Mike_Walker

V R doesn't really mean anything there are still a few around today .

That photo explains why several of the GWR 80x's are displaying paint or vinyl damage along their sides.

Working practices are very different today resulting in a safer railway which is what we all desire. Modern standards are much tougher to provide that safety and take longer to achieve. Much of our railway network was built very quickly and as cheaply as possible with the results becoming increasingly apparent today as the Nuneham viaduct collapse and recent Hook landslip have graphically demonstrated and you can be sure they will not be the last such incidents. I'm hearing of a number of locations across the network that are causing concern. Even once the railway is "finished" there is an awful lot of testing that has to be carried out not just on the line itself but where it interfaces at each end with the Rugby and Thames Valley Signalling Centres. In addition, the drivers will have to learn the route and a new kind of unit which again can only take place after the route is safely signed off for use. It may seem a lot of red tape and be very frustrating to the observer but it ensures a safe and stable railway is delivered for generations to come.

Apparently Chiltern have been awarded the contract to operate Phase 1 (Oxford - Bletchley - Milton Keynes) using new Class 196s originally intended for West Midlands Trains but no longer required as their Snow Hill services remain at 2tph not 3. E-WR services are expected to start in December 2024.

If you are referring to the above photo that is from Google Earth and is a distorted image. Please refer to the informative posts by @phil-b259 and @nightstar.train for the real story.

Except it's not the central pier that's failed - it's the south end on the river bank.

Internally, some are suggesting it could be as late as July. And from May, the number of spare paths on the GWML east of Reading diminishes as discussed in the Elizabeth Line thread.

And I wonder what significance of that could be... 🤔

Except that GWR now "own" 80 odd of the D78 cars and all Vivarail's IP and assembly capacity... As a result of what Mark Hopwood describes as the "mother of all bog-of deals. I only went to buy 230001, the charger and associated kit/IP and the administrators said 'take the lot'". Note that both the issues that have befallen 230010 this week have not involved the hybrid drive system which is the novelty part of these units.

All taken by SWAG attendees? A good sign if so...

Update. After working reasonably well (apart for a compressor issue on Tuesday) 230010 failed with a brakes problem early yesterday afternoon resulting in buses providing the remainder of the service and until at least midday today. Whilst they also have 008 available it can't be used as a second serviceable unit has to be on standby as a Thunderbird should the service train need rescuing - a 230 can only couple to another 230, typical of today's MTDR (Modern Dynamic Thrusting Railway).

Yes, it was shown off to members of the Marlow/Maidenhead Passengers' Association and other interested parties at Reading but I can't give an exact date.

Unless they've been upgraded recently, I think there are several in Cornwall on the Gunnislake, Looe and Newquay branches and on the Pembroke Dock branch in Wales.

I don't think an episode passes without me saying out loud: "Calm down Timothy". But his enthusiasm is infectious.

Several points to clear up here. The TfW 230s were purchased outright by TfW but their maintenance is being undertaken by Stadler at Birkenhead North under contract to TfW not by the latter "in house". The Marston Vale units were being maintained by Vivarail directly and the administrators took the decision not to support this activity leaving LNR with no way of using them. A friend took a ride on 230010 yesterday and was quite impressed (and he's hard to impress!) with the quality of the unit; well finished internally with no rattles. Time keeping has been an issue so far but we think this is a matter of the drivers getting used to them. They are still driving them like a DMU rather than a EMU and being slightly over cautious stopping at stations with 3 cars rather than the 2 car 150s. A colleague who drove many of the early test runs on the line reported they take off like a rocket if you aren't careful (I've seen video that confirms this) and had no difficulty in maintaining or bettering the sectional running times. In fact on some sections it was a challenge to hold them back. Two trips yesterday had one of the instructors at the controls and had no difficulty in keeping to time which suggests that things will improve in the coming days. GWR wished to protect the ability to conduct the battery trial on the Greenford branch and therefore, with the support and financial backing of the DfT, approached the Vivarail administrators to secure the future of 230001, the rapid charging equipment and associated kit. According to the GWR MD they were offered "the mother of all bog-of deals" - basically "have the lot", or words to that effect. So as things stand GWR do indeed now also own the stored D78 cars at Long Marston and the lease on the VR works near Southam plus contents. As Mark Hopwood points out this does in theory give GWR the capacity to "build" trains but it ain't gonna happen anytime soon. The nine VR employees taken on by GWR are specialist engineers who can contribute to the technical challenges that lie ahead during the Greenford trial. They could possibly also offer assistance and guidance to TfW/Stadler - at a price of course! The start of the trial has been delayed by the inability of the grid to be able to provide a suitable supply for the rapid charger at West Ealing (or for any other new power-hungry project in the area) and, err, Spanish customs playing silly b*****s and the B***** card to sit on some vital components (storage batteries for the charger) which are stuck in two containers on a Spanish dockside! The GWR 769s were taken off lease from 31 March for the reasons stated above. In addition, the TfW 769s are also going off lease. Two have already moved to Long Marston for storage (joining the GWR ones by the way) whilst the remainder will follow in the coming weeks as more of the new Class 231s enter service. They have been extremely unreliable in service with barely a day going by with the full diagrams being met. I spoke to one driver who admitted he was viewed as a freak by his peers as he was the only one at his depot who'd not had one fail on him in traffic! Northern's were also very unreliable at first but have improved of late although are still nothing to shout about. I understand that when their leases expire at the end of the year (I think) they too will be withdrawn.

The Marples affair was superbly alluded to by the Goons in "The Last Tram (from Clapham)". https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jlsh

No, two tin cans and a piece of string!

Wasn't it a road construction company?

Sadly, I have to agree with much of what is being said here. As a regular volunteer at Didcot (albeit with Swindon Panel) I'm often left in despair at the way things are going. There seems to be a lack of direction and it saddens me to see so many locos out of use. At least they are under cover. A recent example of the woolly thinking has been the purchase of an operational industrial tank loco to operate services when it would have been better to restore one of the smaller GWR locos to operation. At least both 1363 and 1466 are being overhauled (the latter off site) which should help things Attendance at the site is in a slow but steady decline (March 4 excepted!) and regularly there are more "staff" on site than visitors on weekends even when trains are running although they are too often worked by an 08 or 14 rather than steam. The Sunday after the Four Castles event the admissions totalled around 40 which is not unusual. Visitors want to see steam - they pay a large sum to get in - not a diesel. A comment made to us regularly in the Signalling Centre is that we are the only place on the whole site where something is actually happening and they can try something themselves. I've heard that one issue is the age of many of the stalwart volunteers who are no longer able to devote the time and energy they once did and a lack of new, younger recruits. As for 7202 is is not languishing unrestored; it has been in the main works for many years and is rapidly reaching completion. I understand the same applies to 7200 at Quainton Road and that some friendly rivalry has developed between the two groups to see who finishes first.

We already have the method of producing battery packs for rail operation. As with road transport, the two main Achilles Heels are range and charging. The former is likely to be largely overcome by a new generation of solid state batteries which, I'm told (by a fellow member of our local cricket club who is heavily involved in designing EV power trains), should become a reality in about five years. Charging these (which will take a fraction of the time Lithium-Ion batteries need today) will require totally different charging systems which is the main reason the roll out of chargers today is so slow, why invest in a network that will be obsolete in no time. The government can say what it likes but the private sector that actually has to pay for it takes a different view. The Greenford Class 230 trial is not to prove battery operation, that is already proven, but to test the Vivarail developed ultra-rapid charger works long term. It's been shown to work successfully in test conditions - the train docks with the conductor rails which are then energised automatically - but the Greenford trial is to see what happens with this particular equipment in full scale daily use. The charger feeds the train at 600A which is incredibly high (in contrast a Tesla rapid charger is 200A) and the trial is to see what level of effect this has on the batteries. L-I batteries degrade quite rapidly when subjected to repeated regular rapid charging. The Vivarail system charges the train each time it docks over the charging rails which means in this trial 10 minutes or so every hour. The senior management at GWR are keen to exploit battery operation as widely as possible and quite a list of possible applications has been drawn up internally which is why the company wanted to salvage what it could from the Vivarail collapse with the backing of the DfT. If the Greenford trial turns out as hoped then there will be many more battery trains at work not just on GWR but across the network using VR's technology in either repowered existing trains (there are three Class 230s currently with no future that could be converted easily) or incorporated into new-builds. Of course, if solid state batteries do arrive as expected then it's an all new ball game!

But, in a sense Vivarail lives on as part of GWR. Mark Hopwood told us that he got "the mother of all bog-off deals". They went to buy 230001 plus the rapid charger and associated bits plus Vivarail's IP and the administrators said "you can have the lot" or words to that effect. So, GWR are now not just the proud (?) owners of what they wanted but 80 odd D78 vehicles* quietly rotting at Long Marston and the VR works near Southam. They have also taken on a number of key Vivarail technical people. This is to support the Greenford battery trial but GWR now has the capability to do much more. * If all else fails they are probably worth more as scrap than GWR paid for the whole deal!

They were built for a specific purpose, principally fast overnight fitted goods trains where as the 28xx were designed for slow mostly mineral trains. There were only 9 47xx's because that was all that was needed. Both types were very successful and even got pressed into passenger service on summer Saturdays - with preference given to the 47s.

Can't serve it hot these days; Elf n Safety, you might burn yourself. Can't be too careful... 😥

No.

The problem with that is: ECW didn't build any buses for M&D after 1950.