British Railway Operations

[Tulyar15]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

On topic: It seems that there will be a big announcement on EWS (42% owned by CN) early in July. Expect job losses sadly.

Is it just me, or have EWS lost the plot. First they lose the Royal Mail contract and now this.

From what a guy I met in Ireland who works for EWS tells me it sounds like they're just trying to penny pinch all the time, with the result that their service to customers is suffering. No wonder the Open Access operators are rubbing their hands with glee.

[John Bakeer]

David,
True trolleys had a pole in order to better control the pick up as the danger of a short circuit could trip the sub station out and kill a chunk of the system.
UK trams were almost universally fitted with rope rewirerers, modern UK trams are all fitted with pantographs.
I can rember travelling on trams in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield.
It was once possble to travel by tram from Leeds to Liverpool.
EWS was originally owned by Wisconsin Central, a lot of skullduggery took place prior to the CN takeover, a story in itself.
John B.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

On topic: It seems that there will be a big announcement on EWS (42% owned by CN) early in July. Expect job losses sadly.

Is it just me, or have EWS lost the plot. First they lose the Royal Mail contract and now this.

From what a guy I met in Ireland who works for EWS tells me it sounds like they're just trying to penny pinch all the time, with the result that their service to customers is suffering. No wonder the Open Access operators are rubbing their hands with glee.

Did EWS lose the Royal Mail contract to another railroad, or to trucks? Can you explain the comment about the Open Access operators? Thanks

[Hugh Jampton]

EWS lost the contract to trucks, but recently GBRailfreight (Now a Firstgroup company I believe) have taken some back. At the moment it's only 2 trains a day.
http://www.gbrailfreight.com/

[Tulyar15]

GB Railfreight are an Open Access operator who run with a mixture of second hand and new locos. They have picked up a number of infrastructure maintenance contracts, not only with Network Rail (the infrastructure owner) but also with London Underground. For the latter contract they've bought some new locos from EMD with the new low emissions engine so soon we'll see class 66's on the Underground!

[John Bakeer]

I think a 66 will be a tight fit in the tube!
John B.

[Anonymous]

EWS lost the PO contract early partly because some PO management didn't want to see trains shifting mail at all, partly because what EWS offered was basically an outmoded form of distribution and lots to do with politics. The stock used was life expired, esp. the TPO, those who manned the TPO were frankly a pain on occasions and external factors such as the decision to finish with by 8AM next day delivery and the like for "ordinary" post whoch meant that a lot of mail was no longer time sensitive.

However the PO had 6mth off the rails then promptly came back to 2 trains a day but operated by another firm. EWS now hauls for DHL and Business Post and if the airlines get included into the emissions trading then there could be more.

WIth OA a lot of contracts are put out to tender as there are a variety of willing movers in theory. However the ORR which basically sets what Notwork Fail can charge through Track Access reckons that freight doesn't cover its costs on the network. And is looking to shove prices higher from the next regulatory period.

We are in danger of institutionalising a very high cost base in the UK. Interesting times ahead.

[daveklepper]

Responding to Simon Reed:

From Mr. Sampson's book detailing his three-year stay in Saudi Arabia I would say you are in a war but that you are loosing because you aren't wiling to fight.

You need not kill innocent people or kill anybody. Just change your own government's energy and transportation planning.

Mr. Sampson is a British as well as Canadian citizen. What would your country have done if this treatment had been accorded one of its innocent citizens in say the year 1900?

Have you read his book? I think everyone should read it.

On the other hand I just now pulled up the website:

www.diplomatie.gouv.fr

and clicked on on "English'' and ''contact us''

and left a message

"Mercie - Thankyou - Todah - Shuckren

The young Frrench-Israeli soldier is a son of a very close friend of a very close friend of mine."

[Tulyar15]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

We are in danger of institutionalising a very high cost base in the UK. Interesting times ahead.

Still at least the news that the Rail Regulator is going to investigate the (rip-off!) charges levied bby the Rolling Stock companies is not before time. It is nothing short of a scandal that the Rolling Stock Co (ROSCO) that Wales and Borders hires its class 158 DMUs from charges £500K per annum. So during their 15 year franchise W&B will have paid £7.5 million per unit for a train that cost BR £1 million back in 1991. IF that is not a rip-off and ultimately its us taxpayers who are getting ripped off!) I dont know what is.

[daveklepper]

Resonse to John Bakeer:

By "pantographs" didn't you really mean "bow collectors"?

Modern light rail cars everywhere seem to use pantographs exclusively, but the British classic trams, possibly still some in Blackpool, used bow collectors. But I think Isle of Man uses trolley poles (without checking on this) except for Snaifell Mountain which has a very odd form of pantograph.

One virtue of the correctly designed bow collector with the correctly tensioned overhead wire was that the driver did not have to do anything to the collector when changing ends. When the tram went in the opposite direction, the bow collector would raise the wire and flip to be trailing. Anyone one on this thread remember seeing this? I think saw it in Blackpool (first visit 1962) and plenty of times in motion pictures.

Sure cannot do this with trolley poles! Small trolley-pole equipped trams required the driver to walk the pole around the car, while normal and large cars had two.

Pantographs, either the box-like classic or the single-arm "Faverly" type, work equally well in both directions, and the reason most electric locomotives have two is for security reasons --except the Milwaukee's and South Shore's "Little Joes" which frequently used both to minimize arcing and to handle the huge current required to handle long freight trains. at 3000V and 1500V DC.

[Anonymous]

T15 - before Richard Bowker became Chief Exec of NEG he ran a series of articles in Rail about the financing of the notwork and one of the articles was about rolling stock and ROSCOS. If memory serves it was along the lines that the were incentivised to buy new and that due to a long life, residual value and so forth they required a large capital element to cover costs of refurbishment. Ergo high lease charges.

I shall have to dig the copy out.

[Anonymous]

The 1st generation tram systems used a mix of trolley poles and bow collectors - Blackpool ran with poles then switched to pantographs, two I know of that used bow collectors were Leeds and Glasgow. The problem is that the overhead usually needs to be set up for one system - pantographs don't need the "frogs" to guide trolley poles. Blackpool seem to have found a way around this by using metal bars to guide the pantographs under junctions (avoiding them becoming tangled in the frogs). They need to do this in order to be able to operate both their main pantograph-equipped fleet and their collection of classic trams with poles.

[Hugh Jampton]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4801928.stm

[John Bakeer]

I once saw flying saucers (and plates etc.) when the West Yorkshireman went through a cross-over a bit briskly at Doncaster.
I think the Yanks are experimenting with an ION drive for their long distance craft, the provision of permanent way could pose a problem though!
Bow collectors if my memory serves me? Are confined to some of the blackpool fleet and the IOM Manx Electric Railway. I am not aware that anything other than pantographs (or similar) are applied to modern briti***rams. Parts of the old london network had a condiut between the rails with current collection via a shoe under the vehicle, I believe there is still a short piece in the Kingstone underpass.
John B.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hugh Jampton

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4801928.stm

[(-D] That's funny. It would seem likely that the difficulty in such a mode of transportation would not be acceleration, but stopping. Maybe that's why UFOs are always zooming past overhead. They haven't quite perfected the brakes.[:0]

[Anonymous]

set phasers to stun Mr Sulu.

[John Bakeer]

Look out for photon torpedoes in the milky way!
John B.

[daveklepper]

I know that all modern British systems are pantographs but happy to know that trolley poles are still used on the Isle of Man. Hope to get back to that wonderful garden spot with wonderful people some day. If Blackpool uses pantographs on its rehabilitated fleet (and hopefully money will be found for modern low-floor cars), does the historic fleet now have both bow collector and trolley-pole cars? Some of the museum systems in the USA also have overhead wire that can accomodate both kinds of pickup (pantograph and bow collector being essentially the same with regard to wire contact, possibly the big difference between them being simply the ranges of pressure employed), and some of the in-town city systems, as in Sacramento, Berkeley, and Oakland, CA,, where interurbans used pantographs and city streetcars trolley poles. Indeed, the entire Sacramento Northen system trolley wire (there was also a large third-rail section) was arranged that way, with special frogs with edges for pantograph continuous contact and with trolley-wire "ears" that kept the span-wire above the trolley wire itself yet permited the flanges of the trolley wheels or shoes to smoothly pass through.

From my recollection of movies and stills of London trams, bow collectors were used. The conduit system without wire was similar to New York and Washington, but with one big difference. The contact plows on the Washington and NY cars were attached to the car trucks. Change from wire to conduit required a man in an underground "plow pit" who manually slid the plow contactor off to the side of its carrier. London's plow were attached to a carrier under the car body. The conduit would move from between the rails to meet the conduit from the other track in a location half-way between the two tracks. The plow would slide out from under the outbound car at speed and join a stack of plows in the counduit between the two tracks. The only manual effort was for the attendent, above ground, to guide the plow to the proper point at the side of the inbound car, push it into the carrier, and the movement of the inbound car with the conduit moving to between the rail would center the plow. A better arrangment I thought.

As a youngster I visited Third Avenue Railway's plow pit at Lenox (now Malcolm X) Avenue and 145th Street, the only plow pit left operating, on the 149th Street Crosstown and Broadway-145th Street lines, and the Georgetown plowpits on the Cabin John and Frenship Heights lines of Capitol Transit, Washington, DC.

Conduit switches like most, but not all, trolley frogs for trolley-pole operation, did not have movable points. The frog was always further into the switch than the rail's points, so the movement of the car and srings associated with the plow would guide both a conduit plow and a trolley pole to the right wire. There were exceptions in certain trolley wire installations for specific reasons, more frequent with trolleybuses.

[John Bakeer]

Dave,
I've seen articals in Trains showing trolley poles on both interurban and mixed frieght/passenger lines (South Shore?), I'm afraid I never get close enough to see the detail. Did PCC trams all have trolleys? I can't recollect seeing any photo's of them otherwise equiped
However your description of the various systems is highly enlightening, thank you.
John B.

[Tulyar15]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

T15 - before Richard Bowker became Chief Exec of NEG he ran a series of articles in Rail about the financing of the notwork and one of the articles was about rolling stock and ROSCOS. If memory serves it was along the lines that the were incentivised to buy new and that due to a long life, residual value and so forth they required a large capital element to cover costs of refurbishment. Ergo high lease charges.

I shall have to dig the copy out.

Yes, I read Bowker's articles in RAIL and I thought by and large they were a load of arrogant waffle. He kept going on about why it was too expensive to re-open lines etc but he said nothing about why he'd not done anything to try and keep costs under control nor look at the big picture, which is what he was supposed to do. All he ever did was poor cold water on anyone's attempt to tackle these issues - which need tackling! Meanwhile, in the latest 'Modern Railways' there's a lovely song about electfiication and Bowker's very short sighted opposition to it, to the tune of "Jerusalem":-

Did wiring train in ancient times

work to make England's railways clean?

And was the wondrous sparks effect

upon the West Coast Main Line seen?

Then did the mis-named SRA

declare that diesel was preferred!

And has the soaring cost of oil

exposed how gravely Bowker erred?



Bring me my portal frames of steel

Bring me my copper contact wire

Bring me my 3 phase traction drive

Bring me my pantograph of fire

Our wiring teams shall not relent

nor shall the Treasury be mean

Until electric trains can run

from Penzance upto Aberdeen!

[Hugh Jampton]

well,, all those ex-BR people who decided at privatisation that they'd be better off becoming consultants didn't help.

[Anonymous]

London's trams used standard trolley poles - you may have seen some ex-London cars in Leeds with bow collectors though, a number migrated north after the London system closed (Felthams, HR2s, and the lone "Bluebird"). The Blackpool fleet has pantographs on the day to day fleet and poles on the preserved cars - they've also operated trams from other systems in the past to allow them to run in an urban setting again. Interestingly they don't seem to be able to handle bow collectors - the preserved Glasgow "Cunarder" car that ran there a while ago had a spare pole fitted in place of the original bow collector.

[daveklepper]

Some answers. There were interurbans with both poles and pantographs, and at one time some older South Shore cars had both. Possibly they interlined with other interurbans in Indiana, such as Gary Railways. This feature was not around by WWII. Possibly some older Key System.

All North American PCC's had trolley poles. Now some have pantographs or are in the process of getting them. PCC's in Newark and Pittsburgh bowed out with pantographs, a refit. There were some Washington, DC lines that were all conduit and were all PCC, but even those PCC's had poles so they could be diverted to other lines when necessary. Some much older cars, some that ran through WWII, some center-door Washington 2-man cars, did not have poles, or possibly lost them during WWII to conserve material and apply them for cars that needed them. These cars all dissapeared after WWII, and then even the remaining older cars that ran until Benning was abandoned about 1952, had both conduit and pole equipment.

New York was a different story. New York Railways (actually New York and Harlem, but run as part of "Green Lines" even when independent) had only three trolley-pole equipped cars, just for their Madison Avenue - New York Central 138th Street Station shuttle. All their other equipment, including work equipment, only had conduit equipment. Third Avenue had all three types. All-conduit equipment for most Manhattan lines, including the famous Broadway-42nd Street "Huffliners", some trolley-pole only cars for Bronx and Westchester lines, and about 150 or so convertables, the 01-100 series and some in 900 - 1000 group tjhat had both trolley poles and conduit. During and after WWII, the 149th Street Crosstown and the Broadway - 145th Street line (down to one car every 45 minutes at the end, no bus replacement) needed them in regular service. Previously the 125th Street - Wilis Avenue line was a reasonably heavy line that had plow pit at First Avenue and about 126th Street. The third plow-pit was in Brooklyn on Flatbush Avenue many years earlier, possibly out about 1930-1931- for use when Third Avenue had its own streetcar line over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn. There may have been a fourth plow-pit at 225th Street and Broadway for use by cars coming from Yonkers to go all the way to Manhattan to reach the subway opened at 147th and Broadway or to reach the n9th Avenue elevated at 145th Street and 8th Avenue, before the subway was extended north to Van Courtland Park, 242nd Street which was the south end of the Yonkers car lines for all the years I remember them (Age four, 1936 until abandonment in 1952.) Queens and Broolyn and Staten Island were all trolley lines, without conduit, except for the Third Avenue extension into Brooklyn noted above and a short extension of a branch of the 42nd Street Crosstown off the 59th Street Queensboro Bridge, but without a plow pit in Queens.

I find it interesting the both the London tram subway and the Park Avenue one were conduit!

[Simon Reed]

The primary reason that Blackpool's "Preserved" fleet runs with poles is that pantographs scrape the grease off the overheads.

On a closed top tram the grease falls onto the roof. On an open top tram it falls onto the passengers.

The London subway (actually Kingsway and, unusually in UK parlance, referred to as a subway throughout it's working life) was conduit/plow out of necessity.

It was built as a "cut and cover" operation - ie a trench was dug and then bridged over - but to save money and also to allow for clearances around Holborn Underground station the trench was'nt dug deeply enough to allow for catenary.

The Northern entrance to Kingsway can still be seen, complete with conduit slot, about two blocks north of Holborn station on (I think) Greys Inn Road.

[daveklepper]

Didn't Blackpool at one time have two systems, and didn't one of the two use bow collectors? I am pretty sure I saw at least one car, possibly on the carbarn, with a bow collector.

The use of bow collectors on the London cars in Leeds did confuse me. I had forgotton that they used poles in London.

[Simon Reed]

I'll check, but I'm fairly sure that Blackpool never had bow collectors.

When the system was inaugurated in 1895 they used a conduit system but this was quickly abandoned because sand kept getting into the conduit.

I think at the time of your first visit to Blackpool the Marton route would still have been operational. This was an inland loop, roughly forming a U shape, which set off from North Pier at 90 degrees to the Coastal tramway and ran via suburbs to South Station.

It's cars had poles but were fitted with different trucks and control equipment to those on the coastal route, so the two systems were operated independently.

[daveklepper]

Was the Marton routes used exclusively by single-deck cars?

[John Bakeer]

HAPPY J4 TO OUR TRANSATLANTIC BUDDIES.
John B.

[Simon Reed]

Marton was primarily - but not exclusively - operated with single deck saloons built and equipped specifically for the route.

Only one survives - Number 11, at the Carlton Colville Museum in East Anglia.

[daveklepper]

Wasn't the Kingsway Subway built originally for single deck cars and then enlarged for double-deck?