hexagon789

Especially given the lack of contemporary high-intensity headlights.

Possibly a continuation of sorts of the erstwhile "Scarborough Flyer"?

Again, I think another case where a successive person has improved on a previous answer with further clarity. Yes, I agree with you completely there Keefer, though what precisely was still required by this time in terms of equipment. Perhaps a handbrake and brake valve was enough?

Yes, it's well known the Swiss use them to measure the pressure a bar of chocolate can take before fracturing - that's what the triangular bits are for - each denotes 1 bar of milk chocolate pressure... 😉

I think some handbrakes were more like a handle that rotated on a shaft but yes often a wheel. Some, such as those in Thumpers and some SR EMU were like a ship's wheel! Yes, inches of Mercury. (As an aside - on the Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland where they use the vacuum brake still, but the carriage bogies are air-braked (if that makes sense) the brake pressure is measured in Bar.)

I don't believe it's the ability to control the brake necessarily, after all - all passenger carriages have a communication cord (or modern equivalent) which will vent the brake pipe. I believe the issue is lack of handbrake in ordinary British coaches - the BG provides this. This contrasts with the European continent, where all coaches have their own handbrake as standard usually.

I thought the Signal-Repeating AWS trialled by the Southern Region was different in design and operation to the US&S American designed CAWS used by CIÉ/IÉ.

A lovely set of photos, David. All so interesting to British eyes. I have heard of the Blonay-Chamby, I'm not 100% on the others but I've come across a wide variety of Swiss lines through the MITV series Swiss Railway Journeys which used to air on the Travel Channel on Sky about 10 years ago or so until it was taken over. I believe the production company has subsequently released the entire series of 24 episodes on YouTube subsequently for anyone to enjoy.

Lovely selection David, every shot is priceless. I particularly like C957 and C959. I don't think I'll have seen these before, so first time for me - many thanks for deciding to repost the lost ones, a task I'm sure no one envies but we are all grateful for. In C960, 1M35 denotes the 1340 Glasgow Central to London Euston. How handy were headcode displays to future photo admirers? ;)

There's just something wonderfully atmospheric about B&W steam shots - lovely as ever stuff, David.

It may be theoretically feasible but I would suspect modern defensive driving policies mean that isn't the case in practice.

I read that plan had been cancelled due to rising passenger numbers?

Perhaps create an account over on HSTGen for the most up to date info? I find they are very good at posting about late minute ad hoc changes.

That's stirred up another recollection. This was definitely from an article in the Railway Magazine, describing a cab run on Eurostar - the signaller advised the E* driver they were following a Shuttle and the E* driver held speed at 137km/h through the tunnel - just below the Shuttle maximum.

I read that when Eurostar commencing running, the behaviour of French drivers in relation to cautionary signals was causing some issues. They were trained to put the brake in immediately on sighting a cautionary signal, because braking distances on the SNCF are far more consistent than in the UK, so a 50% application is needed immediately on sighting a yellow to bring the speed down properly. Consequently they were running on consecutive double yellows in southern England at about 30mph or less, causing late running. The British drivers meanwhile were running at about 50-70 depending on the location. I can't remember if it was in a Railway Magazine issue of the period or another publication that described this.

So 170s brake as you would expect with a 3-step. I thought they must do, because otherwise - firstly that would negate one of the basic ideas with a 3-step brake, giving consistent graduation; secondly, it seemed like a significant issue with regards to safely controlling the train.

I don't know how true it is, but I had the Class 170 3-step brake described to me as: "1. Naethin' 2. Bit less than naethin' 3. Everybody joins you in the cab"

As a former driver once described running 100mph on tread braked stock encountering yellows: "Shut off, full service and no fannying about."

To the best of my knowledge, there is 110mph on 2-aspect on the northern (ie Berwick-Edinburgh) section of the ECML, places on the ECML and GWML with 125mph on 3-aspect and a few surviving places in Scotland with and without HST differentials of 95-100mph on colour light distants and semaphore home signals.

I understand the present lease expires in June 2023, I wonder how easy it will be to get it renewed in various quarters...

You can use Realtimetrains to check CrossCountry allocations on the day. You can even search for individual power cars, units and locos operating with any company that participates in "know your train".

Very different, even before the accident at Carmont - I haven't met a single ScotRail driver that liked them. My impression is they utterly loathe the things and would rather FirstGroup's upgraded 170 plan was chosen over refurbished HSTs. Of course, it could be the very high failure rate doesn't help driver impressions. They were almost having one complete failure per day at one point. Now it's about one per week on average.

"3" was ECS back when the Train Reporting Number was first implemented and, IIRC, into the 1980s. The first digit is more about according a train priority at the necessary points along its route than a hard and fast means of identifying the train type. "Z" denotes a special working, regardless of train class. Railtours are frequently coded 1Zxx.

No worries, David. I just thought I'd missed something!

Undoubtedly, such a service commenced in May 1983 running as a portion worked train to both Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was abolished in 1984 iirc but returned in the late-80s. By privatisation it was HST operated and I believe the southbound Edinburgh-Paddington was the first working by the first of the newly liveried Virgin CrossCountry HSTs. Apologies, but I don't understand the "Wrexham" reference here? The blind reads - "Whitehaven".