Wheatley

Of course !

https://www.departmentals.com/departmental/041707 I dare you.

The 156/158 combo was a short term autumn-only arrangement (unless the 156 was deputising for a failed 158). The 158s have scrubber blocks fitted rather than a tread brake.

This came up recently but I can't find the thread. Somewhere there is some old cine film of a couple of Black Macs checking the structure gauge by standing in an open wagon using tape measures and poles. If you know the distance from the top edge of a wagon of known dimensions you can extrapolate the rest.

The only departure from 'normal' token exchange at St Bees is that drivers will, by local arrangement, take the token to the box themselves if it saves time and the signaller is doing something else (like putting the gates up and down). St Bees village is cut off from the north while ever the gates are down, the alternative route is 6 miles back the way you just came.

Further to last, the collective opinion of the Northern Old Gits (standing around gassing while we wait for our laptops to update themselves again) Collective this morning was that any (Edit - RRNE/WYPTE) 155s on the Bolton Corridor early on would have been diversions with a route conductor on board. Leeds (we think) and York crews (definitely) didn't sign Bolton at that date, and no drivers on the NW had traction knowledge. Such diversions may not have been uncommon depending on what was going on engineering-wise of course. Using them for other than York - Bradford - Man Vic - Blackpool services definitely needed the Duty Control Manager's permission. The doors were problematic at first, at one stage they were all (?) out of traffic awaiting Leyland fixing a problem with microswitches I believe. They were set up on depots which were largely straight and level - once out in the wild on canted platforms the downhill doors didn't close enough to trip the door proving relay, and the uphill doors didn't open enough to untrip it. Or something.

York/Leeds - Blackpool I expect, but in theory they should have gone via Bradford Interchange. My recollection of exactly which services went which way is waining a bit after all these years !

Yes, they were mostly diagrammed on York - Manchester (and beyond) services via the Calder Valley, they weren't confined to West Yorkshire but they did tend to stick to the core route. For quite a while WYPTE kept tabs and got shirty if they wondered off up towards Scarborough (for example) or Leeds- Sheffield despite York and Leeds crews having traction knowledge. Later on they could go anywhere and these days they're all based at Hull ! WYPTE also paid for the 144 centre cars but had less say in where they went as their bit had to go where the 2/3 they didn't own went.

I thought they got the Kirow either for free or at a greatly reduced rate - because NYMR is a charity Volker Rail could write it off as corporate social responsibility. There was something about them sharing a trustee/director too. Likewise the last Moorsline I read before my membership expired described 'borrowing' a brand new tamper to do the carriage stable, the donor treating it as a training exercise. Which is why the Long Siding from Pickering is apparently technically fit for 100mph running.

155s - although the RRNE Random Unit Generator* couid have its moments, the 155s were paid for by WYPTE so in the early days rarely worked off their core Calder Valley route unless the train plan had gone completely to hell. 156s - ER policy was that 2nd Gen units were not route cleared unless there was a need to route clear them, so these were quite restricted at first too. They were not cleared between Barnsley and Huddersfield for example, because those were 14x diagrams. Until Traffic Manager Hanton nicked one off a TP service one day to mitigate two consecutive 142 failures, and it rolled up at Penistone. After a brief conversation with Control (who had no idea it was there, Mr Hanton working on the 'forgiveness rather than permission' basis) the driver was instructed to continue to Barnsley, enter Silkstone Common platform at dead slow and report any impacts. After which they were deemed route cleared :-) *(Completely outclassed by the later Northern Random Unit Generator which ensure that my commute from 2004 onwards was rarely the same type on two consecutive days).

I learnt this on my Block Signalling course at Donny in 1987! Admittedly there were three redundant freight guards on the course so we obviously got a completely unbiased explanation of the then new DOO arrangements. Sometime afterwards we were walking to lunch along the corridor in The Plant when we overheard rhythmic chanting from the Boil in the Bag Driver's course next door, obviously learning some rule or other by rote. "Listen boys, they're learning their DOO Times Table" "What's that ?" "One DOO is £4.12, two DOOs are £8.24..." Thread drift, sorry :-)

The comments section of any online newspaper is a good example of why the H&S stuff is needed. A significant number of people really are that stupid.

It'll be fine, just wipe a bit of filler over them while you're filling in all the ejector pin marks on the front frames.

Snippets from RRNE - Newcastle - Manchester and beyond services (what became Transpennine Express TOC in 2003 although that branding was in use long before that) were either single 3 car 158s (the Heaton 1588xx series) or 2x2 car 158s. One of the latter notoriously split on the ECML at Thirsk after the EBS was raised to clear an electrical fault and the front set sailed off merrily into the distance. Mercifully no-one fell out of the open gangways. Leeds-Settle-Carlisle services were 2x156s from around 1991, the platforms on the S&C were extended with the bizarre 'ski-jump' extentions to get them up to 94m to fit. After 1994 the second 156 was frequently a 142 much to the disgust of user groups. 141s were only compatible within class and largely confined to Leeds-Harrogate-York until around 1990 when they were re-worked by Barclays to replace the Tightlock couplers with BSIs, after which they could go anywhere. By 1987 Sheffield - Barnsley -Leeds/Huddersfield services were nearly all 101 or 110 power twins. If you saw a 4 car it was because the front one had failed and was being shoved by the following service. Only the110s could keep time reliably between Barnsley and Huddersfield but that didn't stop 101s appearing. From May 1988 there were progressivey replaced with 142/144s on the Huddersfields and 156s on the Leeds services

Their records will include a copy of the global station lease setting out their repair and mantenance responsibilities (which is essentially cleaning, and fixing things they're directly responsible for like ticket machines, the CCTV system, PA, and anything plugged in in the staff accommodation), an asbestos register, various inspection records and a sheaf of risk assessments. It certainly won't include anything held by the previous operator unless it's Franchise Information as defined earlier. Everything else including the paperwork for most of the retail outlet leases, maintenance of the lifts, fire alarm system, fabric of the building and stopping the roof leaking is held by Network Rail as thats all their responsibility as landlord to repair. The fact that getting them to fix any of that is likely getting blood out of a stone has driven succeeding generations of TOC property managers grey over the years. Don't assume that a station lease is anything like a normal commercial FRI lease.