rodent279

The first two withdrawn were 001 & 020, in Jan 1980, though I believe in fact they had been out of traffic since 1978. Depending on exactly when they went blue, they may have lasted under a decade in traffic in blue, & about the same time in green.

Quick question, I know the genral subject of first/last etc into BR blue has been done to the death on here. When was the first Deltic repainted into blue? At a guess, 1967? cheers N

The EU does not require us to franchise out our railway system. It simply requires separation of infrastructure from operations for accounting purposes, and open access to the network. I think, in theory at least, infrastructure & ops could actually be under one roof, as long as the accounting lines were separate, and access to the network was granted on a free and fair basis to all comers. In other words, Railtrack could have existed as a subsidiary of the BRB, with IC, NSE, Scotrail, RR & the freight sector all being separate subsidiaries of the BRB, and access being granted to other outside operators such as GBRf. All of this is entirely academic really, but it does show that the franchise system we have is only one possible model.

I've seen that done at New St, maybe not quite in 5 min, but something very close. Not on different ends either, on the same end. Commonplace on the Continent, engine swaps are routine and seem to happen very slickly and efficiently.

How far does a rail have to move out of gauge before a derailment is likely to occur? Put another way, how much movement from "standard gauge" is allowable, in a low speed terminus road like this. Understandably you'd want to permit less on a high speed main line, but on a road such as this, how much is allowed?

The rules won't be any different. We'll either be in it, or we won't, we just won't have any say.

You think Paddington has problems? <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Funiladmag%2Fvideos%2F2916452238377816%2F&show_text=1&width=560"width="560" height="562" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>

Yes, I've seen that somewhere too. And don't forget that the UK's rail franchise system has been the model for many in Europe.

Ta!

Why? Not sure I understand that. Is/was there not a German ICE derivative offered in bi-mode?

Presumably, with Railtrack hived off as a separate entity, BR itself could have continued as a train operator. That is pretty much what DB has done. In a lot of Euroean countries, there is one national, state owned operator, and a multitude of smaller regional operators, some local government run, like our PTE's, some private enterprise.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a wheeltimber? Is that what I would call a longitudinal sleeper?

So no >200km/h on lines not specially built for high-speed in Europe as far as we know? I raise this because the difference between upgrading & electrifying an existing mainline that is the thick end of 200 years old, and building a new railway dedicated to high speed passenger trains, is that it is possible on new build lines to keep the contact wire at a virtually constant height above rail level. That will be much more difficult on an existing railway, if not impossible. I think on the WCML the allowable height variation is something like 4ft.

I've had more problems using Scottish pound notes in England! Annoyed the hell out of a Bristolian taxi driver. He was fairly adamant he couldn't take the Clydesdale £10 I offered him, until I said it's that or nothing.

Passengers? Are you kidding? There wouldn't be any-problem solved!

Is there any running at over 200km/h in Eurpoe that is NOT on specially built high speed lines? Genuine question-I don't know.

To get back on topic-how often would a stretch of platform road at a major terminus such as Paddington require renewal? Could some of that track potentially have been around since the real GWR was in existence?

Loyalty is rarely rewarded or respected these days. I think as important as experience is an ability and willingness to learn, and (a large dose of) flexibility & adaptability. No one likes a smart arse, so if you've any sense, you listen to those around you.

They might look over engineered, but I'd like to see how they compare weight-wise with the gantries used on the WCML. Also, they might be easier to manufacture, they look like they are one piece extrusions.

That's it then. We're stuffed..............

That is good management. The sort that gets people on side.

Ah, I seee..... I must admit I can see her point-the ER guard shouldn't have sold her the ticket, but that's easy for me to say, without a Mrs Bouquet (or maybe Ena Sharples?) type figure harassing me! Equally, as you say, from his point of view it was probably easier to just give her what she wanted to shut her up, & move on to the next carriage. What is this thing....BIRO...you speak of? Did they not carry a tablet?

It's all very sad, and deeply disturbing for the future of the railways, because there clearly is a lot of work to be done before the politicians will commit to major investment again.

Now I'm no electrification engineer, and I'm not challenging what you say in your post-but just because the girders that form the headspans look the same, surely that does not mean the whole OHL system is the same? To put it another way, what is wrong with the Swiss installation in the first pic, that makes it not suitable for the UK? (apart from the obvious different insulator size resulting from SBB's 15kV system). (Nice Krokodil by the way, always loved those locos!)

Just out of curiosity-how on earth does one sell a ticket to a place that has never had a railway?