DY444

Labour pre-1964 GE: We will scrap the Beeching line closures

Labour pre-1997 GE: We will reverse privatisation

Labour now: .....

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice ...

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Which series of The Sweeny had the shot in the opening titles of the pedestrian overpass (long since dismantled) over Shepherds Bush?

That'll be the closing titles of Series 4.  The opening and closing titles were changed for Series 4 and, let's just say, it divides opinion amongst devotees.  Personally I prefer the "classic" tinted stills opening and closing titles used in the first three series and I suspect I'm not alone.

On 30/03/2024 at 11:35, DenysW said:

The knitting  is visually complete (at least) as far as Kilsby Bridge.

 

At the B562 crossing just south of the Junction there's no sign of anything new looking north, but looking south there's some HV stuff, but no wires or pylons.

 

Southwards:

 

 

I travelled out of St Pancras on Friday, and although I could only see the up line, it looked to me as though there were only two sections devoid of wiring.  One just on the London side of Market Harborough (1 wire run missing, maybe 2 at the most) and the very last bit in the area shown in the picture.  A few bridges being rebuilt and the feeder stations/HV stuff to "wire up" but a vast amount of progress since my last trip along the MML a few months ago. 

34 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I’m sorry but 700’s are dull as ditch water..

 

going to London on a grey morning and seeing a grey unit arrive, rammed end to end is not exciting at all.

 

 

tbh the bland blue 701’s doesnt do much for me either…SWR will be duller without its vivid colours.

I agree.  However the point made was that all CD trains are the same type and colour.  Dull they may be but they aint Electrostars and they aint Southern Electrostar Green.

8 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Yes an' no - the former home of the other half of the 455 fleet is certainly a one livery/one unit railway

Not entirely.  Southern does have the red 387/2s operating on the GatEx/Brighton fudge and sometimes elsewhere.  Also, and depending on how you define "railway", the erstwhile Central Division sees 700s and 165s.

13 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Blitz with Jason Statham at the Paddington rail depot with 3rd rail stock

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_(2011_film)

Otherwise known as Stewarts Lane. 

22 hours ago, The Border Reiver said:

I have obtained my late friend's photos who never recorded numbers, dates or locations. The previous slides in sequence were taken in south west England. Now it looks like he headed to the midlands. Thanks to everyone I have narrowed the date to 1981 and as he took his railrover holidays in June the date is June 1981. Now we have two photos seemingly taken at the same location. We have class 20 20087 and another hauling coal and class 56 56047 light engine. Can anyone identify the location?

 

 

22 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Pretty sure these are Burton-on-Trent.  The canopy has gone but those bridges are pretty distinctive.  

It's Nottingham. 

The 20s are where P7 is now. 

The 56 is at the east end.  The pipe bridge visible on the left is still there.

On 22/03/2024 at 22:56, ruggedpeak said:

Interesting business strategy. Lost the JR to the ORR with a clear decision that the ORR is correct. The Jacobite contract expires this year and they can't run the service at all at present. Genius.

 

And now a petition has started to try and get a safety regulator to change its position on a serious safety issue that has already been examined by a High Court Judge. The petition is pretty weak effort. Worrying but not surprising in the social media age that people think safety regulations should be determined by a petition signed by amateurs. 🤣 WCRC could try and boost their credibility by publicly disowning the petition as an inappropriate way to respond to the High Court decision, but I'm guessing that won't happen. 

 

I also hear that Boeing are watching to see if this petiton works in case they can get one to overrturn the FAA restrictions on 737s.....🤪

 

 

I would dispute the assertion that the matter in hand is a "serious" safety issue.  A serious safety issue is Wootton Bassett, those unlicensed clowns that spadded at Stafford, NR connecting signal wires back to front at Wingfield, ditto its cowboy, hacked point wiring at Waterloo, Lumo overspeed at Peterborough etc etc.  The low probability of a slam door coming open or being opened on a single set of stock doing a couple of round trips a day in the summer is a safety issue but not a serious one.

I am a vehement critic of the ORR because I believe it has done far more harm to the wellbeing of the railways than good.  It has systematically redefined the "Reasonably" from ALARP to something no dictionary would recognise.  I would have much greater sympathy with it in this case if it didn't have such an atrocious record of imposing enormous cost for negligible, and in some cases zero, safety benefit. 

Oh and for the avoidance of doubt, the court case did not rule that the ORR was right in insisting that WCRC fit CDL, merely that it had the legal authority to insist that WCRC did.

There's loads of them.   Just in my neck of the woods in S/SW London and off the top of my head there's Carshalton, Wallington, Purley, Coulsdon Town, Raynes Park, Esher, Byfleet & New Haw, Leatherhead, Redhill, Wandsworth Town, Queenstown Road and Vauxhall.

7 minutes ago, JeffP said:

Went to Manchester last week.

Scunny to M60, about 65 minutes.

End of M60 to Portland St, near Piccadilly, another 40minutes.

Even worse coming out.

And don't get me started on bus lanes, one way streets, buses and taxis only etc etc etc.

Is that all?  Luxury.  In the leafy SW London suburbs we recently made the stupid mistake of taking the bus through Worcester Park.  Took 35 minutes to go half a mile.  Always a congested road at the best of times it is even worse now.  Why?  Because it is outside the ULEZ expansion zone but all the roads to the east of it are in the zone.  Improve air quality by increasing congestion.  See also LTNs.  Genius. 

On 20/03/2024 at 08:05, iands said:

First time I've noticed the low-level headlight. Anyone know why the 377/3s don't appear to have them fitted? 

On 21/03/2024 at 12:29, John M Upton said:

 

Not been fitted as part of the Project Aurora upgrade yet. All the 377/1's and 377/4's have been done, the first 377/2 (377202) is due out any day now and when the other 14 377/2's have been done, the 377/3's are next.

 

Anyone seen 377324 around by the way? It seems to have vanished.

In the previous Southern 377 major overhaul programme the 377/3s were the last to be done so I assume the fleet is being done in the same sub-class order as before.

I thought ASLEF's policy was to oppose RDW.  Another example of their principles being expendable when cash is dangled.  See also Thameslink K0 12 car DOO and expansion of Southern DOO.

Imo RDW is an anachronism which should have no place on today's railway and it's about time it was consigned to the bin.  A reliable service is more use to the public than a fairy story timetable so run the service for which you have the headcount.  If that service is unacceptable to the public then ask them if they want to pay higher taxes or higher fares to pay for more staff.  Then proceed accordingly.

I saw a report that the charging rails at West Ealing had been fitted in a position which made it impossible to fit two units in the platform whilst charging.  The rails were going to have to be moved as a result. 

What is it about the railway today which makes it so exceptional at wasting money?  If there is a requirement to fit two units in the platform, which it appears there is, then why on earth was this not factored in at the start?  It's not rocket science and this expensive ineptitude makes my blood boil. 

On 19/03/2024 at 22:35, Railpassion said:

Lots of wonderful models from Heljan, but does anyone else find that after a few months performance becomes erratic due to dirt, dust etc? 

I have Bachmann class 20s and 24s and they have always been smooth tunners for almost 20 years now. I can't say the same for my Heljan class 26/27s. I've had to strip them down for a thorough clean to get them back to initial performance. 

 

Is this common to other members? 

 

Quite the reverse.  I have Heljan 47s from the dawn of time "tubby duff" period which just run and run and run with minimal attention.  My Bachmann diesels from the same period are about due their 3rd major stripdown.  Hornby I've lost count. 

I spent much of my childhood in Derbyshire and it was always going into SR land, particularly the two big London termini of Waterloo and Victoria.  It all seemed so completely different in so many respects to the wide eyed me.

Waterloo with its strange old departure boards, large lettered cubes hanging from the roof from where enormous lines of holiday makers destined for the Isle of Wight, Bournemouth, Weymouth etc would snake across the concourse, the ornate platform barriers with their gates, ocean liner boat trains, class 73, 74, 33 and REPs, and 09s with high level air pipes.

Then there was Victoria.  All the hustle and bustle but for the most part the only train noise was the slamming of doors and the air being dumped by recently arrived emus.  The South Eastern side in particular always seemed immensely exotic to me.  Literally the gateway to Europe with a constant stream of Continental boat trains, MLVs on the stops sometimes on P1, P2 and P8 simultaneously, Class 71s, the Golden Arrow and the Night Ferry.

There were obviously other places that were wholly different.  Doncaster with hoards of kids crowding around every deltic.  Crewe as it was in the 60s and 70s with its curious mix of ancient track layout, diesels, AC electrics and loco changing.  Woodhead.  The WR hydraulics and lower quad signals etc etc.  To me though the SR was a unique world of its own and I loved it.

On 05/09/2022 at 20:15, Ncarter2 said:

The 350 fleet did have modifications to the bogies not long after delivery. They were incredibly harsh to the track, rail was wearing out far quicker than it should. The 450 fleet didn’t, from memory, has the same level of modification, though I would argue they ride a little better. 

The 450s and 444s both had bogie modifications as they were hammering the track to bits.  I have no idea whether the mods were the same as the 350s but the track access charges for both 450s and 444s were reduced after they were done which suggests the results of the mods were significant.

On 14/03/2024 at 10:17, Michael Hodgson said:

So don't use St Pancras - couldn't they build an International Station at Waterloo?

Admittedly that would be a classic modern day railway move.  Abandon Waterloo in 2007, leave it unused for years, spend a fortune reworking it for Waterloo domestic services, then decide to use it for international again requiring another fortune to be spent to undo what you spent the previous fortune on.  Even if you think that's going be approved (which it isn't) then you've got another issue which is that only the few remaining 373s are in gauge for HS1 - Waterloo.  So that needs another fortune to fix.

There's no getting away from one inconvenient truth.  It's St.Pancras or nowhere and although there is no doubting its splendour as a building, operationally it is a disaster.  There are insufficient platforms for any of the service groups that use it.  It might be possible to add additional East Mids platforms to the west and/or Kent platforms to the east but I don't see any way of expanding the international platforms. 

The only thing I can think of is that the 2 unused outer platforms at Stratford become turn round servicing points.  Once all the punters are off an inbound at St. P you work the empties away to one of the two platforms at Stratford.  Cleaning, re-tanking, catering restock etc all take place there, then you work the empties back again to St. P for immediate boarding.  Doing that with a few trains across the day might free you up enough platform space to fit a few more services in. 

On 13/03/2024 at 19:19, Wickham Green too said:

I'm not sure it's possible to run St.Johns to Charing Cross since the last London Bridge revamp !!?! ( Thameslink rather gets in the way.)

On 13/03/2024 at 20:14, Oldddudders said:

Does that apply to New Cross, too?

It is still possible to run St Johns/New Cross - Charing Cross in both directions but it's far easier from an operational perspective in the down direction than the up as going up requires just over a mile on the reversible line 7. 

Although it is reversible, Line 7 is heavily used by down trains so I suspect using it in the up direction would likely be something only done in extremis.

31 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

Thank you (and others) for your comments. I think the situation is that my resident DCC team member (who doesn't use Digitrax on his own layout) has read up on the problem and knows (in theory) what to do when we get to our next show (KEYMODELWORLD) but would just like the reassurance that there might be someone on hand who could be called upon if something goes wrong.

Without knowing what you are proposing to do it is difficult to comment.  However it seems to me that one obvious suggestion is to try the change well before the show ensuring you make a note of the original values of anything you change so you know what to go back to.

There are Digitrax and Loconet fora on groups.io.  Some of the contributors on there know the systems inside out right down to bit and byte level.  

Otherwise I've been using Digitrax since 2000 and know a bit about it and loconet's inner workings so there's a vague chance I may know.  What is the problem?

On 11/03/2024 at 12:39, Pacific231G said:

On Friday, I only saw the train in motion from a service train going the other way but others who've seen it say that it's eerily quiet- far more so than even a normal electric train. I assume this is because of the distributed power.  

 

If it is quieter it will probably be because it only has  one motor per powered bogie rather than the typical two on a UK emu. 

I watched a video of it slowing down on the dynamic brake and it sounded pretty loud to me or at least no quieter than any other emu using the dynamic brake.  Always hard to tell with dynamic brakes how much is motor and how much is blower but I'm assuming the generated power was at least party employed charging the battery and not just being dissipated

14 hours ago, br2975 said:

.

After being purchased by BR 'Falcon' was taken into Swindon Works late in 1970, overhauled and her vac brakes removed and air brakes fitted - I suspect in advance of air braked Mk.2 stock being introduced on the Padd-Bristol route; but unusually she appears to have kept her steam heating..

.

The boiler was obviously retained so it could work with the aforementioned air braked Mk2 stock, and heat it when required, which, as we know, is what happened for a while before it moved to South Wales.

On 06/03/2024 at 17:22, The Stationmaster said:

The IETs'  'alarming crashes and bangs' when traversing pointwork have been a feature since they first entered traffic (and no doubt before that)  but are particularly, and increasingly, a feature of their riding east of Reading on the Main Lines.   The telling thing is that the 'crashes and bangs' are not so frequent or noticeable once you get further west - while still travelling at the same sort of speeds - although the overall riding of the trains, measured in passenger comfort terms, is poor compared not only with HSTs but also compared with the Class 387 Electrostars' operated by GWR.

 

While the 387s ride pretty well the present timetable now has them on the Mains east of Dolphin (or West Drayton in some cases) and there are numerous spots where their riding is a long way from good and at times rather alarming.  Compared with their riding elsewhere - albeit at 90mph instead of 110 mph - this poor riding seems to be very much linked to track condition and the way in which it has rapidly deteriorated east of Reading since the middle of last year.

 

I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that both the IETs and the Liz Line 345s are 'hard riding' compared with earlier BR designed units.  And of course frequencies have increased as well as a result of the addition of Liz Line trains and their frequency forcing the GWR semi-fast Thames Valley trains onto the Mains east of Slough.  Clearly track attention and maintenance simply hasn't kept pace with either the increased use of all running lines east of Reading.  Add to that the seeming lack of ability of current NR staff to understand and properly rectify the huge increase in the number of wet spot breakdowns in the sub-infrastructure below the top ballast and problems are inevitable.

On 06/03/2024 at 17:28, Southernman46 said:

I wonder if that is due to the pointwork E of Reading being the heavier RT60/NR60 design which has larger common crossing gaps than the standard 113lb designs - in my experience, the NR60 stuff always suffered from greater false flange damage, nose deformation, broken cover rail bolts opposite the nose and not a few breakages (Weybridge diamonds)  - and the P8 wheel profile stock (Desiros' etc) always rode hard through it too. 

On 07/03/2024 at 19:22, The Stationmaster said:

Twyford West (aka Lands End to the locals in days of yore) on the Up Main is a particularly n bad one and always has been since the introduction of IETs.

I haven't had the "pleasure" of an IET on the GWML but I've done a handful of trips up the ECML, all on 801s, and the ride was terrible at speed.  It felt like continuous hunting to me. 

I've not been on a bi-mode but I've seen reports that the GU sets can move relative to the vehicle body and make a banging noise when they do.

21 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Who on earth released 802010 to traffic in that state ! ✋

With the whole GWR allocated IET fleet, irrespective of ownership, suffering benefitting from "Japanese levels of reliability" ([c] DfT at contract award), I suspect it's a question of turning out any unit that will actually run.

8 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

So the train's traction batteries have been designed to be repeatedly fast-charged in just 10 minutes, without accelerated degradation? 

 

I only ask because treating the battery on an electric vehicle this way is not recommended, as it shortens battery life.

No they haven't.  The power systems and heat management systems will have been designed to accommodate the power inherent in a fast charge.  The batteries however are still subject to the laws of physics and the properties of the chemical compounds they employ.  Engineers (except those on the NASA Space Shuttle programme obviously) will be familiar with the truism that is the cost, time, quality mantra.  Current technology batteries have a recharge time, charge range, service life equivalent.  You cannot improve one without degrading one or both of the others. 

The optimum state of charge for maximum service life is 20-80% so that chops 40% off your range.  The optimum rate of charge for maximum service life is as slow as possible.  The best service life is thus achieved charging slowly and keeping the state of charge between 20 and 80% so you can't have fast charging and high range if you want maximum service life with present battery technology.  A scaleable battery that offers all 3 is the holy grail and we're not there.   If any routinely fast charged BEMU battery gets anywhere near the claimed battery life I shall be very surprised.