Clay Country

Welcome to RMweb! I like your track plan and you scenic work looks great. It looks like you have a lot of potential for shunting - are you planning to stick with rapido couplings or are you planning to use remote uncoupling (eg Dapol?).

There have been a lot of false starts in the Wabtec 60 saga and we're getting very close to April 1... Great news if it's true though.

The autoballasters were indeed deposited at Hinksey. Could have done with a bit more weight on the train on the first leg, the loco was running so quietly at this point I hardly noticed it approaching.

Last Thursday I had to drive up to London, which (with a very early start from North Devon) gave me a chance to catch my first glimpse of a Colas 70. 70805 passes Shrivenham east of Swindon with the 6M50 07.55 Westbury - Bescot engineers trip.

A couple photos taken on February 7 at Barrow-upon-Trent during a day of photography in the Derby/Burton area which produced seven different locomotive types (including six class 20s) - who says the modern scene is boring? First up, 60079 on the 0918 Hope - Walsall cement Thankfully the light improved for 60054 heading the 1040 Kingsbury - Humber empty fuel tanks

Fantastic images Pete, as a native of Long Eaton they really take me back to my earliest train spotting days. I think the period of 56s on the Lackenby - Corby steel came before the 37/5s arrived and it was very brief. The dip in coal traffic due to the Miners' Strike meant BR had a lot of 56s (and they were still being delivered at this time) that were underemployed, and they found their way onto petroleum and steel trains, this working being one of them. After the strike ended it went back to Thornaby 37s, and refurbished 37s from 1986 onwards.

A visit to the East Midlands over the Christmas holiday gave me a few opportunities to capture some Tug action on the 6M57 Lindsey - Kingsbury tanks. First up, 60059 crossing the River Trent into Leicestershire near Sawley on December 28. 60059 again, passing Attenborough on January 2. 60074 approaching Attenborough Junction on January 3.

Looks very purposeful, especially with the big biomass wagons. I wonder how long it will be before this loco escapes onto other duties.

096 at St Blazey is out in the open and has been since it arrived from Toton, all of those at Crewe are under cover.

The DBS Super 60 programme has demonstrated there's not much wrong with the Mirrlees MB275T that a bit of fettling won't cure, so I'd say a new engine probably isn't really a priority. Higher power output isn't really necessary either as there a few jobs on the UK network that would really test a 60 in its current form. However, it all depends on what the end customer wants to do. They might want an electro-diesel, or a multi-engine conversion. It'll be interesting to see what emerges. I also wonder if this is going to be used to fund further 60 overhauls for DBS, or if they're just offloading a few assets after losing Network Rail NDS work.

According to WNXX GBRf may have an interest in acquiring 10 of them from Wabtec. Whoever buys them it'll be great to see more of these fine locos being put back to work.

The government has totally failed to explain the true costs of this project. The actual budget for the infrastructure for phases 1 and 2 is £28bn, plus a £14bn contingency. That's half the cost of Crossrail, and you have to wonder how much would actually have to go wrong before the last penny of that has been spent. Nobody in government has challenged the assertions currently fixated on by the media - that HS2 should somehow sail past £28bn, through all of its £14bn contingency, and on into the Treasury's £73bn, the IEA's £80bn, or any of the other figures plucked from the air by the project's opponents. I think there needs to be more discussion of how we would get from the £28bn to £42bn and what the actual risks are of exhausting the contingency or going beyond it. The debate about costs is pitched at such a hysterical level that there isn't enough scrutiny of the government's quoted figures and what they really mean.

The £50bn figure includes rolling stock, £42.7bn is for the infrastructure. Incidentally China opened another new high-speed line today, that's four new lines this year alone http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/814156.shtml#.UkRUZMu9KK0 I would also refute the view that the world is "turning its back" on high-speed rail. Expect Brazil, Malaysia, Russia, Denmark, and the USA to join the club within the next decade.

I think a far more constructive position for the Labour Party would be "We intend to keep HS2 costs in check" rather than "We'll cancel it if the cost goes up", a thoroughly defeatist statement which gives the impression that nobody, least of all the country's leaders, is in control of how much this is going to cost. The reality should be quite different. I also wonder if this clumsy way of framing HS2 has been pushed forward to get Labour policy some attention in the largely right-wing press, who seems desperate to sink the project.

Because artificially supressing travel demand isn't broadly considered progressive economic policy, and it's not very popular with voters either. You can dismiss rising demand and say we shouldn't build HS2, but you run the risk that the cost to the economy of doing nothing (or making piecemeal enhancements to what already exists) runs into something rather more substantial than £42bn.

I'm not convinced this is a serious attempt to actually dispose of these locos. Unlike the previous list, which was largely made up of the worst examples, many of the locos on this list were stored with relatively minor faults. Most of those on the current list are in reasonably good condition and some, such as 038 and 096 could be returned to service without a huge amount of work. If the article in the current issue of Rail is anything to go by, DBS is smitten with its overhauled 60s and said it wouldn't let any go at this stage, so either they were bluffing, or there has been a quite radical change of policy, or this is a market testing exercise. The timing of the tender is interesting because it comes as the last of the locomotives on the Super 60 programme is put through overhaul, and with nearly two years of operating experience on refurbed 60s, no doubt DBS is weighing up the viability of extending the programme. I reckon that this latest tender is an attempt to establish a current market value for a class 60, perhaps to show the accountants that there is a business case for further overhauls in the next financial year (and possibly beyond). The previous tender included locos that were subsequently added to the overhaul programme and I wouldn't be surprised if that happened again.

ERTMS would provide limited additional capacity on the WCML but it's not a solution to the north-south capacity problem. As for 140mph running, it might yield a few extra paths if everything on the fast lines runs at that speed, but if you want some of those trains to stop at places like Milton Keynes, that will have an impact on the number of paths per hour. Many opponents of HS2 claim to dislike the idea of whipping out intermediate stops for services on the WCML to accommodate more fast trains, but that is effectively what would have to happen if the existing infrastructure is left to shoulder future demand. Even with everything modern technology has to offer, there are limits to what can be achieved on a 175-year-old railway.

No that would have been a DBS class 66, the 60 was 60001 on a test run from Toton to Peak Forest and back after overhaul.

Cracking work there Kris, I look forward to seeing more.

After another week of hysterical HS2 coverage, when almost every newspaper and TV channel unquestioningly greeted each assessment of the project as entirely factual, I've fired off a letter to the Guardian (which may or may not be published): Alistair Darling’s comments today regarding High Speed 2 (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/23/scrap-hs2-alistair-darling) totally disregard the urgent need to relieve the many bottlenecks in Britain’s railway network, which will come under increasing strain if passenger growth continues in line with forecasts. The issue of capacity is virtually ignored in the HS2 debate, yet this is the principle justification for building a new railway between London and the north. Like many other critics, Mr Darling has proposed scrapping HS2 without putting forward a workable alternative that will ease the pressure on the West Coast Main Line and other north-south transport corridors. Doing nothing or piecemeal enhancements to the existing network are not viable options. As we have already witnessed with the West Coast Route Modernisation, upgrading existing lines to meet this need can only be done at enormous cost with a fraction of the benefits of building a new line. Furthermore, it will involve years of disruption to passengers and freight customers on Britain’s key north-south rail artery with even more construction and financial risk than HS2. Debate on the cost of HS2 is vital for such a strategic project of national importance, but the figures published this week do little to inform that discussion. The Treasury’s reported £73bn total includes inflation – hard to forecast over two years let alone 20 – and VAT, which is described the National Audit Office as “an internal transfer within government rather than an actual cost.” The estimate of £80bn put forward by the Institute of Economic Affairs is only reached by pulling in local transport projects, which have local benefits external to HS2, and in many of the cases there is currently no firm commitment to building these links. HS2 is not about shaving a few minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham or Leeds, it is about building enough rail capacity to meet the increasing travel of demands of a small island where the population will soon hit 70 million and there is a significant economic imbalance between the core and periphery. The inherent problems in Britain’s ageing and increasingly-congested rail infrastructure are a direct result of the chronic failure to invest in a railway that truly reflects the social and economic needs of this country. Whatever Darling may think about the “visionary” schemes of politicians, a vision is exactly what is required if Britain’s rail network is to finally break free of its many historic shortcomings. To me the broader debate seems to have gone totally off track, and largely revolves around who can come up with the biggest number, regardless of how they arrive at it. There needs to be more talk of WHY we need this railway and why the alternatives are/are not viable.

As I was in the East Midlands and the sun was shining, I ventured down to Lockington on the Stenson Jn - Sheets Stores Jn line on Saturday for a shot of the Kingsbury - Humber empties, which had 60020 at the helm. Unfortunately the vegetation is becoming a bit of a problem at this location (like many others), and an encroaching tree to the left of the picture forced me to try a portrait shot.

There seems to be some confusion between commercial speed and design speed. HS2 will be designed for 400km/h, as it may be commercially viable at some point in the future to operate at such speeds so it makes sense to future-proof the infrastructure. Trains will operate at whatever speed is deemed to be commercially viable in 2026, be it 300km/h, 350km/h, or whatever. As for Spain, Madrid - Barceolna services operate at up to 350km/h, although they only tend to reach such speeds to recover time when running late.

Certainly not, but perhaps it should be renamed (fall and rise of the Tugs, maybe?). As we've documented their decline it's interesting to do the same with their revival.

The plans suggest the high level line linking Trent and Toton will be upgraded, with a new link for trains coming from the Derby direction. To me this seems like an opportunity to finally develop a service between Ilkeston and Derby/Nottingham, serving the high-speed station and perhaps with a new station on the high level line for Long Eaton town centre. If an extension of the tram from Toton Lane to the new station is also on the cards it would make sense to at least plan for a short extension to Long Eaton as part of the work, as this would give the town a direct connection to the new station and improve public transport links with the western fringe of Nottingham.

Fantastic layout Kev. I love the cricket match, gives it a nice summery feel!