Mike_Walker

The PR man referred to addressed the Marlow-Maidenhead Passengers' Association on several occasions and was the guy originally to be sent to speak to the MDRS. As with the Henley group he was roundly laughed at by the MMPA and as said hadn't a clue. Yes, I was aware that in an earlier period the stopping service terminated at Slough rather than Hayes but I passed it over in the interests of brevity. The other important thing to remember is that the original Crossrail proposal was by BR and would have been integrated from the start not a glorified tube line superimposed on the "big railway" by an empire-building London Mayor!

It's KR Models; what do you expect? Accuracy?

Some years ago, the Marlow & District Railway Society had a talk on the Crossrail (as it then was) project. Initially it was to be by the public relations manager, west and hearts sank as he was a typical PR man but for unknown reasons at the last minute he was replaced by his opposite number from the east. He was a revelation in that he had a civil engineering background and could therefore go into the interesting things like how the central section was being built. However, in response to those members concerned at the effect it would have on the GWML he rather surprised us by saying: "Frankly, I can't understand why we are going out to Maidenhead (this was before the terminal moved west to Reading), who is going to catch an all-stations metro type train from there when they can get on a semi-fast GWR service? In my opinion our western terminal should be Heathrow." There was broad agreement with that. The problem is that the east and west sides of the central core are totally different railways. On the GEML, Elizabeth Line services have basically replaced the previous GE all stations stopping services between Liverpool St and Shenfield which have always operated on their own dedicated lines. All the other passenger services to places like Southend, Walton, Ipswich and Norwich plus all of the freight traffic is routed along the main lines so the arrival of the EL has made no difference. The GWML has always been a four-track mixed use railway. Local and semi-fast passenger services have traditionally been restricted to the Relief (Slow for those in other parts of the country) lines along with freight. The latter on the GWML is dominated by heavy stone trains restricted to 45 (loaded) or 60mph (empty) which also take longer to accelerate or stop compared to the 75mph intermodal trains which make up almost the entire GEML freight business. Since the arrival of the HSTs in 1976, class 1 passenger trains have had almost exclusive use of the Main lines allowing unbroken 125mph running west of Acton. The frequency of these can be up to 10 an hour in each direction compared to the GEML where the only really fast trains are the hourly Norwich services running at a maximum 90mph west of Shenfield. GWML timetables have always been designed around these constraints. East of Hayes there were all-stations services into Paddington, west of there there was a mix of all stations and limited stop trains which all ran "fast" after Hayes stopping only at Ealing Broadway and sometimes Southall. If you wanted to go to one of the inner stations you changed at Hayes where a stopping service would be the next up train. At times it was very tightly timed and things could go wrong - many is the time I've been on a semi-fast that has crawled down the DR behind a delayed stopper - but generally it worked. From May, the EL will have almost sole use of the Relief lines east of Slough; GWR's semi-fasts will usually cross to/from the Mains at Dolphin Junction although a few will make the move at Stockley Junction east of West Drayton. The only non-EL traffic on the Reliefs will be freight. This is to try and ensure that EL services arrive at Westbourne Park within seconds of their booked path. With up to 24 trains per hour each way in the central core this is essential if the service is not to melt down. At present, eastbound EL trains often stand for up to 5 minutes at Westbourne Park to await their correct time/path through the core but that will no longer happen after May. Fortunately, the 387s have a top speed of 110mph and impressive acceleration so they shouldn't be too big a drag on the reliability of the 125mph IET services but you can see why it is not possible to stop at Ealing without taking a large bite out of the capacity. The crossovers at Dolphin are 45mph which is a bit of a restraint so the timetable has been designed so that up and down 387s will pass over Dolphin Junction at roughly the same time - fortunately it's a traditional double junction (due to space constraints) not a modern single lead like Stockley. The latter is a 70mph crossover and therefore, in theory, causes less potential disruption to the Main lines but there are three intermediate stations between the two junctions which EL trains will be calling at and causing a major obstacle if GWR services routinely stayed on the Reliefs as far as Stockley. At the end of the day, the service from May will be a compromise and one which requires a high degree of punctuality if it is to work reliably. We can only hope - a lot of senior management have fingers, toes and various other anatomical parts firmly crossed! For those of us travelling from Maidenhead and Twyford we will have our fastest ever all-day services to/from Paddington and the timetables of the Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches have bee recast to make connections as far as possible with GWR services on the main lines rather than EL. Regrettably the downside is the loss of easy connections onto LU or to the airport without resorting to the EL. However, I understand that in the peaks some EL services will actually operate semi-fast. Mike is of course right that the GWML really needs to be a 6-track railway, indeed when Mark Hopwood asked me to draw up a plan to widen the GWML that was our first thought but there simply wasn't the land available so we went for 5 tracks. The intention was that there would 3 relief and 2 main lines. The middle relief would have been bi-directional allowing a tidal flow. In the morning peaks it would be used by London bound semi-fasts and in the evening by westbounds. At other times it would host semi-fasts and freights in either direction as required. Sadly, I no longer appear to have the original drawing on my computer.

No they won't be stopping at Ealing Broadway or Hayes (for easy connection to LHR) something else Mr H got a severe ear-bashing over on Thursday. Of course, the reason is stopping at one or both when running on the UM takes a big bite out of capacity. Which took us off into recalling the wistful realms of a 5-track railway from Slough to Hanwell Bridge that Mark was proposing nearly two decades ago.

Yes, I was going to say you didn't have to go via Reading, Mike. And are the seats on a 80x actually any better than those on a 345? OK so you'd have to endure it for a shorter period of time.

Access to the internet and/or smartphones came up during a discussion on the closure of ticket offices as part of a presentation to the Marlow & District Railway Society on Thursday by our President, Mark Hopwood, MD of GWR. He took the view that it was "progress" and the railway shouldn't be held back. He cited other forms of "modernisation" like self-service checkouts in supermarkets and closing bank branches: "Everything is on-line these days". I think he was genuinely taken aback by the negative reaction he got but still sees the cashless/internet society as the way forward. As most of our members are a lot older than him (he joined as a junior member aged 14!) I think he views us as a bunch of wrinkly old luddites! As I've said previously in another thread, we have a local resident who is determined not to join the 21st century and as a result can't renew his licence to use the local dump commercially or even to renew his fishing licence! He has to get a neighbour to do both for him. Sadly it goes to show just how out of touch those who rule us are in every walk of life.

The Chiltern Class 115s could be gloriously mis-matched. This set I photographed at High Wycombe has different livery style on each car; all blue, two versions of blue and grey plus refurbed white with a blue stripe.

I've always understood that there was an "understanding" that NBL would get a follow on order after the D600 batch but that these were subsequently changed to the Swindon design but with NBL MAN and Voith transmissions. Not sure if the final five Swindon ones were for "levelling up" but they were ordered late after the names had been originally allocated to the entire class. In order to keep the strict alphabetical order some reallocation of names on the last NBL examples (not actually built by then) was required. The WR were lucky we had such a large Navy back then with plenty of "Zs" to choose from!

I don't think there's much chance of a "merger" between the three organisations which are very different and complimentary in their operations/objectives. What might make sense and be commercially attractive would be for VT to run weekend trips from Birmingham to Oxford (one round trip per day) rather than or as an alternative to Stratford-upon-Avon (currently two trips). On arrival at Oxford the train could continue either ECS or as a service train to Didcot for servicing and stabling.

Can anyone explain why in GW days these appear to have been branded "Return empty to Fowey". Surely they would usually be loaded going to Fowey. In BR days most china clay wagons were usually branded for return to St. Blazey which makes far more sense.

Not entirely certain that is going to happen, given the bad publicity it has generated. From my working visits it appears that whilst those associated with the 4709 project are still in favour, the wider membership is basically split on the subject with more against than for. Hopefully, Jon Jones-Pratt will be successful in his bid to rescue it.

Some of mine from yesterday. 1Z29 at Nuneham Crossing north of Culham. Thanks to a 20mph TRS on Nuneham Viaduct they opened up as they passed. Pity about the dank, grey skies. Waiting to leave the yard at Didcot to collect the return train. 1Z43 approaching Culham on the return trip. They cut off before passing us for the viaduct TRS.

GBRf have recently acquired the two 67s previously operated by Colas. It has been said they will be used on the sleeper with a 73/9 providing hotel power for the trin.

Well if you don't know...

Don't forget the stamps! There's even a "celebratory" poem by the Poet Laureate.

Heads up for anyone going: It's due to arrive at Didcot from Birmingham at 10:10 and leave at 15:01. Therefore given the need to turn and service the locos before departure I would expect the 4 Castle line-up to be in the morning after arrival and finish possibly around lunch time. Full times for the specials can be found at https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U66121/2023-03-04/detailed and https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U66124/2023-03-04/detailed As an update I understand that all online advance tickets have been sold and there will only around 150 tickets available on the day on a "first come, first served" basis. The gates open at 09:30.

Wait long enough and it'll come out to play.

How much... ?! 😛

That's good. He must have paid the bill! 😚

Thanks Johann, it's been a great journey with much interest and brought back many happy memories. I shall have to find time to create a similar thread of my own wanderings between 1976 and 2005.

If anyone visiting for the event is hoping to see Swindon Panel in operation, sadly it won't as we were unable to get any volunteers for the date.

But sadly, I understand he's retired from giving his excellent talks to enthusiast groups.

How sad to see how the Napa Valley has declined. I visited it twice in the nineties when the FPA4 were very much the only show in town hauling superbly restored ex-DRGW nee-NP coaches (the old Ski Train) all immaculate inside and out. We took an SPV tour party on it too and the service was superb. I seem to recall there were local objections to the ALCo "pollution" and as a result they tried running them on vegetable oil or something without much success.

As I've said before, I can't speak for the Hornby prog but I do know that when the Paddington 24/7 programmes were being made GWR had the opportunity to see them before transmission and demand changes not just to the VO script but on more than one occasion footage was canned and replaced. This was because the camera had captured something sensitive which the company thought might be misunderstood by the general viewer. I would expect the same applies to H:AMW.

Having known his a good friend since he was about 12, I'm well aware of Mark's career progression and the fact remains that he put a lot of effort (and still does) into promoting parts of his "empires" that he feels might otherwise be neglected and that includes encouraging user groups to the full. Somehow, I can't imagine this debacle having been allowed to continue if he were in charge. He's the "manager's manager". As Chris Green once said: "There's probably not a TOC MD that hasn't got him on speed dial and regularly seeks his advice".