DY444

What a bizarre argument that improving journey times between two disparate places somehow makes them morph into a single entity. I must remember that the next time I go to the picturesque French town of Ashford. And by the same token I presume your trans-Pennine HS line would mean that Yorkshire becomes part of Lancashire and Merseyside becomes part of Greater Manchester. Somehow I think not. Historically there has always been plenty of all day demand into London from the provincial cities. Attempt to walk through the vast crowds which swarm onto Westminster Bridge any day you like and you'll hear accents from every corner of the UK. The idea that somehow HS2 was all about letting Brummies work in London was never true and as London has seen the biggest percentage drop in commuting then it is unlikely ever to be. You only need to venture onto those quiet country thoroughfares the M1 and the M40 to see what the north south travel demand is. They aren't all going to work.

You're conflating the intention with what actually happened. The intention was to add additional trains to the fleet and carry out a heavy overhaul and refurbishment of the 373s. Thus an order was placed for the additional trains (374s) with Siemens. However when the heavy overhauls of the first 373s began and they were stripped right down, it was discovered they were in far worse condition than expected, especially the power cars, and needed a lot more work than had been allowed for. The cost of this extra work was of such a magnitude that the whole viability of the project was re-examined. This led to the decision to flip the whole thing on its head and order more 374s to form the core fleet with a handful of the better condition 373s going through the refurbishment and heavy overhaul programme to provide the extra capacity (and legacy route availability where needed). So as I said, we ended up here because the 373s, especially the PCs, were knackered. Far more knackered than Eurostar thought at the beginning, but knackered nevertheless. Not realising that a train is in far worse condition than you thought until you completely strip it down is quite common and has put a spanner (or another spanner) in the works of many a rebuilding or refurbishment programme.

I'm only changing history if you believe the RG. And tell me about this expanded route network. You mean a couple of trains a day to Amsterdam? So you're saying that they scrapped the majority of the 373 power cars when they were in perfectly serviceable condition? That really makes economic sense. Trust me the PCs were knackered. There were plenty of other cheaper ways of expanding the fleet if retaining all of the 373s was economically sensible. Buy a handful of 374s, do a swap around with SNCF's internal 373s, use the NoL sets. But no, they did the one thing that makes absolutely no sense at all if all of the 373s had a low cost long term future. Of course they did.

I've had a few trips on the line now and have noticed a little quirk. On the JLE the position the train stops relative to the PEDs varies slightly from train to train and station to station. On the EL it appears to be always the same position which is with the centre of the train doors about 150mm short of the centre of the PEDs. Every journey I've done it's been the same at every station. It might just be a coincidence but I also noticed it on one of the youtube videos too. I wonder if it will start to vary as time goes on? Not at all important but the sort of trivia I notice.

The 373 power cars were by and large, to use a technical expression, totally knackered, plus the build quality wasn't great to start with. For instance, I was fortunate enough to have some cab rides back in the day when they weren't that old and recall a torrential downpour in northern France which resulted in water pouring in through the roof of the equipment compartment. In short the whole lot needed very extensive and extremely expensive heavy overhauls to be able to continue much longer. It was decided the money would be better spent on a replacement fleet with a handful of 373s overhauled to provide reserve capacity and the ability to run to some destinations where 374s didn't have, or were unlikely to get, approval. Eurostar's relationship with Alstom didn't alter anything with respect to the 373s because their condition meant something needed to be done about them anyway, be that total replacement, heavy overhaul or a combination of the two. Eurostar, unsurprisingly, went for the lowest whole lifetime cost option. Alstom, possibly complacent as a result of their (at the time) unofficial SNCF favoured TGV supplier come what may status, offered a more expensive package.

Yes it's definitely a straw man argument because signalling systems/signallers have never ever caused collisions between trains or caused derailments have they? What difference does it make what the cause is? If two trains collide at a given speed the effect is the same no matter what was responsible for that collision.

Ok - well you live and learn. My fault for believing what the help desk told me about TfL rail services! I tend not to look at the TfL validity maps because I find them pretty useless as they are very colour blind unfriendly and TfL have repeatedly refused to change them despite many requests.

I was thinking more of it burning than exploding. Either way it's potentially a moot point because rumour has it that there isn't much industry interest in it here.

Blimey, I'll try. There are either 2 or 3 types of Freedom Pass depending on how you define the term. There is the Disabled Freedom Pass, the Elderly Freedom Pass plus the Oyster 60+ Photocard, which isn't officially categorised by TfL as a Freedom Pass but when you touch in on a bus for example the display says "Freedom Pass" and in practice it is exactly the same as the Elderly Freedom Pass in terms of validity. In summary the validity is: All 3 are valid on non-TfL rail services out to Zone 6 but not before 0930 M-F. The Disabled Freedom Pass is valid on all TfL services at any time. The Elderly Freedom Pass and 60+ Photocard are not valid on TfL services before 0900 M-F, and not valid beyond Zone 6 on TfL rail services except to Watford Jn via the DC line. *There are a handful of cases which are different such as Chiltern to Amersham, C2C to Upminster and validity to Dartford but the above is generally true. So on my earlier example about different validities to Reading: My wife has a Disabled Freedom Pass so can travel to Reading on the Elizabeth line whenever she likes. I have an Elderly Freedom Pass so I can't use the Elizabeth line beyond West Drayton (Zone 6 boundary) and I can't use the Elizabeth line before 0900 M-F. Info here: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel Prior to the financial spat between the Mayor and the Government, the Elderly Freedom Pass and 60+ pass were valid on TfL services at any time although the zone restriction was the same as it is now. The morning time restriction is as a result of the bailout, or if you like the Government has singled out and specifically penalised the elderly in London over TfL's funding shortfall, which, as I alluded to earlier, hasn't exactly gone down very well. EDIT. It seems I was wrong about the Zone 6 restriction on Elderly Freedom Pass. The time restrictions are right though.

I know Germany has hydrogen trains and isn't bothered about it. Germany also doesn't have an especially stellar rail safety record either. Imo a hydrogen fire on a train is inevitable; its just a matter of when. Anyway let's start by not picking and mixing situations. I'm talking about hydrogen powered passenger trains as nobody, so far as I am aware, believes hydrogen has any relevance to the propulsion of freight trains. That means tank wagons and petrol are irrelevant. I did do chemistry at school but that was half a century ago and I've forgotten almost all of it but I believe if faced with a choice of leaking high pressure hydrogen or leaking diesel fuel, most people would opt for the latter. Are these "experts" talking about road vehicles per chance? If so they probably haven't considered the huge amount of energy in many rail mishaps. Would you really bet the farm on hydrogen vessels and their associated pipework surviving wholly intact from some of the types of incidents we've seen in recent years? I don't think I would and if it doesn't then you're looking at an almost guaranteed inferno.

Do I detect in this announcement the first signs that the "engineering is too difficult" contagion which is plaguing England and Wales is now spreading to Scotland? This whole thing smacks of wanting to avoid at any costs coming up with a plan to tackle the gargantuan elephant in the room which spans the Firth of Forth. I speak as someone who has a feeling that BEMUs are going to prove to be a very expensive mistake (assuming any actually get delivered).

"Freedom pass" is a collective term like "Railrovers" and they don't all have the same validity. For example both my wife and I have Freedom passes; my wife's is valid all the way to Reading whereas mine is only valid as far as West Drayton. In a wider context there is quite a lot of anger in London about the restrictions placed on some Freedom Passes as a condition of the various interim financial settlements. It's a different kind of levelling up; depriving people in the capital of something they've enjoyed for many years. The irony being that those most affected coincide with the demographic in London historically most likely to vote Tory. In short, a pointless p*****g contest between regional and central Government where everybody loses.

Am I the only one who is concerned about the safety of hydrogen in a derailment or collision?

Not my definition of national infrastructure projects. And anyway "Greenham Common ladies" made precisely no difference whatsoever. The missiles were removed from there because Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty not because of anything protesters did.

Oh and talking of protestors, I was reminded by a piece in a recent Modern Railways that in the 1970s a number of influential French organisations and commentators condemned the plans to build the first LGV line as "a waste of money", "a vanity project" and "a white elephant". Any of that sound familiar at all? I wonder if they still think that now? Probably not would be my guess.

Perhaps you'd enlighten us by citing a single example where these small groups of seemingly the same characters have actually stopped a national infrastructure project on which construction has started. If there are any at all then it will be a very small list which brings futile to mind. Their connection with facts is also generally very tentative. I've never understood how annoying and inconveniencing everybody else does anything but alienate the wider public to whatever their cause is. A green lobby that opposes electric railways tells me all I need to know about these people.

In practice though Thameslink very rarely (if ever) reverse on the running lines at Wimbledon West. They almost always reverse in platform 9 even if by doing so it delays another service. In 319 days the excuse was that a driver couldn't change ends on an 8 car without going onto the ballast. There is no such excuse for 700s but they still do it in the platform.

I think you misunderstand what I mean by real time and non-time critical. Obviously if a bank goes off line for several hours or days that is a major business problem but if a transaction gets delayed by a few seconds or a few minutes or even a couple of hours in some cases it might cause some inconvenience, it might even cost the bank money and/or reputational damage but it is unlikely to generate a lasting, serious, life threatening or life changing situation. By contrast if a military defence system goes off line for even a few minutes the consequences could be catastrophic for the country. I've done backup systems for both and they are definitely not the same. In the case of railway signalling, stale data is largely useless; in the case of a bank, transactions are still generally valid and able to be processed some time after they were created. That's the distinction I draw.

That doesn't actually matter because if you wanted to make provision for ROC A to be able to take over ROC B then you'd need a set of standby workstations anyway for ROC B's area as you'd still need ROC A's own area workstations to be operational. However, overall the whole idea is a non-starter unless you want to spend very, very serious amounts of money, and that's assuming you design it in from the start; the cost becomes stratospheric if you try to bolt it on afterwards. The comparison with banks etc is not really valid as real time safety critical control of distributed specialist hardware using bespoke workstations is a whole different ball game to non-time critical transactional processing. I've done system design for disaster backup for both in my career and they are chalk and cheese.

They've just withdrawn 46 x 4 car units, which is conspicuously more than most operators. It seems to me you're only going to be happy when every train has its length tailored to the number of passengers on offer. I travelled on an Epsom - London Bridge service just after the morning peak last Wednesday, 10 cars and very well filled; 8 cars would have just sufficed but 10 wasn't a massive over provision. The return working had very few passengers. How do you know the train you travelled on didn't have high loadings earlier in its diagram or would have later? Short answer is you don't. The metro timetable has been cut, some circuits have had their length reduced (eg LB - East Croydon from 8 to 5), others have not however once the 377/3s go down to the coast I'm expecting 10 car diagrams to be few and far between and metro to be predominantly 4, 5 and 8. I also expect overcrowding on the busier sections (eg inbound via Norbury and via Crystal Palace). I saw a report the other day that TfL thinking had been the Elizabeth line would be at full load 2 - 3 years after opening but due to Covid et al that had been revised to 3 - 5 years. I also saw a report that forecast demand for London office space had been revised up. That suggests to me a potential rising trajectory for peak passenger numbers in the next decade and decisions taken in haste now about stock requirements could come back to haunt the railway in future.

The traction kit isn't the reason. Whilst the SWT 455s re-tractioning programme was in progress, modified units worked in multiple with unmodified units for quite a while. It's other stuff like the door controls, CIS etc which would need altering.

I was the exception that proves the rule when I worked at Canary Wharf, my office was on Upper Bank St so I used the east exit at CW and so went for the front of EB trains!

I prefer SB Bakerloo and cross platform interchange at Oxford Circus onto the SB Victoria Line to get from Paddington to Victoria. I also wonder if Paddington to KX/StP will be quicker via the Liz Line and a change at Farringdon for those travelling from suburban stations west of Paddington once through running starts. It might even be quicker now if your starting point is the lawn at Paddington

Hmm. All 72 of mine have been screwed tight for 22 years. Nothing has fallen off and they work fine

My first extensive exposure to the finished, rebuilt New St wasn't until the summer of 1973 when I ventured out on my first Midland Railtourer. The station was still clean then and very busy by contemporary provincial station standards but nothing like it became. In those days P12 was hardly used at all and P1 only a handful of times each day, mainly for the Paddington trains. On that first day alone I saw examples of several AC electric classes, an ER 31, a Western, a 50, and the usual variety of peaks and 47s from a mix of ER, LMR and WR depots. Then there were the summer Saturday mornings. The platform ends packed solid with enthusiasts (the Derby end of P8/9 and P10/11 in particular); numerous SO holiday trains to the coast; an endless succession of light engines to/from Saltley; all the centre sidings, box engine sidings and east dock hosting relief engines; shunters with their big gloves rushing from platform to platform; constant train announcements from the distinctive lady station announcer urging you to "join the train please"; crowds of families with excited children; little groups of footplate crew in their light cotton jackets chatting and joking animatedly; the hissing and thumping of the point machines; the expectation when a yellow front was spied stopped at the signal outside the tunnel; whistles blowing everywhere; station staff impatiently pressing the TRTS plungers numerous times; and the haze of diesel fumes caught on shafts of sunlight rising up in front of the Rotunda. Difficult to believe when you go there now.