Mike_Walker

No one is denying that cuts are coming, probably from the May timetable change and will be across the board. All the TOCs, including those controlled by DOR, have been instructed by the DfT to submit proposals on how to reduce their costs by 25%. This is a blanket instruction that applies equally to all irrespective of their individual circumstances and may take the form of service cuts - either thinning out frequencies or "bustitution" of branch lines - or by fleet reduction which will inevitably result in shorter trains. 12 car trains never regularly operated outside the London and South East area because they weren't needed. Here on the GWML we saw a great deal of investment in extending platforms to handle 12 car 387s which were needed before the pandemic but now, with so much WFH, they are not and it is doubtful we shall ever get back to traffic levels that require them. The trouble is, the civil servants responsible for devising these cuts are all living in the south east were the impact on commuter traffic has been the most pronounced. If you go to Manchester for example commuter traffic has rebounded to broadly pre-pandemic levels with overcrowding as a result yet the DfT don't seem to realise this. Any discussion about the finances of TOCs is now largely irrelevant. Some did get substantial public financial support whilst others had to pay hefty premiums but that was under the old franchise agreements all of which have now been terminated. As I've said before, today, all revenue is collected by the TOCs but is passed on directly to the government. They get reimbursed for their costs plus a small fee. There was an interesting discussion on Today on Radio 4 this morning just after 8.10 concerning Trans Pennine which is worth catching on BBC Sounds if you didn't hear it live.

The attitude of adb968008 sounds to me a lot like the ignorant civil servants at the DafT that are doing so much damage to our railway network these days.

There is only one privately owned and operated passenger service (Brightside in Florida) in both the United States and Canada. Amtrak and VIA are owned by the national governments although sometimes working in partnership with state/provincial governments which also own the various commuter networks. Only a small part of the mileage covered by Amtrak and VIA are owned by those organisations the remainder belongs to the privately-owned freight companies who have a bad habit of prioritising their freight trains to the detriment of passenger trains - a long-standing joke is that "on time" on Amtrak is to appear on the correct day! Many of the commuter lines do however own their own infrastructure. As others have said, there may be two routes connecting London and Exeter but that's only the end points, in between they serve very different markets and to withdraw one or the other would leave a large part of the population without access to rail services. Avanti and LNER both link London and Glasgow by different routes; are you suggesting one of those be withdrawn too? Your recent posts show you appear to have little knowledge of how the modern railway is structured and the markets it serves.

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They may both be FirstGroup companies but GWR's head office is in Swindon and SWR's at Waterloo so "one person at one desk spinning his chair around and talking to his mate sat in the other" is not possible. Given the very close working relationship between Mark Hopwood (GWR) and Clare Mann (SWR) there are probably very good reasons for things being handled as they are.

As Mike said above, under the current system there is no incentive to do so. All revenue goes directly to the treasury via the DfT and the TOCs are paid in return their operating costs plus a small margin - usually less than 5%. If you were running a business would you go out of your way to do someone else's work for such a small return?

Before that. The political class have never forgiven the fact that the first fatality on the railway was one of their own - overlooking it was his own fault of course. They've been plotting revenge ever since.

Once again we appear to have someone wanting something for nothing whilst expecting others to pay for his "free" entertainment. I give up!!

In a word: Yes.

I see exactly the same thing every time I use our neighbouring branch line - the next one towards London from Mike's.

For those not familiar with the machine, here is SP&S 700 on its home turf at Lyle on the north bank of the Columbia River whilst working from Portland to Pasco on 20 April 2001. At the time both it and the SP Daylight were regular main line performers and were under the custodianship of Doyle McCormack's Daylight Locomotive Management company although 4449 at least and possibly 700 also were actually owned by the City of Portland. Before the opening of the heritage centre which Johann visited, both were kept at the former SP Brooklyn roundhouse which was deep inside an active UP yard and therefore strictly off limits to casual visitors. However, having got to know Doyle through my friendship with Jim Boyd, I was able to arrange a private viewing for a party of us in 2003. At that time, 4449 was wearing its 1976 American Freedom Train scheme once more which, to my eye, is far less attractive than its normal Daylight garb. Also at that time the PA was still partly restored. It had arrived from Mexico as a total wreck having been involved in a derailment which saw it roll down an embankment. It arrived without trucks but Doyle was able to source a pair from a former FM "Erie built" B unit which CP had rebuilt into some form of power generator car whilst a 251 engine was acquired from BC Rail. The reason why Doyle chose to paint it in Nickel Plate livery (along with the RSD5 - both are owned by Doyle) is that Doyle grew up along the Nickel Plate and has an affection for it. 190 was actually originally a Santa Fe unit. That's Brian Daniels of this parish taking a snap of the 700. The roundhouse was too cramped to permit much internal photography. There were other members of Doyle's fleet in the yard. Great Northern 274 (it's true identity) is a 1950 EMD F7A. SP&S 866 is an ALCo FA1 of similar vintage which is a major rebuild project as it ended its operational days as Long Island push-pull power pack 613. I've actually driven it in that form but that's another story... Whenever 4449 was out on the road it was accompanied by Doyle's tool or support car "Yes Dear". When I quizzed him about the origins of the name he simply replied: "Have you met my wife?"

True in part but the early abandonment of the pilot scheme was more the result of political pressure to reduce costs by speeding up the withdrawal of labour intensive steam in the face of rapidly escalating losses rather than a desire to promote employment. Had BR been allowed to follow through with the pilot scheme those "lemons" we were saddled with would not have got beyond the initial batches. Those rapidly escalating losses resulted from the rapid decline in both passenger numbers and freight tonnage following the national strike by ASLEF in 1956 which led to an explosion in private car ownership and road haulage. A lesson for today perhaps? History has a habit of repeating itself.

The point is that the race for ever more detail appears to be self-fulfilling. Before these details started to be fitted by manufacturer X then followed by Y plying top trumps was there actually a demand from the majority of modellers for them? But, once they've appeared it becomes the norm that becomes the norm that every one aspires to or demands. What makes me laugh is how those often demanding more detail then complain about the spiralling costs. Do they think it should be provided without adding to the cost?

Most certainly! I think the current arms race for ever more detail is getting out of hand. Actually I was debating this with the staff at one of our leading model railway emporiums only last week and they agreed things have gone too far with the result that bits fall off as soon as they are removed from the box or subjected to running on a layout. They then have the customer, often disgruntled, returning the item for replacement. It seems the hobby is increasingly dividing into two camps, those of us who actually want to run our models on a layout and those that simply collect and put them in a display cabinet, although many never leave their boxes as that, apparently, devalues them. For those of us in the former group do we really need fully detailed underframes on wagons or luggage racks in coaches neither of which can be seen when running on a layout? I did, briefly, consider buying an Accurascale Siphon to replace my "breathed on" Lima one but on reflection thought why? The superbly detailed underframe will never be visible when running and the small body details will similarly become invisible when running and viewed from the typical 6' viewing distance. And any details that drop off my Lima one are down to my shoddy workmanship - not that I'm suggesting for a moment AS inflicts such on us! That said, I shall be replacing my two aging Airfix-era B sets with the new Rapido ones but I do wish they didn't have so many tiny details which will not be seen, reduce the robustness of the product and merely push the cost up to eye-watering levels. There are other things that drive me nuts. Firebox flicker/glow. What's that about? No fireman would leave the fire door open for long periods and why do diesel or electric locos or MUs always have cab lights lit up. Again, no driver would even think of going out with the cab lights on - all you'd see would be your own reflection in the windscreen that instantly becomes a mirror! Yes, I know DCC enables you to select these functions but not everyone uses DCC either because they choose not to (we like to stick with what we grew up with and understand) or can't afford it. As for the collectors market, again, these details can only be seen either by handling the model (with the risk of said bits dropping off) or displaying them standing on a mirror. Perhaps I'm in a minority here, but I don't get it... As for saying "Nobody has a divine right to purchase any item. If you cannot afford it them probably you are not the target market." I think that's a bit offensive and smacks of superiority over those unfortunate enough not to have huge personal disposable incomes. When I first entered the hobby, around six decades ago, model railways was a hobby that virtually anyone could enjoy - I saved a tanner a week from my pocket money to buy a Triang Jinty - but it seems that today it's rapidly heading towards being only for the likes of Peter Waterman, Rod Stewart, Jools Holland or those with similarly deep pockets. Some may argue that we should wait for these items to come on the second hand market but why should we be denied the opportunity of acquiring, new, robust and affordable models?

Avanti and TPE both have FirstGroup as the major partner so not "foreign owned" unless you regard Scotland as foreign. Abellio have recently sold their UK rail and bus operations to the UK management as they were no longer profitable. Once again, please get your facts right before spouting off.

I can't speak about the Hornby series but I do know that for the Paddington 24/7 series GWR did have the ability to determine what did or did not go into the final edit.

Sadly, I doubt if that question will come up again!

Hull Trains is an open access operator which is free to do want it wants and it succeeds or fails by its own actions - it gets no government support. The same applies to Grand Central and Lumo. As mentioned earlier in this thread, LNER and Northern (along with South Eastern) are effectively state owned as they are managed by the government's "operator of last resort". Paradoxically, they are subject to less rigid control than the supposedly "privatised" TOCs and therefore have more freedom in such matters. As others have said, the TOCs are now just operators who have to get even the smallest decision approved by the DfT and therefore there is no longer any real incentive for them to offer the range of fares they used to. And don't forget, the government's declared aim is to return to a "simple" fare structure which, presumably, means a single fare offered for each journey irrespective of time or day.

Regarding possible overseas markets for Deltics, my sadly departed friend Jim Boyd was of the firm opinion that if any North American railroad tried out the prototype Deltic it would have been the Pennsylvania as they could never resist trying anything that was a " bit different" or an oddball - just look at their early diesel roster. Can't you just picture it in Tuscan red with gold pinstripes working on the New York & Long Branch alongside those CNJ double-ended Baldwins? Jim also used to claim that those railroads that roster Fairbanks-Morse units with their opposed piston engines did so to provide a penance for disgraced mechanics to work on. Just imagine what level of misdemeanour would have to be committed to be given a Deltic to work on... BTW, Jim was an EMD field service representative before becoming a rail journalist so perhaps just a tad biased.

Whilst I'm seeing ads for all sort s of things, I'm not seeing any for Digitrains. I don't know whether I should be relieved of feel I'm being ignored... 😥

I think it was O S Nock who recounts that Collett wasn't impressed by the request to streamline his locos so he sent the office boy out to purchase some plasticine which he applied to a paperweight model loco on his desk and sent it to the drawing office with instructions to "make something like this".

I'm seeing adverts across the bottom of the screen on my PC which weren't there earlier today. I'm Premium and I've checked themes and it's OK.

Well, Mike The Stationmaster will be able to watch the quizzes on BBC2 without missing anything.😊

I didn't hear anything.

In the early years of this century First Great Western, as it then was, did briefly reinstate Motorail between Paddington and Penzance using two modified GUVs but it was not a commercial success conveying as few as 4 cars on some journeys. In addition there was one event that certainly will not have helped the cause. That incident involved an up journey into Paddington, and three cars occupying one of the vans. After loading, all cars of course had to have their handbrakes on, in addition to which scotches were used under the wheels as an additional precaution to prevent movement. The story went that the car in the middle was a very specialist sports car and the member of staff at Penzance loading it did not know how the handbrake worked – and what happened about the scotches seems also to be a mystery. The unhappy fact is that this expensive vehicle spent the entire journey rolling around in the van, smashing into and writing off the two other vehicles (not to mention itself) in the process. Quite how nobody heard all the smashing and banging as the journey progressed is a further mystery. The faces of the people who opened up the doors of the van upon arrival at Paddington can only be imagined, and I dread to think what the reaction of the car owners was!