Pandora

around 1990, a shunter who worked a yard near Scunthorpe claimed his yard was the last one to perform loose shunting, loose shunting where the trains of wagons were cut and sorted, the 08 diesel would give a short push to the wagons , ( the 08 would only move a couple of feet ) and the cut of 2 or 3 wagons would freewheel down the yard with the shunter running and jumping alongside the cut with a wooden brake stick wedging down the brake lever of the wagon to control the speed of the shunt. you can only guess the number of accidents and injuries to the shunters over the years who worked this method (and their level of fitness),

If my thinking is accurate, the problem for the overhead is a bridge and a level crossing in close succession, the required change in height of the contact wire from bridge clearance settings to level crossing clearance settings and vice versa exceeds the physical capabilities of the pantograph suspension when the train running at 125 mph line speed

Where public transport infrastructure such as railways buses etc are subsidised by the public via general taxation, would it be the decent thing to give every taxpayer or citizen a limited amount of free travel on the subsidised infrastructure ? Free travel which may be considered as a citizens benefit. Provided the access to free travel is reasonable and regulated, what objections could there be to such a benefit?

The Cobo is showing a class 6 headcode, "Express Freight train, part fitted with auto brake of not less than 20% of load"

I assume it is safe for the 800 bi-modes to be able to raise or lower a pantograph at high speed without detriment, therefore if modest lengths of OHLE was provided at strategic points such as the first couple of miles of line before / after a station platform or major junctions on the route, the bi-mode could accelerate to 125 mph line speed from station or junction stops on electrical power when beneath OHLE, and change to diesel power until the next stopping point on the route. if this is a workable mode of operation, how many miles of OHLE would be required on say the Welsh part of the route?

I'm hugely impressed by the IET's. Simon Count me in on that, I 've had a few trips in them to see how they go. The acceleration on electric power is more jet aeroplane take off than train, the acceleration from rest on diesel power is strong too. In fact how do the 800s keep their feet? Do they have some sort of extremely advanced wheel slip control system?

Keeping everything running, lighting, air-conditioning, door control keeps the passengers from worrying and does agreat deal to minimise the possibilty of an uncontrolled evacuation of the train, an uncontrolled passenger evacuation being an operational nightmare for a train crew

Is it possible to make the leading coupled axle with a small-diameter cranks and webs to allow an element of clearance for the inclined connecting rods of the inside cylinders to drive the rear coupled axle?

The cost of the GWML project at £2.8 billion divided by the population of the UK is a considerable sum of money per employee of working age, or per family, I doubt if a private company could raise such a sum of money, therefore no choice! Only the State can back such massive projects

"Perhaps Roger (Ford) needs to define (Railway Electrification) unaffordable." Yes he needs to be more specific, is he alluding to: 1) Cost/Benefit yield of electrification is negative, 2)the piggy bank of funds for electrification is empty and the Treasury and Civil Service have " closed the account" 3) the finances of the economy means there are more important projects for public investment funding

"governments that promoted diesels as a way of lowering carbon emissions" in response to some INTENSE LOBBYING by the EU car makers, car makers who were blind-sided and threatened by Japanese petrol-hybrid low-emission and 60 mpg car technology, 20 years in advance of their own meagre offerings

A letter by Roger Ford of Modern Railways, published in the Financial Times today. Mr Ford points out the fractional buying power of money for railway hardware and software compared to the 1980's, effectively a six-fold reduction in purchasing power. Mr Ford refers to the GWML project, stating that railway electrification is no longer affordable

On a running schedule, when detained in a loop by the signaller for advancing other traffic, we describe and book the time delay as being "recessed". I do not know if this term is old or modern, and if regional or not. Similarly in some regions signal route indicators are lunars or feathers, and ground signals are dummies or dods, yet wherever we work, everyone seems to understand these mess room terms in spite of official attempts to banish old railway vernacular from the "infrastructure" ( infrastructure == management-speak for the privatised railway)

Freightliner are recruiting drivers for this service, said to be a 35 year contract to haul aviation fuel from Isle of Grain to the airport

Making the carriages tilt makes a good ride for the passengers, but tilting the train not solve the issue of expensive railhead wear on the high and low rails of the curve, from the P-way engineers position, the purpose of cant and cross-level ( or super-elevation) of the track is to equalise wear on the low and high rails caused by the traffic being guided through the curve. Here is a P-way question: a curve shows the low rail to have a flat mushroom profile on the head, the high rail has a knife-edge profile, what is wrong? Answer recommend a reduction of the cross level as the cross level is too much for the typical speed of the traffic

It would not be an accident or a mistake, it would be a joke by the depot staff. Do you know the phrase B*llshit Baffles Brains? Here is an example, an S& T gang found a load of gloss paint of various colours, they thought it would be fun to go out and use the paint to "colour scheme" the fittings of a set of points. The point fittings backdrives, detector rods etc were washed down, wire brushed and painted up in gold yellow blue etc etc. It took most of a shift to achieve. Sometime later a senior HQ manager saw the points while travelling over the line on his way home. The manager contacted the depot to enquire why the points were so colourful and beautiful, someone had to come up with an excuse, " they are a very important set of points crucial to the running of the service on that route and have to be maintained in tip-top condition" The manager was completely taken in by the story, he arranged for public relations to visit the depot. The culprits were duly interviewed by the PR people, written up in the despatches , and generally portrayed as praised as heroes "of the working classes" in a staff newsletter. Herne Hill depot S&T were the culprits of this little caper according by railway folklore.

The shoegear is on both sides of the unit, so there would be a requirement to have juice rail on both sides of the track when setting shoe height

With 3rd rail DC system there are so many electrical cable - rail connections and butt-jointed rail to rail welds for double track circuitry. Each electrical connection requiring a drilled hole in the web of the rail with a potential for a rail breakage , and every butt weld also a candidate for structural failure. Hence the modern thinking, axle counters and Tuned Zone track circuits in juiceland

I rode the Woodhead line when diversions were in place due to Hope Valley line under possession. The trains were DMU's leaving Sheffield Midland to ascend Nunnery Junction to gain the Woodhead line where the driver changed ends to proceed to Sheffield Victoria and Manchester. The Woodhead Tunnel track is near level and the gradients are either side of the Tunnel, a DMU could probably coast through the bores at 60 mph at light power due to the level track, I do not recall any issues with exhaust fumes on the trips

But there are so few 85+ in the age group, around 1 in 6, and in end of life health care costs are exactly that , end of life costs , whether you drop off the twig in your 50's, 60's 70's 80's etc

It is the indirect cost of track maintenance that crucifies the economics of the third rail system, a night time engineering possession of duration 4 hrs 30 minutes is whittled down becomes 2 hours 30 minutes of track access time, 1 hour is lost isolating and (Strapping out ) ie earthing the juice rail to protect track workers and allow machines such as tampers and road-railers to work on the line, and another hour lost removing the strapping and reinstating the juice supply. Under 25kV system, for P-Way work the overheads can often be left live, in which case 15 minutes to erect a possession and set out work sites, 15 minutes to reinstate. Basically you lose half of the work period with 3rd rail, at considerable cost over the long-term of years, and it only takes a few late running trains to eat into that 4hrs 30m, and the possession becomes non-viable, ie cancelled by the PICOP and Control As for electrfication of the Windermere line , I doubt if it has the passenger traffic to justify the fixed costs of an electrification project.

If 2 x 4-car Southern 750v DC stock counts as double headed, a motor coach in each set, the Greyhound-modded slam door stock, the field settings of the traction motor control system had been breathed upon, would hit 100 mph and more

On the WCML it wasa standard diagram for 2 x class 50's on almost all express services to Scotland, the traction changeover from Electric locomotives at Crewe station, while the the section to Glasgow was electrified . As a commuter into Paddington, in the mid- 1980's, there was a regular double-headed class 50 working, one of the morning service trains, I believe it was a positioning move for one of the 50's to avoid a light-engine working. Prior to the HAA hopper wagons on the Merry-go-Round trains hauled by single class 47's, coal trains of 16T mineral wagons always seemed to have double headed by class 31's in the Doncaster area. i do not ever recall seeing class 31's on the hopper wagon trains

One of my friends, a historian and ex-BR senior manager, would relate that railway management of the era were held in high regard and would quote the instances of when such managers would be seconded by ministers of the civil service to manage major operations and projects of national importance. An example may be Baron Stamp of the LMS, director of the Bank of England, Chair of the LMS and a published Economist of high repute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Stamp,_1st_Baron_Stamp

Wi9th the high cost of many wagons by Bachamnn and Hornby, by which Oxford have undercut the competition , I would tool up for and release more wagons to build up the Oxford company for the immediate future, building up the locomotive range later