DY444

Yes, as long as the coaches weren't the aforementioned WCML Mk2 Pullmans with their as-built electrical system.

Classes 81-87 eth didn't rectify to DC, it was supplied as AC. Don't know about later AC classes. The original restriction on the WCML Mk2 Pullmans only being able to be heated by an AC locomotive was because the coaches had transformers directly across the train supply.

No. Only one loco can supply ets. Most ets locomotives had a protection mechanism which stopped them supplying the train if the train circuit was already live. Iirc the only ones that didn't were the SR classes. There is a real world example of locomotives regularly working trains they couldn't properly supply power to. The locomotives were the Class 50s and there were special instructions relating to them working trains with an eth index greater than 48 on very cold or very hot days to avoid overloading the somewhat under nourished eth generator. Nothing I'm aware of about 37/4s working trains with high eth indices though.

I watched that series when it was broadcast. There's another shot later of the 56 going the other way at exactly the same place with the logo the right way round.

I have no idea if a 37 hauled a rake of HST trailers in that period but they certainly hauled complete HSTs in BR days as there is photo evidence. So imo it could easily have happened and is therefore reasonable. No doubt the "that never happened" brigade might get exercised by it but they can't possibly know it didn't so who cares. It's entirely plausible so imo it's fine

Sadly not, they are now 33 minutes Sutton to Victoria. The only "fast" trains from Sutton to London are the Epsom - London Bridge services which will "speed" you to London a whole 1 minute faster in 32 minutes. I think there is potentially a BML capacity case for the Bognor service to be re-routed this way as it was prior to 1983 but it won't happen as Southern seems as obsessed as the post 1984 SR was with everything having to serve Gatwick.

Given the geographical disposition of the lines, what proportion of users are either new or visitors? Not many I would wager. The lines have operated for over a decade without causing any discernable confusion to the vast majority of users. If TfL was awash with cash then maybe, just maybe, you could make an argument for doing this but that is not the case. The underground is deteriorating at an alarming rate, bus services are being scaled back and TfL is scrabbling around for every penny it can find just to keep going. Spending millions on this is simply inappropriate when almost everything TfL is responsible for is falling apart and council tax payers are being required to stump up even more. Frankly, as a resident of a borough where the only TfL service is buses, I am really starting to resent how much of my money goes to TfL to be spent in other boroughs, especially on wholly unnecessary flights of political fancy like this one.

Perhaps if you were a London council tax payer you might think differently. We are about to face an increase of 8% in the mayoral levy whilst the incumbent of said office continues to spend money like it's going out of fashion.

Slowly, and dire, was the last report I saw.

You would need a very hefty amount of copper in the air in terms of catenary/contact wire and suitably hefty structures to support it to power a modern emu. Ground level exposed conductors aside it is pretty much the worst of both worlds. You get none of the higher power and light weight structure/conductor advantages of AC and none of the cheapness to install of third rail. Also, and it's early days I accept, but given the somewhat inauspicious start to battery operations over a non-electrified line barely half a mile long, I predict battery powered emus are going to prove themselves to be a massive operational headache and an expensive mistake which the industry is going to regret.

Yes it must be desperately difficult to get by on £60K+ a year. I don't know how they manage so I think it is only right that every tax payer digs deep to help these impoverished individuals and their noble fight against this outrageous injustice. Greater love hath no man than to pay more tax to help someone who already gets paid far more than them. The desire for public ownership oft bellowed at full volume by rail unions comes with consequences.

I'm not defending WCRC here but the ORR do have a long record of total indifference as to the consequences when it comes to imposing cost on the railway. Look at the total farce that is the current train "service" to Headbolt Lane for a recent example of their handiwork. On that basis alone I take its opinions here with a very large container of salt. There have been at least 2 fatalities I can think of in recent years on stock with CDL, which, I suspect, is more than have occurred to passengers from any cause on WCRC's operations in the entirety of its existence. I know WCRC have a history of arrogance and pushing their luck, and Wootton Bassett was inexcusable but this, imo, is another example of the ORR being rather heavy handed. It has a bee in its bonnet about WCRC, some of it admittedly justifiable, but this smacks a bit of getting its own back. In my view the damage the ORR has caused to the railway in the last decade or so far outweighs anything constructive it might have done. Those standing up and applauding it might care to reflect on that.

If the Belmont turnback ever happens the constraints on Sutton station *should* be eased. Running the overground to East Croydon rather than extend it to Sutton/Belmont would also be entirely consistent with TfL's long standing attitude to transport in Sutton, which is make residents pay through the nose for the council tax transport levy and get hardly anything in return. After all it's vital that Sutton retains its distinguished and long held record of having the worst public transport in London and amongst the highest council tax (6th highest out of the 32 boroughs last year). TfL also skilfully managed to ensure that NR retained 3 aspect signals at existing locations between West Croydon and Sutton during the Sutton area resignalling a few years ago to help its quest. I mean even the wall of death had extra signal sections added for no obvious reason but the Wallington line where it actually mighty have helped? No chance.

We've seen before the law of unintended consequences when Government starts interfering in the vehicle market - the incentives to buy diesels being the classic example - and I can see this having precisely the opposite effect to that intended. Both Ford and VW have cut EV production recently, GM have deferred EV production plans, Porsche (who are not noted discounters) have offered discounts on EVs and Tesla have slashed prices by nearly a quarter. Why? Well clearly because supply is exceeding demand. The demand from fanatics and early adopters has come and gone and now the general public is proving to be less amenable. Some early adopters are going back to ICEs having found life with an EV to be too much of a game of chance wrt recharging on the road etc and/or being unwilling to take another dose of the severe financial haircut from soaring insurance premiums and slumping residuals. Even some major fleet buyers are having second thoughts due to the loss of asset value - Hertz in the US being a good example. So back to this legislation. Manufacturers will not manufacture vehicles they cannot sell and selling vehicles at a loss is not generally a path to success. The head of BMW said recently there will never be cheap EVs because they cost too much to make, the minerals required to make EV batteries are not going to get cheaper, and there is no sign of any at scale recycling of EV batteries and if there was money to be made from recycling on an industrial scale then someone would be doing it. Chances are then that consumer resistance to EVs will persist on cost grounds. Forcing a manufacturer to produce a defined proportion of their output as EVs for a given market if there is not the demand in that market is bonkers. Manufacturers will either pull out of that market or supply EVs to meet what demand there is and constrain the numbers of other vehicles accordingly. That will constrict supply and raise prices and we all saw what happened in that scenario during the pandemic. People keep older cars longer or buy used cars thus neatly achieving the exact opposite of the intent of the legislation. The last time I checked the car industry was a profit driven enterprise, not a service for societal reform. If it doesn't pay they won't do it and will get round it one way or another. Net-zero, irrespective of its claimed merits, is going to cost everybody in this country a good deal of money. That in itself makes it untenable. Governments forcing the public at large to do something they don't want to do never ends well, especially if that something makes people worse off, and we saw a microcosm of that in the Uxbridge by-election. China or India reducing emissions by a few per cent would have far more effect than anything that happens here. That's where politicians should be focussing their attention. Everything else is just window dressing.

Funnily enough I complained to LNER about this very thing only last week. A "sold out" open ticket is a total nonsense and another indictment of today's railway management

I think it's more recent than that. I recall something - made to order cakes I think - being sent from Penzance on HSTs about 10 years ago. Obviously only in small numbers.

Quite. The absence of black smoke from incomplete combustion which is a feature of most diesel fires and the flame thrower effect from the precise point on the left hand side where that manufacturer places the hybrid battery in that particular vehicle type. If it looks like a duck etc.

Leaving the politics out of it. If you look at the price that was being charged for a travel card add on relative to the same rail ticket to a London Terminal then in most cases TfL were receiving a fraction of the revenue due from a typical day visitor's travel on TfL services had that visitor used Oyster/contactless. Or put another way, TfL (and therefore London council tax payers) were subsidising every travelcard add on sold. Even with this new agreement they still are to an extent. Now putting the politics back in. For anyone who thinks the ULEZ expansion is about clean air then please contact me as I have a Nigerian prince trying to move billions out of a secret bank account and I need your help. The ULEZ expansion is a scheme which allows vehicles that TfL deem to be polluting to pay to continue to pollute. And judging by the revenue figures from the charges levied, thousands and thousands of such vehicles are paying to pollute every single day. I have observed no discernable reduction in either traffic levels or use of non-compliant vehicles in my part of the great metropolis so the likely effect on air quality is shaping up to be negligible. Indeed a recent study in Glasgow showed the air quality there had deteriorated since their ULEZ was introduced. The biggest irony of all in London though is that the Mayor is encouraging people to use the tube where the air quality on the deep level sections is far, far worse than anywhere in outer London. ULEZ expansion is a revenue stream for TfL, nothing more, nothing less.

Iirc that footbridge also featured in the opening titles of Citizen Smith

And assuming it was not a Plymouth driver. Due to the bizarre way that railways are "managed" these days, GWR Plymouth drivers no longer sign Cogload to Bristol.

Quite the reverse, the real issue with battery vehicles is a refusal of their advocates to admit there are downsides and risks. The argument that battery vehicles are less fire prone is a classic example of this in action because, irrespective of whether it is a true or false statement, it is totally irrelevant and therefore a classic case of obfuscation. As for the idea that there is political animosity, that is a myth. Before Luton or the Freemantle Highway, I had a lengthy dialogue with my MP about the need for regulation and infrastructure to mitigate an EV thermal runaway in enclosed spaces such as underground car parks, ferries etc. Couldn't have been less interested if he'd tried and went full fingers in the ears, head in the sand mode. There are two real issues: firstly the consequences should a fire start are far more serious, and secondly the rise in ambient air temperature required to initiate a battery thermal runaway is relatively low. So let's say a fire-prone (by your logic) ICE is parked next to an EV and catches fire. There is a very high probability that the rise in local air temperature from the ICE fire will cause a thermal runaway in the adjacent EV's battery. Then you have a far more more intense fire than the original one, a fire which generates extremely toxic smoke and a fire which cannot be fought by conventional means. Oh and nobody has satisfactorily explained how a thermal runaway in a class 777 battery under Liverpool would be contained. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the ORR's obsession with avoiding third rail extensions has blinded them to the need for proper risk assessments of the alternatives.

Please could you give a link to the specific product you are referring to. Thanks.

Total myth. To get two extra tracks worth of capacity then you can probably get from Euston to Primrose Hill Tunnels cheaper. From there you're talking about demolishing thousands of buildings to get you out to the M25. Then thousands more between Coventry and Birmingham. Widening Tring cutting would be a mammoth undertaking. What do you do through Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Rugby? Then there's the disruption. No matter what it costs HS2 will always be cheaper to get the same amount of additional track capacity.

It's simple economics. If flights, sailings and ET departures were half empty then fares would be lower. Thing is they're not half empty as most of the post-Covid demand ramp-up predictions have been wrong like many of the things claimed by so-called experts during Covid. Airlines for example stood down a large number of aircraft and have been caught napping as a result; several have had to do a hasty re-work of their fleet plans and return aircraft to service they thought were surplus to requirements. Plus I've seen numerous reports of a late surge in bookings following the failure of this year's UK summer weather to get the memo about rising temperatures. Oh and blaming it all on Brexit is a lazy, click-bait trope. Travel prices are up across the board not just between the UK and EU member states.

That kind of proves my point though. They failed to spot the one they needed to spot and the ones that were observed, and therefore making it clear what they doing, were not a threat.