So where are you now Cogload?
The WSR June gala clashes with KWVR Diesel weekend which I'm duty bound to attend - partially because many of my friends are KWVR diesel people, partially because I need 26010 and partially because I've had 995 miles off 37025 - a trip and a bit will make 1000.
(Would have replied sooner but I'm at work and some clown has just driven a Toyota Supra into our substation.)
devils wrote: for our American (and anybody else for that matter) friends. Those who want to find out what a "signaller" does on the railway, have a butchers at the following site.www.readingpsb.org.cogload.
for our American (and anybody else for that matter) friends. Those who want to find out what a "signaller" does on the railway, have a butchers at the following site
.
www.readingpsb.org
cogload.
No one questioned "butchers"? Translation from Cockney rhyming slang, "butchers hook" ie "have a look"
Cogload appears to be keeping us on our Bromleys.
Isambard
Grizzly Northern history, Tales from the Grizzly and news on line at isambard5935.blogspot.com
Simon Reed wrote:The WSR June gala clashes with KWVR Diesel weekend which I'm duty bound to attend - partially because many of my friends are KWVR diesel people, partially because I need 26010 and partially because I've had 995 miles off 37025 - a trip and a bit will make 1000.
Isambard wrote: devils wrote: for our American (and anybody else for that matter) friends. Those who want to find out what a "signaller" does on the railway, have a butchers at the following site.www.readingpsb.org.cogload. No one questioned "butchers"? Translation from Cockney rhyming slang, "butchers hook" ie "have a look"Cogload appears to be keeping us on our Bromleys.
Now we're on the subject of rhyming slang, is "Hugh Jampton" our co-contributor's real name, or has he been taking the mickey all aong??
Hwyl,
Martin
One has to suspect that his is a pseudonym - although I could be causing grave offence.
Some time ago I mentioned the ex LSWR branch to Hampton Court and wondered if that prospect might bring tears to his eyes.
I'm not sure that I wish to embark upon an explanation of this for the benefit of our American readers....
T15.. I am suprised that you find Salisbury pricey compared to the Georgian Splendours of Bath.
Anyway, devolution is grinding away in the UK, and the Scots government is spending money on various railways like it is going out of fashion.
These are:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/defaultpage1221cde0.aspx?pageID=181.
The Larkhall branch has been reopened, Stirling-Kincardine is scheduled for August (running late -and an intesting side argument about access charges in regards to this), whilst the Edinburgh Tram project and the airport rail link will be shelved if the Scots Nationalists gain power in the May elections. For US readers only one of those links has been rebuilt with freight in mind, the others are all to be rebuilt primarily for passenger traffic.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy...
unlike the States which has a federal system of government, the background in the Uk means that everything to do with politics has been extremely centralised. Add to the fact that London has a population of 8 million (about 12% of the Uk population) and is the largest Capital City in Europe means that one place tends to dominate. The media, politics everything emanates from this city really. Added to the fact that over the last 50 years, what stands for local government has seen it's power stripped bit by bit and we have people in London deciding for instance, what the optimal passenger service should be for lines over 500 miles away.
Combined with a first past the post voting system based on parliamentry constituencies has seen successive governments based in London hold sway in parts of the United Kingdom where they actually had either no or very few Members of Parliament. This has caused the natives in paarts of the country i.e. Scotland and Wales to get restless. The former was of course an independant country in it's own right until 1707 when it signed the Act of Union. So the present shower who are currently doing their best to screw things up promised to transfer or devolve powers in areas such as education, health, transport etc.. from the centre to Edinburgh and Cardiff should the voters wish. This has been done. So now the Scots get to decide (with the help of the English taxpayer!!!!) how to run thier passenger trains and in which bits of infrastructure they would like to invest in. Network Rail are still the "owner" of the infrastructure north of the border, but the Scots have decided to throw cash as can be seenj in the link. They now can spend the money where they wish. The Welsh are in a similar position but the Welsh assembly in Cardiff is more limited in what it can achieve.
There is a distinct hint of serious revolution in the air here in terms of politics. When the present Prime Minister finally removes himself from office after 10 glorious years (sarcasm) the heir presumptive is a Scotsman sitting for a Scots constituency. As has been pointed out by all and sundry, there are matters in areas such as health and education which pertain only to england and Wales where the present government can use Scots MP's to make sure that a majority is achieved in Parliament however due to devolution English MP's have no say in those matters north of the border.
It is a right old mess really. However it has seen decisions being taken which are closer to the level at which they should be taken. If the Scots wish to spend £165m rebuilding the north end of the "Waverley" then that matter should be for them to decide alone. If that is what the taxpayer wants north of the border then that is their decision.
p.s. I am not a Vampire - it is 3Am here and I am at work!
yea. Only one more night to do after this before settling in for a "late" turn on Monday. In another hour the multiple units which form the passenger trains will start coming off shed to disappear to all and sundry. So just taking the opportunity to catch up and have a trawl through threads old and new.
Hallo Cogload,
IMHO, region parliaments and governments for Scotland, Wales and Ulster are a good idea. (I don't mean independence.) But why no regional government for England? It seems unfair to mee.
Change of subject. Is it true, vandals damaged the cars (and engine?) of the "Hogwarth"-express known from Harry-Potter-films? And what type of rolling-stock is it? For me, it looked like former LMS.
I have to say that I was under the impression that the Edinburgh tram system was at a rather more advanced stage than this.
I am also a little surprised at the perceived necessity for a rail link into Edinburgh airport. As I've mentioned above there is an existing route probably less than a mile way from the terminal buildings and, frankly, Edinburgh is not the busiest airport in the UK.
In the US, where admittedly public sector spending is rather less (i.e. not) forthcoming a splendid new station has been built on the Amtrak/NJT route for Newark airport, which is linked to the airport itself by automatic monorail type trains. We have the same here at Birmingham and Gatwick.
I would have thought that such an option, with a far lesser financial and environmental impact, would suffice for Edinburgh.
Martin - yes, the "Harry Potter" train has been vandalised. Local youths got into the normally secure West Coast Railways compound at Carnforth, Lancashire:-
http://www.steamtrain.info/WCR.htm
and broke the windows of a lot of stock. It is'nt just used for filming purposes as the website indicates.
The stock is ex BR Mk I stock, dating from the 1950's and 60's. The colour is LMS, as this is the colour that BR chose to adopt for most of it's passenger carrying stock between 1953 and 1964.
Notwork Rail's Easter week end blockade of the South Wales main line between Llanharan and Baglan to test / commission the Port Talbot East re-signalling project has over-run badly. Normal services were originally planned to be back by last Tuesday a.m., but are now expected to get back to normal by next Monday!
Our local media are playing it up for all they're worth, banging on about disgruntled commuters having to bus it between Swansea and Cardiff, and all the while missing the fact that Tata Steel @ Port Talbot, EWS's biggest single source of traffic west of a Thames - Mersey axis, is temporarily totally isolated and can't even ship coils to its junior Tinplate plant at Trostre, Llanelli, and coils and slabs to the rest of the UK via the Central Wales Line.
And people said British Railways couldn't organise a p***-up in a brewery!!!
Good, then it isn't only Prorail here in the Netherlands that screws up! Like just east of Almelo station in the east of the country. The tracks will be lowered below field level so a 3rd track was build over the weekend a few weeks ago to divert traffic while the works go on. When it became time to connect and test the signalling it went all wrong. Only the Amsterdam-Berlin Germany international service and some freight is allowed to run on the still unsignalled track. Other passengers are bussed around the works or can take the dieseltrains on the Hengelo-Zutphen-Apeldoorn/Arnhem line (operated by Syntus, but it is single track).
And then there is the joke of the safety problems still going on with the Betuweroute, hopefully commercial use of the line starts somewhere in june or july.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
marcin...ref your comments about an english parliament. Yes, most of us would want it but the present government is most reluctant probabley because it would return a permanent tory majority.
Ref Port Talbot, one problem was that the local lightfingeredlarry's were borrowing the cable on a permananet basis as soon as it was laid out. It may have an impact on the Basing resignalling as the testers for that are currently engaged on the PT work.
It has been rather busy at work trying to thread about 30 additional freights through the Panel area.
Cogload,
Nothing new with Lightfingeredlarries, it's just that Llanharan - Baglan just seems too much to bite off at one go. Surely they should have split that length over two week ends. I wonder how much Tata Steel will be claiming from EWS for the business disruption, and how much they will then seek to recover from Notwork Rail?
As it happened, I took the train to Cardiff on Maundy Thursday last week, and for the hell of it, took a detour over the Vale of Glamorgan line to see how business was going. Admittedly it was the schools' Easter Holidays, and the weather was beautiful, but the trains were ram jam full. The only downside is that passengers from west of Bridgend intending to fly from Cardiff Wales Airport need to use the footbridge at Bridgend (didn't anyone think that lifts might be far more convenient to Mr. & Mrs. plus 2.4 kids plus assorted holiday baggage??)
The bi-directional signals should be a boon when everything's bedded down, though. I just hope Notwork Rail will be a bit more realistic over testing/commissioning on the next phase.
Last month's Trains magazine carried an excellent article on the BNSF Transcon through New Mexico and the steps that are being taken to improve capacity.
I think we can be fairly sure that throughout the extensive works BNSF did not simply slap a blockade on the route and say "Well sorry, Fellas, but we can't run trains until we're done, which might be tomorrow or a week next Thursday."
The 2000/2001 remodelling of Leeds - admittedly a big job - went 14 weeks (over 50%) beyond it's estimated and allocated time.
As a nation we appear to have lost the ability to satisfactorily budget for cost and time on big projects, and their impact. The projected cost of the 2012 Olympic Games appears to be spiralling beyond control, for instance. I understand that the WCML quadrupling, which was once on time and budget, has taken a major lurch into the red recently.
John Baker
Don't they issue contracts with a reward/penalty for early/late completion?
______________________
What is a Jensen Interceptor?
murphy....not really. The contracts are let on a long term basis to lock in various suppliers though I am sure that penalty clauses abound. I think Siemans are going to get a bashing for this as at Portsmouth they have reintroduced absolute block working from a signalbox which closed in 1964 complete with block instruments, bells and levers...
Basingstoke part 1 was handed back on time this morning though there will still be disruption for a few weeks to come. PT is an utter, utter mess and fiasco.
Simon Reed wrote:As a nation we appear to have lost the ability to satisfactorily budget for cost and time on big projects, and their impact. The projected cost of the 2012 Olympic Games appears to be spiralling beyond control, for instance. I understand that the WCML quadrupling, which was once on time and budget, has taken a major lurch into the red recently.
Murphy,
A Jensen Interceptor is an iconic sports car from the 60s(?), its only outstanding feature I recall was the odd wrap round rear window and its use by a screen detective of the time who's name escapes me. Simon has a rare find.
I spent fifty years in the construction industry, I had a saying "there isn't a contract that can't be broken". opposed to breached.)
John Bakeer wrote: Murphy,A Jensen Interceptor is an iconic sports car from the 60s(?), its only outstanding feature I recall was the odd wrap round rear window and its use by a screen detective of the time who's name escapes me. Simon has a rare find.
Tulyar15 wrote: Simon Reed wrote:As a nation we appear to have lost the ability to satisfactorily budget for cost and time on big projects, and their impact. The projected cost of the 2012 Olympic Games appears to be spiralling beyond control, for instance. I understand that the WCML quadrupling, which was once on time and budget, has taken a major lurch into the red recently. Not entirely! Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) Phase 1 was completed on time and in budget and Phase 2 looks like it will be completed on time in November - too bad it wont' be ready for the Rugby World Cup in France.As an aside I travelled to Bedford this weekend and so saw the state of play at London St. Pancras. It's looking good so keep your fingers crossed.
The UK's Rail Contractors seem able to continue to deliver on-time/on-budget in the case of green field projects, but Route Modernisation Works on active main lines has become too difficult through Health & Safety considerations (I often wonder whether we're all becoming just a bit too Risk Averse) and the "balkanisation" of the Railway family into a plethora of various businees units, many of whom have wildly differing objectives and goals.
Sorry to hark back to the Thatcher years (I'm no Tory supporter, I can assure you), but in those years we did get the East Coast Mainline, East and West Anglia, Edinburgh-Carstairs, and Glasgow-Ayr (if I've overlooked any, please feel free to chip in) Electrification schemes approved, installed, and commisioned with hardly a hiccup. All on-time and all on-budget. But the key difference was that everyone was on the same side in those days.
From the Welsh perspective, Network Rail's failure to complete the Ebbw Valley refurbishment beggars belief.
Well the outcome of the Scottish elections may see the Edinburgh Tram and Airport Rail Link projects in some doubt. However as the SNP have no working majority they may yet be saved.
Interesting to see what happens in England now.
cogloadreturns wrote:Well the outcome of the Scottish elections may see the Edinburgh Tram and Airport Rail Link projects in some doubt. However as the SNP have no working majority they may yet be saved. Interesting to see what happens in England now.
UK-free Scotland. The ghost of Wallace rides again?
The Scottish election has finished up a right mess. With four differing electoral processes, how do they expect stability, The Americans have it right with a federal government and a reasonable amount of autonomy for the states. If the UK had that plus PR, we might have a proper democracy? Our politics are as bad as our transport system, Servants of the public in name only.
John Bakeer wrote:The Scottish election has finished up a right mess. With four differing electoral processes, how do they expect stability, The Americans have it right with a federal government and a reasonable amount of autonomy for the states. If the UK had that plus PR, we might have a proper democracy? Our politics are as bad as our transport system, Servants of the public in name only.
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