Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Will half a dozen do?
All rather confusing really!
John Baker
Sometimes I feel like that too...
I'm wondering how strong the SNP resolve might be. We really could do with a Scottish subscriber on here.
As I've previously suggested the Edinburgh Airport scheme seems to me an unneccessary expenditure - but it's not my money - whilst I understand the Edinburgh light rail system to be pretty much a Fait Accomplis already. (Pardon my French.)
The good citizens of Edinburgh seem to be pretty much behind the light rail scheme from what I understand. The SNP may yet be diluted by the Lib Dems which would suggest a pro-light-rail stance.
The Jensen Interceptor - well it's a 1968 Mk I., and you can read more about them here:-
http://www.british-steel.org/
It actually handles better than the Alfa Romeo GTV that we traded in for it, and it's scarily fast but it gets through fuel at a horrendous rate - went to Whitby this weekend which is a 200 mile round trip and it's drunk about 18 gallons.
Mind you hitting 131 on the A1 did'nt help....felt like 60 in the Suzuki.
Going to Edinburgh in the next few weeks, hope to find out more about light rail etc.
Did about 500 miles around Derbyshire, Cheshire and the West Riding over the weekend used just over 9 gallons, just goes to show how technology has advanced, I think we did nearly 80 on the M1. It may only be a Honda, but at least it was made in Swindon. Had a Daimler Sovereign for a time in the 70s, damn near bankrupted me, 8mpg or thereabouts. Talk about a rocket ship, never found out how quick it was, the fuel gauge went down faster than the speedo went up! Swopped it for a Cortina that did a whopping 30mpg.
Talking of loco' works, an acquaintance from over the pond says he has heard that another long established UK builder/restorer of steam locomotives is to close after completing the current project. Can anyone enlighten me/us.
Murphy,
We do have a dedicated royal train, I'm not sure where it is stored/maintained but when it is out on the line power is usually hired from one of the private operating companies; EWS class 37s usually in pairs.
The RAF until recently had a Royal Flight, but this was disbanded on the grounds of economy. They either hire an aircraft or take space on a sceduled service as needed.
The royal Yacht 'Britannia' was retired some years ago and is now a floating museum. The Navy or a wealthy friend provide seagoing accommodation when required.
Guess who pays????????-Muggins, the pleb.
I'm also not sure where the Royal Train is kept these days but yes, as John says, perhaps I should be told because I'm paying for it out of my taxes!
The Royal Train is just that - a five or six car train for the exclusive use of the royal family. It uses the bodyshells and trucks of standard BR built Mk. 3 passengers cars but other than that every fitting is custom-made.
I think even the most ardent Royalist would have to question it's continued existance. It seems to be used very little these days (possibly because of security concerns - I don't know) and must cost a fortune to operate.
I wonder what would happen if EWS/Network Rail were asked to provide a path for it over a capacity route at peak time?
The Royal Train is kept at Wolverton and is not solely for the use of the Royal Family, in fact only the Monarch and the heir apparent use the facility. The Glorious Leader has also used it,. visiting heads of state use it and the Glorious Leader's wife also borrowed it on one occasion.
I am not sure how the train is paid for, but I think it comes out of the general fund which is paid by the Treasury to keep the "royal infrastructure" up each year. Ir is acknowledged as being one of the safeest and most secure ways of keeping the Head of State moving and is first on the timing graph when running. Remember, whether you like the current system or not, most countries have their own planes, ships, trains and the like for their Heads of State to travel in. Very handy when discussing high diplomacy. If you do not believe me, look at what the "Regal" President of France has at his/her disposal. And believe me, everything stops when [they] run!
If you believe in having a Head of State then there is an image to project. We always whinge about the "value to the taxpayer" - well on occasions the adage of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing springs to mind.
I thought that Wolverton had been sold and flattened.
Perhaps Our Glorious Leader can use it on his farewell tour. I'm not going to speculate upon it's future use by Glorious Leaders because I can remember how much we were all expecting Prime Minister Heseltine in 1990.
If our privatised rail system is - as alledged - the envy of the world why can't the visiting top brass travel on that....
cogloadreturns wrote: The Royal Train is kept at Wolverton and is not solely for the use of the Royal Family, in fact only the Monarch and the heir apparent use the facility. The Glorious Leader has also used it,. visiting heads of state use it and the Glorious Leader's wife also borrowed it on one occasion. ........................................................... look at what the "Regal" President of France has at his/her disposal. And believe me, everything stops when [they] run!
........................................................... look at what the "Regal" President of France has at his/her disposal. And believe me, everything stops when [they] run!
It appears to me, that the new French President could hop on a train, and come visit the new British Prime Minister. That would make for an interesting news event.
In the Netherlands we are down to one carriage, a century ago it was 5. The current one does not see much service, mostly it is seen on testruns. It was build in the mid eighties and is based on a first class carriage of the ICR type.
These days our queen goes by car or for longer distances in our country she uses a Royal Netherlands Airforce helicopter and then her special and luxurious VIP bus. Many heads of state and other visiting foreign dignitaries were surprised the first time they were asked to take the bus but now they are used to it (I wonder if this is the reason we do not see the British queen?). The first bus is now in a museum as is at least one of the two carriages of the previous royal train.
Members of the royal family are sometimes travelling by special train because of some event or other. I think our crown prince, Willem Alexeander, travelled with the athletes from the Turin winter olympics back home by special train.
For pictures of the Dutch royal train, royal waiting rooms and some pictures of other royal trains see this link: http://www.nicospilt.com/hoogheid.htm.
Unfortunately, the text is only in dutch. Contact me or better yet, Nico Spilt himslef for a translation if necessary.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Still on Royal Trains,
I have MSTS and on a programme 'Scottish Central' there is an activity 'Royal Train'. I drive EWS 37410 with members of the Belgian RF from Rosyth to Edinburgh Waverley, where they continue on a tour of Scotland. In this activity the 37 is pulled off a Fort William service that has just terminated.
Most MSTS activities are based on actual routes and journies, and as far as I can find the above took place in the real world.
Still on the Royal Train -
Back when Peter Parker was Chairman of British Rail, and trumpeting the "crumbling edge of quality" phrase to try to get the Govt of the day to stump up a bit more for track renewal, I must admit that it was always heartening to read that Charles was regularly using the Royal Train to reach destinations on lines that the general public had been led to believe were served by clapped out and potentially dangerous routes.
Good for him, I say.
Hwyl,
Martin
I have actually signalled the "special train". However it would entail instant death to spill details.
It used to visit places like Llandod on the Heart of Wales which BR was ever threatening to close so thumbs up there.
Back O?T - apparently Farce Group have been poleaxed from the bidding for the Cross Country Franchise. So there is a huge sigh of relief all round. Virgin/Stagecoach favourites then?
Great weekend coming up - Saturday we'll have #71000 "Duke of Gloucester" running a Birmingham International - Fishguard Harbour Steamex (down via Swansea District Line/up via Landore), and on Sunday, #6024 "King Edward 1" running a Bristol Temple Meads - Pembroke Dock Steamex (down via Landore/up via SDL).
Big bonus for me is that my 8 year old Grandson, who lives in Jersey (UK's Channel Islands, that is, not NJ), finally gets a chance to see BIG STEAM up close and personal. The King is scheduled to take water at my home village station, so that's about as close up and personal you can get).
So it'll be Anoraks all round all weekend, so let's hope the weather stays kind.
The cynics amongst us may argue that the press release from Central is a bit of spinning after the seeming unofficial sunday working bans going on by various traincrews! The service has been decimated on occasions recently!
Anyway; this may make interesting reading for some. The annual survey of passenger numbers at every station in the UK, although it is arguable that the data maybe flawed.
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1529
Not the best of reading for the far north or the Heart of wales for a start.
Thanks for the link, and yes, it's pretty gloomy reading for us living in places BBC reporters always add the prefix "remote" (presumably they've never ever been there, or it's just a bit too far beyond Potters Bar, Didcot, Woking, etc. etc.
That said, if the s**t hits the fan, we just might see our Assembly Members finally try to break the inertia here.
After all, if we had a suitably timed and well marketed service that could get us to and from our capital city to :-
without being hostage to perol prices, parking charges, delays from accidents / congestion on our one and only motorway, I'm sure the footfall figures could increase sufficiently to put an entirely different spin on things.
You don't need a train every half-hour, or even an hourly service really, to make things more attractive to potential travellers, rather someone to listen to what the people's reasonable expectations are, before drawing up an attractive yet affordable timetable.
Let's wait and see.
Saw the Duke in action last Saturday. Ran to time past 87Fland and seemed to be more than comfortable with the timings and load on the drawbar. Very impressive locomotive and a credit to everyone involved with the engine.
Must say how nice the chime whistle sounded (pity the drivers never offer an obligato or two nowadays), a beautiful reminder of the Standard Class 5 days on the Central Wales line back in the 1960s, but the sound and rhythm of a 3 cylinder engine quite baffled some of the locals more used to GWR/BR 2 and 4 cylinder classes!!
Sadly, the King was over 2 hours late coming down, and the train was caped at Carmarthen to run back in the original timings. Weather was very wet, which again put a damper on things.
Psst, anyone know when the next Giant Kettles are due around 87Fland?
Tulyar,
Many thanks for the details. Will have a look-see later when I get a chance.
Martin.
Hi,
Just when I have gotten used to the ugly machines operating here in the Netherlands I come across this press report / press release (original source unknown to me) via http://forum.rolandrail.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2319 (and http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/)
Freight shutdown threatened over Class 66 cab conditions
TRAIN DRIVERS' union ASLEF has warned that its members will refuse to drive Class 66 locomotives from June 18th unless cab conditions are dramatically improved. General secretary Keith Norman has branded the cabs 'unhealthy, unsafe and unsatisfactory'. The union gave a negotiating deadline of February 28th for the freight companies involved – EWS, Freightliner, GB Railfreight and DRS – to bring forward proposals to improve the cab environment but no significant progress has been made to date.
The move comes following continuing comments from train crew that have complained of poor/broken seating, high temperatures, draughts, excessive noise and vibration. It is apparent that some of the '66s', which began being introduced in 1998, are suffering badly from water ingress from the air-horn area and rust around window frames.
The action is being recommended as part of ASLEF's 'SQUASH in the cab' campaign promoting a Safe, Quiet, User-friendly, Air-conditioned, Specially-seated & Healthy cab. The union has highlighted an increase in signals passed at danger during hot weather periods, saying these statistics demonstrate that safety is being compromised by a failure to provide modern air-conditioned cabs. It goes on to say that it is impossible for drivers to maintain the necessary levels of concentration in a cab that lacks basic facilities such as ergonomically-designed seating.
Operators looking for solutions
The freight companies are keen to improve the situation. GBRf, having experimented with a new seat design, has committed to fleet-wide upgrade and is also investigating a cab cooling system and the fitting of side window blinds. The information has been shared with Freightliner and DRS, who are looking to make their own improvements. EWS says it has made proposals to ASLEF and is awaiting feedback.
It is likely that a compromise will be reached and a programme of improvements agreed but there is no doubt that union 'blacking' of the GM/EMD machines would have serious implications with around 75% of all freight in the hands of Class 66 locomotives. If action does come about it could produce one last 'summer of fun' for enthusiasts if companies such as EWS are forced to return alternative motive power to traffic as cover.
Comments, anybody?
To see the interior of a German class 66 go to this site, the owner managed to take pictures of the interior of HGK DE670 (HGK = Hafen und Güterverkehr Köln, a German private open access operator with its own tracks in the Cologne / Bonn area in western Germany) via a side window:
http://rolfs-n-bahn.de.tl/Class66.htm
Tulyar15 wrote:Basically the tracks are owned by Network Rail who also set the timetables and crew the signal boxes ("Control Towers" I think you call them in America) , which charges the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) for using them. The rolling stock was sold to Rolling Stock Companies (ROSCO's) who lease the stock to the TOC's.But there are over 20 TOC's and the system has proved unwieldy. The thinking behind privitisation was a mish mash of different ideas. The purpose of separating infrastructure from operations was to try and provide a level playing field for competition. But when the last Conservative government found that no-one wanted to buy the TOC's for fear of having to face competition from "open access" operators it gave guarantees to the buyers of TOC's to limit compeition. (The passenger TOC's are effectively management contracts under which bidders bid to provide a certain minimum service for a specified period of years. The freight TOC's have more commercial freedom.) So very few open access operators have come along so far, and only one that operates passenger trains though another is applying for a licence to operate passenger trains.
So, if I'm correct, and please correct me if I am, Britan runs it's trains like we run trucks over the US interstate? The Gov. owns and taxes the property, the fuel usage and money made, but private firms run their own trains over this Gov. owned property property, without much as far as scheduling? So they got to pay the Gov. to run trains? If that's the case, I'm surprised ANYONE'S bought a railroad. It's been promoted here. Never went, nor will it ever, go anywher. Wasn't Knieling a big propenent of unit trains on "open access" mainlines?
There have been rumbles of discontent about the 66's for a while - I think we've touched on some of them previously.
A friend drove one recently on a wet day. He said that rainwater was literally pouring in through the secondmans side window.
He also says that the build quality varies drastically. Some are smooth, quiet and solid whilst others vibrate and leak. This may be the one of the reasons that it has'nt become an issue until recently.
In the unlikely event of an embargo by unions, the network will stop. There is nowhere near enough spare motive power to cover for the shortfall. Furthermore, whatever may or may not be amiss with the 66's they are certainly reliable and capable of far more intensive diagramming than their predecessors.
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