rodent279

The problem with the idea that people will drive to a station and then use a train has always been that once in a car, people prefer to stay in them until they get to where they are going.

Though one question I have is could any coach, with suitable brakes and heating, be coupled in an E-G set, as long as it had RCH jumpers?

Interesting that the TC's were classified in the EMU number series, when really they are hauled stock, and should be numbered as such. Edinburgh-Glasgow push-pull sets were very similar in principle, except they could only be driven from one end, yet they were not numbered out of the hauled stock range, nor, as far as I am aware, were they treated as "units."

Penderyn is nice

Was that ever tested on the mainline? I guess the issue with service use would be platform length. However, shortened 2+5 rakes might have been useful for splitters.

I got a public ticking off on Twitter, from @GWRhelp, for putting up a photo of a pair of 80x's at Padd, and calling them Azumas!

Could the Essex customer be Pilkington, in Harlow? They had a glass factory there, I used to work opposite it.

I don't mind the BeeGees, just wasn't in the mood really.

Detectorists. Suffered the BeeGees live in 1997 for as long as I could, can't stand Mrs Brown's Boys, Jurassic World was bearable until Mrs R entered the room (she doesn't like blood and gore).

First bottle of home brew, looks lively enough.

There are some really nice craft ales available in cabs now. Moor Beer company do a nice one called Orinoco Stout, lovely treacly brew, right up my street.

3 days until I crack open my homebrew! Had some rather nice Innis & Gunn last Saturday, I'd forgotten how good they are.

Presumably because the sand acted as a good abrasive, especially on a greasy rail, and accelerated the formation of wheel flats-can anyone confirm?

Where are the changeover points either side of the Seven Tunnel? I'm guessing Pilning-ish on the English side?

No idea whether it was running on electric power or not, but today, on my cycle to work at Aztec West, I saw for the first time an 80x pass through Patchway station with pan raised, heading towards Bristol. Didn't get a close enough view to see whether it was carrying passengers, and since they are pretty quiet anyway, I couldn't tell whether the engines were running. This was at around 0850.

Whereabouts are they from? That sounds like it's just up my street!

Not currently drinking, but I will be in about 3 weeks!

Why do pantographs need to be modified to run leading pan up? Surely the driver just raises the leading pan?

61% of what? Pollution measured where?

Personally I'm not sure that GWR green, or some slight variation thereof, really works well on modern trains, it just looks too dull. Seems to work ok on water boiling machines, with copper and brass work to set it off, but I'm not sure about modern, flush glazed, plastic finish trains.

Joyous!

At least you can make soup out of a marrow!

Not really. Mk1's have drophead Buckeyes, the knuckle can be dropped, revealing a normal drawhook that can be used with screw link coupling stock.

I believe that a joint committee was set up by the big 4, prior to nationalisation, to look at a range of go anywhere coaches, with a high degree of commonality of parts. I could imagine that what emerged as the BR MK1 isn't that far removed from what would have been produced had nationalisation not happened. Maybe the big difference between each companies vehicles would have been in interior layouts and styles. It doesn't take too much of a leap of faith to imagine similar things happening with diesel procurement-a basic concept agreed on by all 4, with details varying between each company.

Also trying to squeeze a quart sized service into a pint sized infrastructure.