France, it used to take weeks to get a parcel (or even letters) from the UK. But just lately, it has become quite quick. However, the downside is that every single parcel comes with a customs bill, and La Poste harass you until it is paid. For the first year or so after Brexit, I doubt we paid customs on more than 1 in 10 parcels.