locoholic

Are there any WCML passenger train diversions via the S&C these days?

I guess no-one on here was remotely surprised by this, which is why the news wasn't posted?! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48054789

But is now presumably permanently off the menu due to HS2?

I wonder how long it will be before we have to book a space on the M25 (pre-paid, of course)? I'm sure Beardy would like to have a go at running a motorway.

I'm struggling to think of any loco named after a stately "house".

Made it to Bitton today. The Sentinel was in action, and was being filmed (for local ITV News?). Hearing the whirring of the geared drive rather than the normal "chuff chuff" of a steam train came as a surprise - I guess I'd never actually seen a steam Sentinel running before, so thank you to everyone involved in its restoration.

And the only place that Northerners want to go to is London?

As a matter of interest, if, as stated in The Guardian, the main benefit of HS2 comes from the section north of Birmingham, why didn't they build that section first?

Airport owner supports spending billions of public money to improve access to airport. Not a big surprise!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-bristol-47998414/historic-chocolate-train-steams-again Lovely to see. Might pop down on Monday.

So what? I agree that is true. But the same process happens with rail. The basic problem is that more and more people are being crammed onto a small island, and their demand for travel harms the environment. Rail has a smaller impact, but forms a small percentage of journeys and much of the UK doesn't have easy access to a railway station (sadly, HS2 won't improve the latter at all). Are you seriously trying to assert that building HS2 won't induce an increase in travel?

And there we go back to square one! If the road network is at capacity, we are told that building more roads will just generate new traffic. But when a rail enthusiast sees a rail line at capacity, building a new railway is the automatic solution. Can't you see the contradiction? "Oh, but a new railway line has less impact" - maybe, a bit, perhaps.

I agree. I just take issue with the received wisdom on here that new roads are unjustifiable, whereas new rail is always good. My recent experiences of rail travel has not been positive, and the road network provides a cheaper, more reliable, convenient and flexible alternative.

It is true that new rail capacity has less of an impact than road, but new rail, especially high speed, is much more expensive, less flexible and prone to disruption. It is also debateable whether rail is immune from "uncontrolled congestion" - travellers on South West Rail know what happens when anything goes awry, however apparently trivial, because the rail infrastructure is operating at capacity, just like the road network.

I'm sorry, but your comments above simply do not constitute a coherent argument.

Forest of Dean had a few. Sling branch, Mineral loop, FoD Central Rly, Steam Mills, etc etc.

It would appear that the WSR will be mainly operated by pannier tanks for the foreseeable future. I thought they had been judged too small and slow for the line? Can we look forward to shorter and more crowded trains this year?

No, I am just a car owner who lives miles from the nearest station, but who was nevertheless planning a rail trip to Scotland. A small change in my plans to travel on a Saturday rather than a Friday means that the journey time is nearly double, due to replacement bus services on the WCML, instead of diversions via the S&C. I shall therefore be driving. The modern railway is expensive, unreliable and inconvenient. Building more of it in the current climate is sadly of very questionable benefit to ordinary taxpayers.

Road traffic has increased in the same way. The "thinking" that providing extra capacity stimulates extra demand also applies to railways, or didn't you realise that? It is your logic that is completedly flawed, due, I suspect, to an understandable sentimental bias in favour of anything that runs on rails.

Why not? You think HS2 is now justified because the current rail network is so successful that extra capacity is needed. The road network has been massively more successful. Logically we should build more roads.

Here is the "How many people can you squeeze into an auto-trailer?" event this morning. Especially challenging when you consider that almost all the seats were already occupied by people who had boarded at Bewdley and who didn't get off... Perhaps not the best idea to have a one-coach train as the first departure from Kidderminster on a gala day?!

But that suggests that the IETs diagams need to include more depot visits.

So all we really learned from episode 2 is that we can expect Hornby's stand at Warley 2019 to be substantially taller. It was a shame that viewers were allowed to think that the Terrier was the first time models had been duplicated. I thought the first episode was the better, but both were interesting.

Does anyone have any information on the time period when these vans were used on the Tartan Arrow service, which locos pulled the trains, and how long the livery survived, please? So far I all have seen is a photo of two of the LMS style BGs on an empty stock working, and one of the CCTs in a Class 25 hauled parcels train between Preston and Bolton.

Just to be slightly pedantic, the reversals at Gloucester and Swansea are almost always "undone" on the return journey, so have no effect on the orientation of the sets during the day. Empty stock workings to/from the depot at the start and finish of the day are the only time an unexpected reversal might occur. I once remember being on an Aberdeen - London HST that did an unexpected three-point turn on the triangle at Thornton Junction just to get the set round the right way, but I think that was way back in the bad old days of BR.