DY444

On 14/04/2023 at 18:34, Derekstuart said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned (unless I've missed it) Liverpool Street. It has had 1500v wired to SOME of the platforms since nineteen hundred and black&white, with most of its platforms staying wonderfully wire free until the 1980s.

Not the case I'm afraid.

19 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Certainly for the initial 1500v DC electrification only Platforms 11-18 at Liverpool Street were wired, but I would have thought that after the conversion to AC, and the Enfield/Chingford/Hertford/Bishops Stortford scheme in the early 60s, definitely most, if not possibly all, platforms were wired? 

 

Yes the partial electrification at Liverpool St. was only a feature during the DC days.  The conversion to AC and the Enfield/Chingford/Hertford/Bishops Stortford scheme resulted in all platforms being wired.

On 13/04/2023 at 13:52, Jeremy C said:

S stock must have a bus line, since all axles are motored but only some of the cars have shoegear. I assume this is 630V/750V dc, but it could be 3-phase.

The S stock has a DC bus line. 

3 phase for traction purposes is not passed up and down a modern (d)emu.  The 3 phase supply for the traction motors on a given vehicle is produced individually for each motor by the traction pack on that vehicle.  The traction packs of all modern AC motored traction units are fed with DC irrespective of whether the traction supply is AC, DC or produced by an onboard diesel alternator set.  If the supply is AC, either from ole or generated onboard, then it is rectified on the vehicle with the pan/transformer or diesel alternator set and fed into the DC bus line.

If there is no inter-vehicle bus line (or the traction unit is a locomotive) then the architecture is still the same but the DC "bus line" is wholly within the single vehicle.

Some trains are designed such that they are split into two or more portions for traction supply and traction control purposes.  Class 700 is one example of this; each unit is technically 2 separate 4 car (700/0) or 6 car (700/1) emus working in multiple.  Each half has its own DC bus but they are not interconnected.

6 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Didcot to Oxford was a classic example of half-baked thinking. Fine for the passenger services, but strategically a dead end. What was really required, and may yet come to pass through the drive for decarbonisation, was electrification Basingstoke - Reading and Didcot - Coventry and/or Birminham. Southampton - Birmingham is a significant freight route and whilst it has gaps in it, the diesel fuelled 66s and 70s will rule the roost as operators do not want to waste time and effort swapping from diesel to electric traction and vice versa en route. Britain's railways are far behind the rest of Europe in electrification as a result of passenger dominated thinking.

.. and at least twice in the last year or so the price being charged for traction current has been such that diesel operation of freight was cheaper even on routes electrified end to end. 

On 10/04/2023 at 07:01, Jeremy C said:

As far as I am aware, British Rail never used triple valves on loco hauled stock, using distributors instead (which can be progressively released), but London Underground did, and I imagine the Great Eastern did too, and the Southern and its constituents for their electric trains.

Not loco hauled stock in the normal sense but the SR 4TCs had triple valves and so when hauled by, or worked in push-pull formations with, locomotives other than 73s (which had EP brakes), there was no graduated release available. 

21 hours ago, Davexoc said:

 

Not until Tuesday, the WCML is shut south of MK due to major track work around Watford....

It's not "major track work".  The track work was done eons ago.  The closure is to finish off and commission the signalling for Watford North Jn which, as a project, is another corker in the ever growing list of entries from NR in the "how not to do projects and spent vastly too much money" world championships. 

It's a bog standard fast to slow ladder junction but if there's another similar sized project in the entire history of UK railways that has taken longer and cost more then I'd be very surprised.  The whole thing has been a chapter of accidents from the start and if it had taken the time a project like that should take then it would have been finished ages ago and the WCML would be open this weekend.  Given its history then an overrun into Tuesday to top it off would be no surprise at all.   

I gather that SWR have accepted a number of them which suggests any technical issues have been resolved to their satisfaction.  Reports elsewhere say the issue now is ASLEF refusing to co-operate over driver training until the present industrial disputes are resolved to its satisfaction. 

If true then it's not the first time recently that substantial investment has been made in new stock only for it to sit idle for industrial relations reasons - see also Class 777.  As an outsider I'm not convinced that this is very wise in the present railway economic climate but then again I often find the apparent short-termisim of the rail unions perplexing.

3 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

In a country as small as ours, far greater and quicker economic benefits per £m spent could be derived from widening electrification and upgrading most of the existing system for line-speeds of 100 or 125mph, rather than further investing in true "high speed". 

John

Ok I'll bite. 

Tell us how?  Tell us where? Tell us how much?  We need more north-south capacity not faster running which will reduce paths on an already over crowded network.

The WCML modernisation scheme cost north of £15bn at 2006 prices, provided only a dozen-ish fast line paths an hour, little capacity for extra freight and semi-fast passenger trains and left bottle necks across the West Midlands, between Rugby and Nuneaton, at Stafford and at Crewe.  HS2 fixes all of that and more than doubles the number of paths.  If you can do that for less then tell us how.

On 30/03/2023 at 20:53, 4630 said:

Interesting that that gantry has gone.

 

IIRC it was installed across the full width of the viaduct when the track layout was altered at Stalybridge only a few years ago and the specification of the gantry at that time took account of anticipated electrification of the route.  

I guess it’s demise might be due to changing OHL clearance requirements.

 

Another (virtual - seeing as it's gone) monument to NR's remarkable talent for wasting money.  If it is clearances then another (virtual) monument to the complete lack of financial accountability for decisions made by the ORR. 

The previous clearances exist on hundreds and hundreds of route miles, many of which date from the first electrification schemes of the early 1960s and the risk they pose is demonstrably (through accident statistics) negligible.  There is simply no justification for increased clearances and the associated increased cost.

On 29/03/2023 at 19:58, Wheatley said:

Month Britrail pass valid in first class £578. 

 

All line 7 day first class Railrover - £866. 

 

Yikes. 

This is an ongoing bug bear of mine.  I know that tourism boosts the economy and all that but I can't help feeling there's something fundamentally wrong with UK residents, whose tax props the whole railway up, being made to pay substantially more than visitors.  Also, and iirc, the travel restrictions imposed (for no reason other than greed as far as I can see) on the ALR do not apply to the Britrail pass.

13 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

I know people in this thread have referred to Thameslink once or twice. Those trains ride pretty well in my view but the seats start to get uncomfortable after 40 mins or so. 

[I realise this is going OT]  I generally use TL on the southern side but I find the 700s have a very peculiar rolling motion which I really don't like at all and don't recall ever having experienced on any stock before.

On 19/03/2023 at 09:09, CWJ said:

There has also been speculation over the years about putting pantographs and transformers on Voyagers instead of (at least some of) the engines. Probably hasn't happened because of cost and complexity compared with buying new bi-modes.

The proposal was to add an additional car to each set to house the transformer/pantograph etc rather than replace any existing cars.  It was a complex undertaking, not in any particularly difficult technical sense, merely in the amount of work necessary to achieve it. 

That complexity was a concern but what really scuppered it was political.  Part of the motivation for the project was to give most of the work to UK suppliers, however Bombardier didn't get that memo, or chose to ignore it, and signalled its intention to source most of the high value items from abroad.  That was never going to be acceptable to the DfT and the project was binned. 

We are slightly behind on these, just watched the Turbomotive episode and I've finally been given an official reprimand by Mrs DY444 for excessive screaming of "it's a ******* locomotive not a ******* train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".  🤬

15 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

But how much of that is due to people not needing to travel in the first place due to WFH rather than modal switch to cars?

Some and some I suspect.  In my case I've switched to car for most medium and long distance journeys because rail is just too unreliable now.  I've done one rail trip in the last six months and the trains I was booked on were cancelled both ways at short notice on the day of the journey and I got my fare refunded.  The net result was my plans were messed up which irritated me immensely and the railway got zero revenue even though I travelled in both directions.  To my mind it kind of sums up where things are right now.

2 hours ago, Weeny Works said:

 

Link to the article describing the report https://www.modernrailways.com/article/uckfield-third-rail-nr-priority

Yes.  So it's taken 6 years for NR to realise that the Gibb report was a waste of paper being both self-contradictory and featuring fantasy land project costings.  At least they got there in the end which I suppose is a step in the right direction.

On 07/03/2023 at 10:37, Weeny Works said:

 

Third rail (predictably) revealed by Network Rail & DfT for the seemingly inevitable Uckfield electrification as well. 

 

Who'd have thought being connected to a 3rd rail line to East Grinstead 😆

That suggests that the DfT have finally put the arrogant and self-righteous ORR back in its box.  Long overdue if true but I won't believe it until work actually starts.

18 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Is there no option to run on one power car ? .......... or is there too much of risk that when that one fails you find the other one's already a dud ?

They very quickly stopped the practice of a PC not providing traction in the 91 + PC days on the ECML.  There was, iirc, more than one reason for that but one of them was it didn't do the traction motor commutators any good.  Maybe that's a consideration too?

On 03/03/2023 at 17:50, nightstar.train said:

The Class 99 are supposed to have 2,100HP, so they might be good. Would probably be a cost saving for CS if they can use less engines. They currently use 6 92s for the electric legs and 5-6 diesels for North of Edinburgh. If the 99 is powerful enough in electric mode to haul a 16 car train, and in diesel mode to haul an 8 car train then I think that could be cut to 8 locos total, which is a saving of 1/3rd. 

One tiny problem.  AIUI the 99s on order will not have ets so that kind of snookers that idea until such time as some are retrofitted or a batch with it fitted is ordered.

On 03/03/2023 at 16:13, ess1uk said:

OOOOps

why did that happen?

Hmm.  One only has to drive the roads of Surrey (for example) to see the "high standards" LAs set.  Imo much more likely the LA thought that as NR are *the* experts when it comes to over engineering and wasting money they could get something much more grandiose than was needed.  All this "standards" waffle is probably just grandstanding to make themselves look good.

On 03/03/2023 at 12:59, pheaton said:

ETH alternator fitted (not 47/4s) 47s have an idle speed of 325 RPM this was added to avoid overloading the engine at idle with the ETH ON

I think you mean "not 47401 - 47420" rather than "not 47/4s".  All 47/4s from 47421 had the alternator.

19 hours ago, Grovenor said:

Why can't you all just help the OP with his DC wiring and leave out all the suggestions to use DCC or Radio or whatever that will make the problem go away in exchange for bigger different problems. 

Fixed that for you.

There's no way this layout is not going to end up as a spaghetti of wiring using DC control so if that's an essential criterion then design a layout with a less electrically complicated track plan.  DCC would, imo, simplify the wiring of this track layout significantly but I see no way you can avoid both it and spaghetti.

11 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

The main clue that it’s set for the ECML is you can see a red in  Y760 on the up Normanton!

Ok but that seems to me to be contrary to the "don't read through" mantra for signals in advance of the next one. 

In the old days trainee drivers spent years in the right hand seat learning habits and tricks, good and bad, from the older hands and having a go in the "chair" from time to time.  Reading through at Colton Jn to confirm the route sounds like something you'd pick up from those days.  AIUI driver training now is very prescriptive and procedural and I would have expected reading through to be frowned upon in any circumstances.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen at places like Colton Jn but I can't imagine it's an approved technique.  Putting in a PRI sounds like a much better idea. 

59 minutes ago, iands said:

Not sure what you mean about no prior warning of the route set?

 

What I mean is the first you know about it is the feather on Y766 by which time it's too late if the wrong route is set.

REP powered formations took the Salisbury road at Worting Junction a few times over the years.  Having no prior warning of the route set before the Dn Fast junction signal didn't help.  After it had happened a couple of times the third rail was extended a few hundred yards towards Battledown on the Dn Salisbury to make it easier for a mis-routed emu to extract itself.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened at Colton Jn on the up where there was (is?) also no prior warning of the route set.  That may have changed now but it was certainly the case for many years.

1 hour ago, toby_tl10 said:

Lack of knowledge in signalling? For a straight piece of track, it's easy enough I think. In modern days, it goes red, single yellow, double yellow, and green. With semaphores, it's either stop or go, sometimes it has a caution.

 

But when it involves points, I have absolutely no idea what is happening, and I believe others might feel the same. What signal do I put here? Where do I put a ground signal? Do I put a signal gantry here?

Then you have a choice.  Don't signal it at all, guess and get it wrong or do some research and ask questions.  It's not like there's a shortage of reference material.  At the end of the day it's up to you but imo no signalling is better than totally wrong signalling. 

It does seem to me though that "I don't understand signalling" is becoming some sort of badge of honour up there with "I don't do electrics" ( the two are obviously related!).  As an aside you rarely hear "I don't do scenery" or "I don't do wagons".  The lengths people go to with things like Class 47 boiler ports, which to be honest is a pretty niche specialism, knows no bounds and yet some of the same people will blithely plonk any old signal anywhere. 

They say the beauty of railway modelling is that it requires a collection of practical and artistic skills, an eye for detail and an understanding of the base subject matter.  I've never understood why for some reason that frequently doesn't stretch to cover electrics and signalling.  

Simple answer: yes.  I've lost count of the number of otherwise excellent layouts where signals appear to have been put in random places as an after thought.  Many people get hugely exercised by the tiniest detail on locomotives etc and then run them on layouts where the "signalling" is unlike anything seen anywhere ever.

If you've got a roundy-roundy tail chaser with no fiddle yard then that's likely to be impossible to signal in any meaningful way unless it's enormous.  Otherwise my view is any layout which is FY to scenic and back to FY can be signalled properly and all the comments about not enough space to do it right fall away.  You've just got to consider the signalling as you design it rather than forget about it until you've built it.