British Railway Operations

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by Simon Reed

It seems to have been a worldwide thing during steam days that many drivers (engineers) considered themselves to be an elite who would have as little as possible to do with firemen (stokers) both on and off the job.

I have a book by a Southern (UK) driver who rose through the ranks and recalls instances where the only conversation he had during out-and-back turns as a fireman took the form of grunts!

Didn't most engineers during steam days work their way up.....from being firemen? You would think that a fireman who wasn't being treated well could make an engineer look bad?

Yes they did work their way up.
It's also possible for a driver to make the fireman look bad, but in the event of a problem both were hauled up on the rug.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15

John B - you are quite correct about "Tulyar" - it was (is!) the name of my favourite "Deltic" diesel loco.

I notice that a lot of "classes" of British locomotives have sort of a *theme*. You've got your "Battle of Britain" class, I believe, and you "Castle "class. Is there a group of deltics named after horses???[:0] Any named after american horses?(Like Mr. Ed/[:o)]))
John B- Murphy Siding was just that- a siding on the Milwaukee Road, near Rapid City, South Dakota.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15


Meanwhile Futuremodal will no doubt be delighted to hear that yet another OA operator has now got the go-ahead to haul coal down from Scotland. The infrastructure co Jarvis have now got an operating licence to run trains and will be running coal trains as well as maintenance trains.

Does this mean Jarvis is both an infrastructure co, and a train operating co, on the same line? I thought they were supposed to be seperated?

That was how it was supposed to be , although EWS and the other OA companies make a lot of money from infrastructure contracts. I suppose we're progressing back towards a vertically integrated set up. Stagecoach the bus company owns Porterbrook, the Rolling Stock co. To be fair Porterbrook is the only ROSCO that has taken speculative risks by order trains before it has found a user for them. The other two ROSCO's are owned by the banks and just act like profit maximizing monopolists (but in the longer term they will face competition from manufacturers leasing stock to train operators).

I agree with John B's comments about the foreign coal. On the Avon Valley Railway (which I am a volunteer worker on) we had a duff batch a couple of weeks ago. Ironically it blocked the tubes of our Polish "Ferrum" 0-6-0T.

John B - you are quite correct about "Tulyar" - it was (is!) the name of my favourite "Deltic" diesel loco.

I have no problem with a certain amount of vertical operations within the open access structure. The whole point of open access is to make sure willing transporters are not barred from using the ROW. If the infrastructure owner also wants to run trains to take advantage of a transporting opportunity, so be it. Could result in a conflict though if another transporter wants a piece of that action.

[John Bakeer]

Hi Murphy,
There were only twenty-odd Deltics Built and as far as I can work out they were named and re-named on a whim from above (Marilibone) as were some of the A4's.
John B.

[mhurley87f]

QUOTE: Originally posted by John Bakeer

Hi Murphy,
There were only twenty-odd Deltics Built and as far as I can work out they were named and re-named on a whim from above (Marilibone) as were some of the A4's.
John B.

IIRC 22 were bought, the names depended on the BR Region where they were nominally based. Eastern Region's were named after some post WW2 Classic Flat Race Winners (Derby, Oaks, etc) , whereas Both Scottish Region's and North Eastern Region's were named after the famous Regiments whose recruitment areas were Scotland and NE England.

Martin

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15


Meanwhile Futuremodal will no doubt be delighted to hear that yet another OA operator has now got the go-ahead to haul coal down from Scotland. The infrastructure co Jarvis have now got an operating licence to run trains and will be running coal trains as well as maintenance trains.

Does this mean Jarvis is both an infrastructure co, and a train operating co, on the same line? I thought they were supposed to be seperated?

That was how it was supposed to be , although EWS and the other OA companies make a lot of money from infrastructure contracts. I suppose we're progressing back towards a vertically integrated set up. Stagecoach the bus company owns Porterbrook, the Rolling Stock co. To be fair Porterbrook is the only ROSCO that has taken speculative risks by order trains before it has found a user for them. The other two ROSCO's are owned by the banks and just act like profit maximizing monopolists (but in the longer term they will face competition from manufacturers leasing stock to train operators).

I agree with John B's comments about the foreign coal. On the Avon Valley Railway (which I am a volunteer worker on) we had a duff batch a couple of weeks ago. Ironically it blocked the tubes of our Polish "Ferrum" 0-6-0T.

John B - you are quite correct about "Tulyar" - it was (is!) the name of my favourite "Deltic" diesel loco.

I have no problem with a certain amount of vertical operations within the open access structure. The whole point of open access is to make sure willing transporters are not barred from using the ROW. If the infrastructure owner also wants to run trains to take advantage of a transporting opportunity, so be it. Could result in a conflict though if another transporter wants a piece of that action.

The only problem is that Jarvis are not an infrastructure controller.. They are a maintenance company (and a p**s poor one and all) so there's no conflict of intrest if they want to operate trains. They were always a sort of train operating company anyway if you caount their on track machinery, such as tampers and the like.

[Murphy Siding]

Can you explain the difference between an infrastucture controller, and a maintenance company? Does Jarvis do maintenance contract work for an infrastructure co.? If it sounds like I'm confused, I am. Thanks

[John Bakeer]

Welcome to the fold Murphy. I share your confusion about Jarvis, they also build schools!
John B.

[Hugh Jampton]

And they administerate old folks homes as well or some such.

The whole thing was hideaously complicated. Netwrok Rail 'own' the tracks, but they employed contractors to do the maintenance, of which Jarvis was one. Although there's a distinct difference between maintenance and renewals (which Jarvis is good at). Due to the poor performance of many of these Infrastructure Maintenence Companys (IMCs) NR has taken all of the maintenance back in house. They were getiin ripped off seriously before this.

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hugh Jampton

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by Simon Reed

It seems to have been a worldwide thing during steam days that many drivers (engineers) considered themselves to be an elite who would have as little as possible to do with firemen (stokers) both on and off the job.

I have a book by a Southern (UK) driver who rose through the ranks and recalls instances where the only conversation he had during out-and-back turns as a fireman took the form of grunts!

Didn't most engineers during steam days work their way up.....from being firemen? You would think that a fireman who wasn't being treated well could make an engineer look bad?

Yes they did work their way up.
It's also possible for a driver to make the fireman look bad, but in the event of a problem both were hauled up on the rug.

Well, yes. May I chime in here. I'm at least of British heritage. Last name is Strawbridge. I keep wondering if I'm related to your foriegn secretary - or whatever his official title is. You know, that guy named "Straw" that keeps running around the world with Congi Rice. Do you think there's something "going on" between those two?

Anyway, I had an uncle who was absolutely fascinated with steam power. He wasn't a railroader, he was a farmer. But he grew up working on, and running, steam traction engines that were used to power farm equipment.

He told me a story about a friend of his who was a fireman (stoker) on the C&NW. (which ran left handed, to further the Briti***ie in.) So his friend was working with a driver (engineer) who was one mean S.O.B. The engineer (driver) would deliberatly try to set farmers' fields on fire by "cracking" the throttle (regulator?) in an effort to get embers out the stack and into the dry fields. Of course, he just wrecked the carefully laid and tended fire by doing this.

So aparently my uncle's friend grew weary of rebuilding his fire. He grabbed a pick ax out of the tender (I don't know - coal van?) and told the driver (engineer) "You S.O.B., if you do that one more time, I'll put this through you." and then the friend added: "And I would have too, I don't know what 'they'd' have done to me, but I would have."

The trip was uneventful after that point. And the fire undisturbed.

[John Bakeer]

Hugh,
Being of advancing years myself, the thought of Jarvis getting hold of my bones fills me with trepidation.
John B.
Lurking in Stockport Greater Manchester.the home of the real LERT.

[Anonymous]

I've not been keeping up with these pages lately but was reading about one man opperation a few pages ago. a few nights ago i went to a lecture on Japanese railways. It mainly delt with the Shin-Kansen network, but touched on the railways 3'6 gauge network and mentioned that many branch lines are one man operation with the driver selling tickets. This would be a usefull cost reduceing measure that could be applied to the Far North Line and the West Highland Line. And id does show it can work on major railways.

[zardoz]

This may be the dumb question of the week:
What is the purpose of the "steering wheel" I see in the cab shots of European railroads?

[Anonymous]

It's usually the power controller, at least, a lot of mainland European locos have that arrangement. I think on some of them it may also operate the dynamic brakes if you turn it to zero and then turn a little more, this is based on the old DR "Ludmilla" add-on for MS Train Sim though so it's quite possibly wrong!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz

This may be the dumb question of the week:
What is the purpose of the "steering wheel" I see in the cab shots of European railroads?

Maybe they haven't invented the flange yet![:D]

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz

This may be the dumb question of the week:
What is the purpose of the "steering wheel" I see in the cab shots of European railroads?

Maybe they haven't invented the flange yet![:D]

I was wondering who the smarty-pants would be that gave an answer like that! [:D]
They have the flange; it's just on the outside of the wheel.[;)]

Railroading Brit,
I thought it might be a throttle-type thingy. In the videos I've seen, the driver is usually seen making minute adjustments to the 'wheel', and I could not see anything that resembled a control stand. My other guess is that is was a sort of dead-man device.

[Simon Reed]

If it's on the control desk it's the thrash handle - or to put it more prosaically the power controller.

If it's elsewhere it's the handbrake although our ALCo S1 has a handbrake control that would'nt be out of place as the ship's wheel on a Mississippee tug.

During the '80's in Britain there was a TV gameshow with the catchphrase "Spin that wheel" which was misappropriated en masse by British lovers of Iri***raction at the time and regularly shouted at the engineers on "A" class loco's...we've already discussed the British phenomenon of "Bashing" on these pages which may explain this peculiar behaviour....

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Simon Reed

If it's on the control desk it's the thrash handle - or to put it more prosaically the power controller.

If it's elsewhere it's the handbrake although our ALCo S1 has a handbrake control that would'nt be out of place as the ship's wheel on a Mississippee tug.

During the '80's in Britain there was a TV gameshow with the catchphrase "Spin that wheel" which was misappropriated en masse by British lovers of Iri***raction at the time and regularly shouted at the engineers on "A" class loco's...we've already discussed the British phenomenon of "Bashing" on these pages which may explain this peculiar behaviour....

[(-D][(-D] Sometimes, I have to laugh at this English language we share. In my part of the world, bashing means heavy-duty insulting. To thrash, means roughly,to ride your skateboard on someone's private propert with careless disregard.

[John Bakeer]

Hi Murphy,
It is often said of the US/UK relationship that we are "two nations devided by a common language".
John B.

[daveklepper]

Many locomotives and mu cars with the steering wheel-like controller use it both for power and brake, clockwise from off to power and counterclockwise to brake.

[zardoz]

Thanks, guys.

[Simon Reed]

Going back to the entry of Jarvis into the open access market....

Has anyone - maybe specifically Townsend or Cogload - heard anything "sinister" about this move, because I just have!

The primary idea behind it, so I'm told by a good source, is to establish a market for "bidding" for paths on the S&C and WCML, thereby taking open access to a very different level.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Simon Reed

Going back to the entry of Jarvis into the open access market....

Has anyone - maybe specifically Townsend or Cogload - heard anything "sinister" about this move, because I just have!

The primary idea behind it, so I'm told by a good source, is to establish a market for "bidding" for paths on the S&C and WCML, thereby taking open access to a very different level.

Simon: I'm not quite understanding what you're saying here. Can you elaborate please?

[Tulyar15]

Murphy Siding - what I think Simon means is that Jarvis may just be trying to buy up paths on the West Coast Main Line so as to stop anyone-else using those paths. From what a friend in the industry tells me though, I dont think they'll succeed. Sometime ago Freightliner demanded 30 paths a day between Southampton and Birmingham but they did not get them - there just weren't that many paths available.

On the subject of Open Access, I started out as a sceptic but having seen some the positive things the OA operators have done here, I'm a bit more in favour than I was. Sometime ago, Connex, which operated the South Central division of the former Southern Region wanted to run a thru service from Brighton to Birmingham, using the West London line via Kensington Olympia, which among other things links the London Victoria - Brighton main line with the West Coast Main Line (London Euston - NW England/N Wales/Scotland) at Willesden Junction. But the Train Operators that used the WCML ganged up on it and it was only able to run a train every 2 hours as far north as Rugby. Even these have now been cut back to Watford Junction. So what could have been a useful cross London service has been cut back due to the bloody mindedness of th exisiting operators.

Still at least the Rail Regulator has stood up to GNER and granted Grand Central some paths on the East Coast Main Line so that GC can start its Sunderland - London King's Cross service.

[BR60103]

Murphy: The LNER had a tradition of naming locomotives after horses. Doncaster, where they had a major works, also has a major race course. One of the magazines had an article tracing the horse names on the A3s (Flying Scotsman et al.) Of course, some of them weren't named after horses, but directors or other people.
Sticking with the LNER, the A4 class had several subsets of names. The first 4 were Silver This and That for the Silver Jubilee. Then they were named after birds; some renamed for countries and directors and other blokes.
The B1 4-6-0 were named after antelope type beasts, some with different names for the same beast. Not sure about the B2 and B17 - lot of football teams and??
Two classes of 4-4-0 named after Directors (favourites are Baillie MacWheeble and Lucky Mucklebackit) but a few battles crept in.
The Scott class named after characters in Sir Walter Scott.
Glens, Shires, Hunts (fox hunting teams) and Lochs.
Gresley's V4 2-6-2, the first was called Bantam ****, some called the other Bantam Hen. [:D]
There were a number of classes that I couldn't find a theme for.

Great Western built one Pacific, which they later turned into a 4-6-0, called The Great Bear. You can have a lot of fun by running themes from that name. [8D]

[Murphy Siding]

Isn't this the same country that named a class of W W I I Corvettes, or Destroyer escorts after flowers?[;)]

On a side note: a favorite place to take my sons hiking is The Great Bear Ski Hill. Because of the low-profile terrain here, most people refer to it as "The Fat Bear Ski Hump"[:)]

[Tulyar15]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BR60103
[Not sure about the B2 and B17 - lot of football teams and??

Great Western built one Pacific, which they later turned into a 4-6-0, called The Great Bear. You can have a lot of fun by running themes from that name. [8D]

The Other batch of B17/B2 's were named after country house in E. Anglia, including "Sandringham" the doyen of the class which was named after the Royal Palace of that name. This batch was originally allocated to the former Great Eastern Railway lines out of London Liverpool St while the Football batch were on the Great Central line out of London Marylebone. After a few years the two batches got mixed round willy nilly.

At the time when the Great Western's only Pacific "The Great Bear" was built, the GWR's top express locos were the Star 4-6-0's. So it was though the Great Bear would be the first of a "Constellation" class. But it was not to be and in due course the Great Bear was rebuilt as a "Castle" class 4-6-0 and re-named "Viscount Churchill" after a GWR director (dont know if he was any relation to Winston but I wouldn't be surprised).

[BR60103]

I can't decide if The Great Bear show continue on to include The Great Gatsby and The Graet Gonzo, or Polar Bear, Grizzly Bear and Teddy Bear.

Didn't someone make a few silly decisions with the Warship diesels? They insisted on having the names in alphabetical order with the numbers, and them tagged an extra half dozen on after Zambesi?

[Anonymous]

If an opperater bids for a path over a route, it has to be conflict free with what is already there. The problem with the S&C and WCML is that they are pretty full. Also we somtimes do a bit of a spring clean and take out unused paths. So if Jarvis bid for a path and then did not use they would probably lose it.

[John Bakeer]

I believe there are a number of ghost paths on the WCML for Eurostars from Manchester Piccadilly to Euston. The stock is stored rusting in a field somewhere down south.
The LNER 2-6-2 is a V2 only one of which was named, 60847 'St. Peter's School York A.D.627' There is one in preservation which carries the name 'Green Goddess', or is it a K1 2-6-0?
John B.