The Stationmaster

On the model railways section of their site it says - 'SAVE 20% on all in-stock items for TT:120 and Collector Club members this weekend ONLY!' Assuming their English is correct (yes, I know) that means that this weekend anyone can get 20% off in-stock TT120 items. And that Collector Club Members can get 20% off any Collector Club items which are in stock. Of course that might not be what they meant to say but it is what they have written.

Lovely stuff Nidge - the new bracket structure for a colour light signal is also in position at the west end of Platform 9 and there w are what look like a couple of point machines roughly where they will finally be fitted but not much evidence of anything else except the panel 'box structure itself. The Reading scheme was installed by direct labour for all the outside work so took a comparatively long time to produce much in the way of visible results on the ground so I suspect it it may well be mid- late Summer of 1964 when the photo was taken. Good to see also that visible alongside, but at street level below, the bracket signal on the right is the long since demolished venue for my lunch time game of bar billiards. It is rather salutary to look at that picture and think just how little what is visible in it is still there today. From a fairly quick assessment all that remains is Reading Bridge House - the large tower block towards left background and the original station building with its clock tower. Everything visible in this photo to the left of the railway boundary has gone and apart from Reading Bridge House. Everything outside the railway boundary on the south, right hand side, has gone - the main road under the bridge now has four lanes and the lane, Abattoirs Road, alongside the railway is still there. On the other side all that remains are possibly some of the trees visible at extreme left above the signal works. However the higher ground in distant left hand background is largely unchanged. The railway, including the underbridge, is unrecognisable although the Down Main (as it was then) is still in the same place as are some parts of the layout leading to the bays against the right hand boundary. And of course the viewpoint - Reading Main Line West, the largest signal box on the GWR is also long gone.

I wonder what rostering system that was based on? With a 38 hour week covering three 8 hour shifts there is a need for Rest Day Relief to cover 6 more hours per week than is required with a 40 hour week. This is readily achieved by putting an extra Rest Day into the roster cycle - in other words the regular staff still work 8 hour shifts and do 5 shifts per week but each person accumulates 2 hours per week to be covered by an additional Rest Day giving a total of 5 Rest Days in a 4 week roster cycle. The Rest Day Relief also gets a 5th Rest Day in the 4 week cycle and this what drives the cost increase resulting from reduced working hours as it means that overall the number of posts an RDR can cover will be slightly reduced. General Purpose Relief would still work on the original basis of one per every 8 posts but that would vary depending on amount of leave and estimated sickness required to be covered. But it still means that you only need a base of 3 people plus an RDR (actually part of an RDR) to cover the Guaranteed Week of 3 daily 8 hour shifts Monday - Saturday. Which takes me back to my opening question. If you work a traditional roster Sunday is outside the Guaranteed Week and the turns are covered by a combination of either 12 hour shifts or 8 hours shifts with the latter meaning a higher frequency of Sunday turns and more double backs on short (8 hour) rest. But if you include Sundays in the full rostered week and regard them as part of the Guaranteed Week you immediately create an additional 24 hours needing to be covered on the basic roster and you increase the shortfall of available hours to cover them - so you need more staff. This is one of the sometimes missed implications of what used to be called on BR 'Continental Rostering' - the instant you make Sunday part of the Guaranteed week you need more people to cover the same amount of work. Having over the years managed numerous supervisory and Control Office staff covering posts on a 3 shift (in most cases) 7 day per week basis the 5th Rest Day in a four week cycle was inevitably how we achieved 24 hour cover with people working a 38 hour week. Deciding who got a share of the Sundays was sometimes a far bigger headache and source of argument - at one place I even had to put into the Local Agreements a definition of which day of the week Sunday was (i.e. was it the first or last day of the week?)

As mentioned above that is what has passed through my mind. It could be a way of increasing First Half revenue depending on where the money is allocated once its paid or equally it would help the less than brilliantly performing Second Half's revenue if taken to account when it is paid and not backdated to the pre-order date. On the other hand it might just be a 'come on and buy quick' approach to get some sales boost before the AGM. But whatever it is, assuming it is real, it still seems an odd way of approaching what they are saying is a price sensitive market place (or is it only price sensitivity as far as Hornby items are concerned?).

Most likely one of the Old Oak 'excursion/specials' sets of which I think at least two still existed at that time. (They were withdrawn from Old Oak once the Inter City Special Trains Unit took over responsibility for them in the first half of the 1980s,)

He was on the 'Castle' Nidge. I forget who was on the 9F

Possible answers - 1 Somebody in NR's PR machine doesn't understand the legal requirements in respect of construction and maintenance of railway boundary fences (which is completely different from the requirement in respect road boundary fences etc), or 2. Tortoise proof fencing is considered to be the landowners responsibility, or 3. As on our local branch, the actual fencing situation deviates so much from the legal requirements that the nearest fence to the railway has been put there by someone other than the railway and they have not maintained it, or 4. Again as on our branch (and the certain part of the GWML) the fence line is so totally surrounded by, and buried within, undergrowth that nobody really knows what is there or who owns it and there might be an assumption that it might well have been fenced beyond the railway boundary by the land owner. The choice is yours but No.1 strikes me as a good bet.

Absolutely agree. But that does sound far too much like common sense for most politicos and a substantial chunk of the Civil Service to buy into. Simple fact is that without Phase 2A the ill-named HS2 doesn't really make very much sense as it still desperately fails to tackle capacity problems on the WCML. As far as 'public money' s concerned what we are actually talking about in respect of this new line is the interest on borrowings, not capital sums.

It varied but usually the stock was left in the sidings for the week. However just sitting there for a week wasn't too bad when you consider that lots of stock sat in sidings for 40 or more weeks and was only rolled out for summer peak Saturday workings. Hence some things which offered some very big savings when they came under the eyes of 'the Good Doctor'.

Which, seemingly by common consensus, provided the best ride for passengers on the entire trains. I certainly never found the riding bad in the power cars although I never travelled in one of the trailers. Amusing remark from an Old Oak Driver talking of theHST. 'I wonder why they decided to withdraw our Pullmans to replace them with these?

The 2,000 hours plus situation was covered when it arose - give 'em the money. A number of the Group 1 Drivers went over the top although by then it was set figure, not a range. in fact you couldn't calculate an establishment for many jobs, particularly traincrew, on a range so there had to be a set Annual Hours figure. But by far and away the biggest problem for traincrew information was actually recording the hours as the system intended to do it (and umpteen other things) was a computing fail of the usual worst sort - poorly spec'd, development given to an inexperienced company, then umpteen cost variation invoices submitted by the software company. A few months after my arrival at Eurostar I was duly tasked to review where that project had got to and where it was capable of going. It was quickly evident that without spending a lot more money there wasn't a chance of getting anywhere near the original spec and, even worse, if that money was spent there was no guarantee that the software developers could deliver what was required. So the work was stopped and the contract cancelled on my recommendation and we took delivery of what had so far been completed - which actually could tot up hours worked and 'sort of' be used for rostering but couldn't do anything else which had been in the original spec. But in fact getting to a proper spec was exceedingly difficult and I looked at various systems already in use in the UK or being offered to potential UK customers. I finally found a company which understood how the required functionality would need to be handled using relational databases. But their proposal was rejected on cost grounds. After left a group of directors decided - after a trip to Saudia Arabia to see it working - to buy a system I had previously rejected as totally inadequate. Of course they didn't ask the people who had to use it or be rostered using it and it was dumped after abput 6 months. Strangely the Directors could have gone to Swindon to see the original version of that software where it was being used for rostering BA flight deck and cabin crew. Presumably a trip to Saudi was more attractive than one to Swindon? The company's proposal rejected on cost grounds would have achieved the full functionality that was needed and the developers actually understood what the spec meant. Incidentally the figure of 7 to cover 3 post sounds excessive. On the Western we used a 2.8 divisor for Drivers' establishment calculation - u i.we. the number of Diagram Days was divided by 2.8 to give the required establishment to cover assuming 8 hour turns and a 40 hour week. With rostered leave that meant ona full establishment that we never needed overtime or Rest Day Working to cover booked work and the nromal level of specials. If a depot had an unusually high level of specials then 2.7 was used.

They're Lows, not Conflats.

As Hornby seem to have recognised that one of their sales problems resulted from price resistance it dies seem a biyt odd t be increasing prices as they run into what allegedly could be one of their busiest times of year. I wonder if the price rises are going to be selective and won't apply across the board to their whole model range? PS As the message gets it around it will presumably increase their First Half pre-orders - just a thought

Regrettably not. i think we simply used one of the available Old Oak sets. I don't think the stock Circuit No. was shown on the Notice and i didn't keep a copy of it so can't check.