rodent279

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?

So, if the posts are evey 50m, I could have mistaken a whole km for an xx.95, or xx.05? I'll have to do some working out, but it may explain the wavering between 257 & 276km/h, if I was recording times over 900m, or 1100m. Not that it matters now, it's 33 years ago!

I have always felt that one of the original motivators for privatisation, from the politician's point of view, is that it was an exercise in blame shifting. Bad news about the railways can be blamed on private operators/NR, not the Minister of Transport.

If there's any sense in this barmy fragmented railway system we have, then I would hope that the cost to NR of the disruption, and of restoring full service, will far outweigh the cost of closing the necessary platforms and carrying out whatever remedial maintenance & repairs would have been required to avoid the incident in the first place.

It's the same in a lot of sectors of industry-you get trained to the level you need to do your day to day job. Anything else, giving you a broader understanding, is deemed not cost effective. I have been trained several times on a lovely radio planning package in the last 4 years, the last time in Jan 2016. Not once had I used it in anger, until suddenly, at the beginning of July, I was called upon to provide some a/l cover. I had to dive right in & use said software with 2 days notice, and though it does come back to you, I just don't have the experience using it to fix problems, or even spot them in the first place. Similarly with a piece of mapping software-I've used it, but not for 3 years, not been trained on it, and I can't even justify getting either software package installed on my laptop, because I "don't need it for my everyday job." But a bit of coverage planning going tits up does not have the potential kill dozens of people within minutes. I have travelled on trains since I was a child, many times, way more than the average person, been on more HST's than I've had hot dinners. I'm pretty battle hardened, and been on some rough old mk1 bangers that rattled and banged about like nothing else on earth. Been over some rough track too, once going through Hemel at speed in a Mk1 on a Cobbler to Northampton, the bounce as we went over the crossing lifted a large chap out of his seat! So I consider myself pretty used to noises and rough riding-I drive a Morris Minor, I don't scare easily! I have never got off a train because of noise or rough riding-until about 3 weeks ago. I was on a Swansea HST, from Reading. I was in the TGS, right behind the power car, where I usually sit. The rhythmic banging and clattering coming from beneath, clearly speed related, really did worry me. It really sounded like something was loose. My thoughts were "if this is going to be the next Eschede or Hatfield, I have no intention of being on it", and I baled at Swindon. To my untrained eye, all looked ok from platform level, the train continued on it's way, and unless there's been the biggest cover up since Iran-Contra, nothing untoward happened. Maybe I'm just getting soft, and more risk-averse, in my old age?

And separation of infrastructure from ops is done throughout Europe very successfully, the big difference is that most of the rest of Europe has not split up and literally dis-integrated, as in the reverse of integrated, their state operator.

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Nope, and I suspect that is his game plan. When all the chickens come home to roost, he'll be safely out of the way drawing his pension.

That is the sort of story that nowadays the Daily Mail/Sun/Express would be all over, and calling for heads to roll.