Vanders

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-41066172

While not a level crossing, it was a crossing. See if you can work out how it happened. I bet that was a surprise, and I hope the person responsible wasn't too badly injured.

One fully commissioned you'll be able to bring a stopper into platform one, a South Wales into platform two and have them depart at the same time, whilst bringing in one onto platform three or four from the tunnel lines.

Perhaps most importantly, the platform numbering will finally make sense 

What a mess.

I think you meant "What a great market driven solution that delivers efficiency savings and value to both shareholders & taxpayers".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-essex-41014353/foolish-level-crossing-hopping-learner-driver-convicted

 

Surely the <qualified driver> should have been penalised too though?

Interestingly, if you watch the video the car following (that she subsequently reverses into) also crosses the stop line with the lights flashing & the barriers lowering, with what appears to be a clear intention to try to make it across. Indeed, they appear to reverse a little when they realise the barrier is about to lower onto their bonnet. I'd hope the Police also spoke to them, too.

Ok, we get it, we really do. You're a bitter remoaner who thinks anyone who shows a modicum of national pride is a backwards looking colonialist who longs for the days when Britannia ruled the waves and the sun never set on the British Empire. That's fine, you can think whatever you like, but please let those of us who are interested in discussing the subject of this thread do so without repeating your politically driven views ad nauseam, because it's getting a wee bit tedious frankly.

As someone who has "Remain" written through their very core, I'd just like to say that I am immensely proud of the UK's new carriers, and I am very glad that we continued to build HMS Prince of Wales through to completion & operation. The two concepts are not orthogonal, after all.

Back on topic I'd known that the Russians tend to uh, go a little over the top with their carrier defence, but the diagrams above very heavily underline that! I do wonder that the Russian Navy will do once the Kuznetsov finally bites the bullet: even by Russian standards it can't even be that far away from terminal end of life, surely?

Whilst I don't have a major problem with first class on the very long distance services, although I've never understood why there is so many first class coaches on the bearded twits Pendolino's...even with the 11 car sets. I've never understood the need for first on the short and medium distance services as many of the medium distance services...say Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton, Sheffield and Doncaster to London can also now be considered commuter services being only about an hour & a bit away.

As someone who has semi-regularly done Bristol-London...no. It's long enough that having 1st, and being able to get a decent seat with a decent table, and set up my laptop and get some work done for 1.5 hours in relative quiet & comfort, is well worth the extra ticket price.

I'll note that some of the anti-1st class comments I've seen elsewhere have a certain air of sour grapes about them, with a bit too much "Well, why should they get to enjoy 1st class!?" for me to take them seriously.

The new Maliphant St Depot is now looking like a massive White Elephant! What a waste of money!

Well, the IEP sets will still run to Swansea, so the depot will be used. It does possibly win the award for "Most isolated 25kV wiring on the British Rail network", though.

There is a valid argument that parts of the WCML will reach saturation (if they haven't already) and that additional capacity is needed, but building a very high speed railway (in UK terms) just to take 30 minutes off the journey times is arguably not the way to go in a country as small as ours. 

If you are going to build a new line, you may as well build the fastest line you can. The civil engineering is eye-wateringly expensive for both options, and at the end you're just haggling over a few million here or there between the two options.

I'd like Amber Rudd to prove she isn't a moron before passing any more legislation.

After seeing her understudy for Theresa May in the debates, I think she's already failed that test.

I think I'm going to need some kind of sensor light near the end of each siding so I know when I'm close to the home buffers, or I'm going to have some serious train crashes! Maybe have three lights that light up in turn as it gets closer to the buffers. Unless I can gauge it depending on how many coaches have entered the train shed.

Lots to consider!

MERG have a bunch of Train on Track & various other type of detectors you could take a look at.

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/final-result-crossrail-heads-terminal-5/

What's more interesting is the map with "Paddington (High Level)" on it. I'd never considered it like that before, but yes now they require the distinction!

The footbridge with escalators I'm standing on here in 1978

Now there's a view I remember well. It barely changed in the proceeding 20 years, right up until the day work started on Cabot Circus!

Did the escalators on that bridge ever work? In the 8 years I lived in Bristol, along with visits before and since, I don't remember ever seeing them move.

They definitely worked in the early 80's. Or worked occasionally in the early 80's. I remember using them with my mum and grandmother when I must have been 4 or 5. We were probably going to Hurwoods.

Do you know what we have a distinct lack of, in both N & OO? Cranes. A nice Cowans Sheldon 30T or if you want to really push the boat out, how about one of the converted Warwells with a crane built onto the well?

Paddington platforms 1 and 2 yesterday:

I'll take the one on the left, please. Do you have a second one to match?

I say arguably because the GWSR could also legitimately be described as such, though they're seemingly not aiming at the main line feel that the GCR is

I think the GWSR have been fairly careful with their alignment, with an eye towards double track running at some point in the future. Rebuilding north of Broadway and reconnecting to the main line will almost certainly be their next big challenge, though, so it's going to be a long way off yet.

I would think HAL are unlikely to try and upset anybody too much, or at least not to the point that any Ministers or especially DfT get involved. That 3rd runway is still a little tenuous, especially with a General Election looming.

EE Type 4's, Presflos, interesting trackwork...this is ticking some serious boxes!

The slip is the giveaway. I used to photograph class 40's squeeling over it whilst running round cement trains from Northenden, 

40's too?! I don't suppose you happen to have any of those photographs, do you?

Looks like you're onto something there! https://youtu.be/wUXEzj33mFU?t=91

(If you haven't come across Scarfolk yet, and serialism isn't your thing, then just try to ignore the actual content of the image!)

This is probably a long shot, but can anyone identify the location in this Scarfolk poster? I really quite like the single slip out of the siding/loop onto what appears to be a main line, but I can't imagine that was particularly common?

Slightly OT, but were the end communication doors on modernisation plan diesels ever used in normal service?

I knew this rang a bell: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/49391-diesel-nose-gangway-doors/

Slightly OT, but were the end communication doors on modernisation plan diesels ever used in normal service?

I believe the doors on the 21's were used semi-regularly, if for no other reason that they were so unreliable it wasn't unusual for the second man to have to climb all the way back to the 2nd loco to deal with it.

The long term plan is to get hold of what was the old BP site at Furzebrook but negotations are still ongoing.

Wouldn't that be contaminated, and thus expensive, land?

Thanks Graham. Could I ask, as a supplementary stupid question, do you thread a long length of rail onto one side of the bases and then thread the second rail to match, or do you thread both rails at the same time, alternating between the two and evening things up as you go along?

When I built fiNetrax plain track, I slide each sleeper base moulding onto a pair of rails; trying to thread a rail all way through a long length of chairs would probably require quite some force because of the friction involved, and keeping it all (relatively) square and straight would probably be very difficult.