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Going for the Record?


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The BBC News website, to no surprise at all (on my part anyway) is putting a negative slant to today's run:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57511346

 

Saying, among other things, 'The recorded attempt was supposed to show the ease of travelling between the home nations'. And they go on to quote an average Edinburgh to London journey time of 5 hours 20 minutes, which is complete nonsense; LNER services take between around 4 hours 20 and 4 hours 40 minutes, depending on stops. Perhaps they are thinking of the Avanti 2-hourly Edinburgh/London via Birmingham services, not in any way the primary route between the cities. The BBC does have history for this kind of thing of course, for example quoting outrageous season ticket prices but omitting to say they were First Class.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, caradoc said:

The BBC News website, to no surprise at all (on my part anyway) is putting a negative slant to today's run:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57511346

 

Saying, among other things, 'The recorded attempt was supposed to show the ease of travelling between the home nations'. And they go on to quote an average Edinburgh to London journey time of 5 hours 20 minutes, which is complete nonsense; LNER services take between around 4 hours 20 and 4 hours 40 minutes, depending on stops. Perhaps they are thinking of the Avanti 2-hourly Edinburgh/London via Birmingham services, not in any way the primary route between the cities. The BBC does have history for this kind of thing of course, for example quoting outrageous season ticket prices but omitting to say they were First Class.  

 

 

That’s journalists for you.

 

This would have made a great good news, defeat plucked from the jaws of victory, we’re not defeated and we’ll be back next week story.

 

But it that probably wouldn’t sell the papers or modern equivalent.

 

Oakhill

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2 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

 

Saying, among other things, 'The recorded attempt was supposed to show the ease of travelling between the home nations'. And they go on to quote an average Edinburgh to London journey time of 5 hours 20 minutes, which is complete nonsense

 

 

The BBC do say that the figures are from Network Rail. To me this suggests that someone in the press department there, is doing rail travel a disservice.

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Commiserations to all involved as I'm sure they are probably feeling a bit down, but on the other hand it's nice to think something that was designed and built in this country still actually holds a record 

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16 minutes ago, 6892 Oakhill Grange said:

But it that probably wouldn’t sell the papers or modern equivalent.

 

The day people actually want to read good news, things will change. However, we are conditioned to click on, or pay for bad news due to millions of years of evolution. That might explain why, on a popular model railway forum, it's the highly critical or controversial topics that attract the most traffic.

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31 minutes ago, 6892 Oakhill Grange said:

Next Thursday will be even more exciting.

Unfortunately not. The path next Thursday was simply if today's run had to be cancelled for an unforeseen reason, it's not a second attempt.

 

Avanti have said they will consider trying again next summer if the situation permits.

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1 hour ago, Kris said:

The BBC do say that the figures are from Network Rail. To me this suggests that someone in the press department there, is doing rail travel a disservice.

 

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that earlier (it actually says National Rail !). In which case, apologies to the BBC. 

 

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16 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that earlier (it actually says National Rail !). In which case, apologies to the BBC. 

 

 

In that case it sounds as if the BBC searched on the National Rail Journey Planner for a journey from London to Glasgow, then used the longest one they could find!

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51 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

In that case it sounds as if the BBC searched on the National Rail Journey Planner for a journey from London to Glasgow, then used the longest one they could find!

It says on the BBC report 'average journey times' so they probably included the Sleeper and some circuitous journeys that include going via York and Manchester.

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46 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

It says on the BBC report 'average journey times' so they probably included the Sleeper and some circuitous journeys that include going via York and Manchester.

There are 3 types of averages: mean, mode & median.

Mean is what we normally accept to be the average: the sum of all examples divided by the number of examples.

Mode is the most common.

Median is the middle of all.

 

If you want a good example of timings, median is best.

It is very easy to quote the wrong 'average' if you want to be misleading.

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1 hour ago, Ben A said:

 

Hi all,

 

Shame they didn't make it!  Is it definite that there won't be an attempt next week?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

 

Talking to a friend involved in planning, the passengers might not be back in time. It seems that in an effort to spare them from trains full of football fans heading to London, they were put on a service that has an "interesting" path to dodge every other train on the network! I did ask if they were on a Pacer...

 

However, if they DO decide to have another go, I promised to lend them something faster.

 

 

B Space Turbo car on box.jpg

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They might not have beaten the record, but to get so close without the permission to exceed the speed limits that the APT had is pretty impressive.

 

It also shows that things are pretty much as good as they can get with the existing infrastructure.

 

 

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27 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Talking to a friend involved in planning, the passengers might not be back in time. It seems that in an effort to spare them from trains full of football fans heading to London, they were put on a service that has an "interesting" path to dodge every other train on the network! I did ask if they were on a Pacer...

 

 

They now have the record for the slowest journey from Glasgow to London and Geoff Marshall now has completed his next 'All the Stations' challenge by doing them all in a single journey

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On 18/06/2021 at 03:47, hexagon789 said:

Unfortunately not. The path next Thursday was simply if today's run had to be cancelled for an unforeseen reason, it's not a second attempt.

 

Avanti have said they will consider trying again next summer if the situation permits.

I take it they're having trouble finding a Triang motor bogie with the original 2-start worms :jester:

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On 17/06/2021 at 17:18, caradoc said:

The BBC News website, to no surprise at all (on my part anyway) is putting a negative slant to today's run:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57511346

 

I'm only surprised it wasn't a report from Roger Harrabin, the BBC's Energy and Environment Analyst.

 

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/01/02/bbc-press-office-leap-to-harrabins-defence-but-ignore-his-bias/

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On 18/06/2021 at 10:11, Phil Parker said:

 

Talking to a friend involved in planning, the passengers might not be back in time. It seems that in an effort to spare them from trains full of football fans heading to London, they were put on a service that has an "interesting" path to dodge every other train on the network! I did ask if they were on a Pacer...

 

However, if they DO decide to have another go, I promised to lend them something faster.

 

 

B Space Turbo car on box.jpg

 

@Phil Parker - Oh woe!

You can get locked-up for using one of those.

Just ask @Ducking Giraffe

 

 

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Missed this at the time so I've had to experience it vicariously by reading back through this thread.

 

As someone generally not keen on the modern railway, and who rolls his eyes at people wanting more speed (why even look at this thread then? just curiosity as to what it might be about) to my complete surprise it's brought a smile to my face and a bit of disappointment when I got to the result. Well done for trying Avanti!

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On 18/06/2021 at 10:22, Zomboid said:

They might not have beaten the record, but to get so close without the permission to exceed the speed limits that the APT had is pretty impressive.

 

It also shows that things are pretty much as good as they can get with the existing infrastructure.

 

 

 

Well looking back - doesn't it cross your mind that the APT attempt was bordering on recklessness?

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I suppose it depends what preparation they did for the APT. If it was properly researched and predicted and any calculations needed were done and so on then that's responsible enough, but if someone just said "oh it'll be fine" then that's probably a bit reckless.

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