Ron Ron Ron

Adonis is personally responsible for introducing the term "bail out" into the current public discussion over the issue of VTEC and the ICEC franchise. He was the first one to use that term in public. Of course "bail out" can be used to mean several things (e.g. "to help someone out of difficulties), but clearly it is being used here to create an impression that the public purse will be paying VTEC vast amounts of money. This is nothing but a bare faced and cynical political manoeuvre, designed to help feed the current fire over renationalisation. No doubt a large proportion of the ill-informed will just lap it all up. .

It's already here with a couple of those "alternative control systems". The Ring Engineering RailPro system, which is a long way advanced over DCC, has been around for a few years now. The long decoder addresses are tied to the decoder and not re-assigned or re-addressed by the user. As such, the decoder address is usually hidden, because it's of absolutely no use to the user in normal circumstance Instead, the loco name is tagged in both the decoder and control system and the locos are identified, controlled and set-up or programmed, by using their ID name or graphically. Take the loco to another RailPro controlled layout and the loco name will be read by the other host system. Similarly, the BlueRail Trains Bluetooth based system also hides the loco address from the user. Again, it's simply not needed under normal circumstances, as locos are identified, controlled and set-up or programmed, by using their ID name or graphically. The benefits of using loco names and accessing them by that ID or by the graphical interface are already available on several DCC systems, although they still retain the need of a user assigned 4 digit DCC address, as the naming feature is only contained in the DCC system itself. e.g. ESU ECoS Roco Z21 ESU Cab Control Piko SmartControl Viessmann Commander1(discontinued) Viessmann Comander2 Marklin CS2 & CS3 Other DCC systems just have the simple loco naming feature. Some examples..... Roco MultiMaus Roco MultiMaus Pro (discontinued) Bachmann Dynamis (discontinued) Bachmann Dynamis Ultima ESU Navigator (discontinued) Hornby Elite Lenz LH101 (forthcoming) CT ElektroniK HR3/ZF5 Uhlenbrock Intellibox 2 Uhlenbrock Daisy 2 Zimo MX series You'll note that the American DCC manufacturers* don't have the loco naming feature on their systems. Apart from their current offerings just being updated versions of fairly old designs, there isn't such a desperate need when North American loco road numbers are generally 3 or 4 digits long. [*Digitrax, NCE, CVP, MRC (sold in the UK under the Gaugemaster brand)] . .

Reported elsewhere on another forum. Another ADD on the new OHLE yesterday; west of Maidenhead. Not at Class 800 this time, but a Class 387 (387133). Line closed for a safety inspection. .

Both are restricted to a 125 mph max. Both are designed for and capable of 140 mph. .

I agree. It would be a monumental catastrophe. DafT running the whole show and clueless transport ministers (5 minutes in the job) forced into making knee jerk decisions to deal with the ensuing chaos. If they set up a management body (BR mk2), it will be civil service driven and filled with DafT appointees. IIRC, Corbyn and McDonnell have both declared their desire to install union representatives on the management boards of nationalised public bodies. . .

French railways in line for a big shake up..... http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/europe/single-view/view/former-air-france-ceo-spinetta-to-assess-future-of-french-rail-sector.html .

French railway problems.... http://www.france24.com/en/20170801-paris-rail-disruptions-continue-third-day-france-holidays-tourism-transport https://www.thelocal.fr/20171204/train-services-resume-at-montparnasse-station-after-day-of-train-chaos https://www.thelocal.fr/20171123/the-numbers-that-show-frances-proud-rail-service-is-struggling .

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/11/why-german-trains-dont-run-on-time-any-more https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21723447-country-europes-strongest-economy-faces-potholed-roads-and-crumbling-schools-germanys-low http://www.handyshippingguide.com/shipping-news/rail-tunnel-collapse-will-send-shockwaves-through-european-freight-and-logistics-community-for-years_8387 Letter from a German newspaper... A post on the Lonely Planet forum.... From a German business magazine 2 years ago.... .

You could argue there's not much Japanese about these trains though....

Other systems allow a larger number of alpa-numeric characters to be used for Loco naming. e.g. Hornby Elite = 8 characters, Bachmann Dynamis and ESU ECoS = 16 characters, Loco Z21 = ? etc, etc. It still leaves the conundrum of what 4 digit method is used to set decoder addresses, but on many of those systems it's usually academic if loco selection is more easily achieved through the user interface (e.g. by scrolling, loco photos, easily accessible roster lists, search function etc.). .

The Prodigy Advance2 is typical of the older systems produced by American DCC manufacturers. It's pretty much standard that only F2 is non-latching and can't be reconfigured otherwise. In contrast, many modern DCC systems (usually European designs) allow all functions to be user configurable as either latching or non-latching.. Some systems provide individual loco function configurations, for those locos stored in the systems data base. .

The NMRA list of decoder manufacturer ID's is here..... https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/standards/sandrp/pdf/appendix_a_s-9.2.2.pdf These are the NMRA assigned manufacturer ID numbers that will be found in CV8. .

Agreed. The DCC Concepts Alpha Panel (product code: DCD-DAP) is suitable and only costs 17 notes, from a well known Merseyside emporium. .

For guidance on wiring the LA152's ....... http://www.lenzusa.com/1newsite1/Manuals/la152adaptor.pdf .

Also from the same place, posted late on Thursday evening.....

Posted on RailUK Forums tonight..... Was this a failure of OHLE that should have been modified or replaced? .

One of the funniest and nicest couples on the show. Thanks for the laughs. RIP. Ron.

Since the route has been given the OK, there have been a couple of reports on other forums, suggesting that some IET's have had their pans up all the way from PAD to Reading, this week. Example.... .

The regulations have changed and it no longer matters what colour Rudolph's nose is. So it can now be painted (or stickers added) to match Santa's latest Christmas underpants. Merry Christmas and Bah Humbug to you all. Ron.

Mentioned in post no. 2 higher up the page John. ...and to be a boring pedant, it's "XpressNet". Cheers Ron p.s. Without looking it up for myself, is there a limit to the number of socket panels that can be used, before additional power is required for the cab bus (in this case XpressNet)? I'm reminded that the NCE cab bus requires a powered socket panel, after every so many panels in the chain. I note that Michael has 10 such sockets panels marked on his diagram. .

Thanks Simon. It may be unrelated to this incident, but I seem to recall it being reported, that the pre-existing OHLE between Paddington and Airport Jct, would have to be substantially modified or replaced, to accommodate the higher speed running speeds and twin pantographs of the the new IET's. From personal, but limited observation (I don't travel that route much these days) and from video and photographic evidence gleaned from the internet, it would appear that not all of the head spans have been replaced by new structures. It's hard to tell, but it doesn't appear to be Series 1 along part, or most of that section. My question is, just how much "upgrading" has actually been achieved and has some "fudging of the calculations" been done to justify limiting the scope of this work, in order to make cost savings? .

I don't believe it's as black and white, or simplistic as that. Whereas some routes, or regional service provision, would seemingly never make a profit (always loss making and probably need to be continuously subsidised in the future); there are large parts of the network which are profitable, or very profitable. Profitable routes or services, can go hand in hand with good service provision. Indeed, not entirely successful, but according to the recent figures from the last few years, passenger services across the network, average out at around the break even level. The very profitable routes/regions, balance out the loss making services. At a simplistic level, you could say that in principle, the premium payments made to the government by some TOC's, cover the subsidies paid out to the loss making TOC's. Although I doubt it's quite that simple. The TOC's running the profitable franchises can therefore take a profit, whereas the TOC's running the loss making franchises have to be allowed an element of profit (subsidised), to make their involvement viable. In the case of the ICEC franchise (the topic of this thread), it would appear that the facts of the story are being widely misrepresented and misreported, by certain sections of the popular media and by certain politicians and commentators. The ICEC franchise appears to have been profitable, but not profitable enough to generate the extraordinary high level of premium payments due to be paid to the government...and turn a profit for the present operator, VTEC. In the first 2 and a half years of operation, VTEC has handed over almost all of the profit it has made and has met its premium payment commitment. It is reported that VTEC are now running at a loss, in order to service the current level of payments to government....i.e. the route is still profitable, for the tax payer but not for VTEC. The financial predictions show that in the next couple of years, when much higher premium payments must be made, VTEC will neither be able to make those higher levels of payment, nor operate at a profit (ii.e. at risk of going bust). Over bidding, a greedy DfT ? Arguments will rage about this type of franchise model, but I think the problem may go deeper. Could it be that the failing, at a national level, results from treating the rail network as one homogenous mass and looking at its finances that way? What, since privatisation, passenger numbers "seem to be".... ? There's no "seem to be" about it; passenger numbers have exploded at now over double what they were in the mid 1990's Agreed. On the ECML, passenger carrying capacity for the IC franchise, is being addressed in the short term by the introduction of a new fleet of higher capacity trains, with more of them and an increase in the number of services to be provided. What is lagging behind is a number of infrastructure improvements to allow this current plan to be achieved. In the longer term, the ECML would need substantial capital investment to provide extra line capacity. Upgraded, or replacement of the electrification equipment, quadrupling of lines in places, new grade separated junctions (flyovers and underpasses) and some new bridges or viaducts. All very expensive and I think it unlikely that a lot of that will, or can be done, especially in the light of HS2. Therein lies a large part of the answer...HS2, which is expected to take on a large share of the long-haul ECML passenger traffic and (in theory) free up the southern section of the route for more regional, local and suburban services. .