I can't remember when I last went to Aber by rail. It was behind a pair of NB 37's so we're talking at least 20 years ago.
I've certainly never ridden the funicular there despite having a bit of a soft spot for that most esoteric mode of railway transportation.
I did'nt get to go round the loop behind Nelson either - someone realised that if a Duchess was out of gauge a Nelson certainly would be!
I think my next trip out will be the Moors Steam gala. 11 working steam engines 90 minutes drive from my house. Then Keighley - 8 working engines 20 minutes away.
We are so lucky in the UK..
Morning All,
Had a query from one of my US correspondents that has aroused my curiosity; Is there a web site that gives the lowdown on the Hogwarts Express i.e. What and where it really is? The last I heard it was at Carnforth, but their web site is useless.
John Baker
Hi,
If our government want to take a train in South Africa, hope its not our most famous (infamous?) Blue Train. It recently ran out of diesel fuel in the Karoo. This is the desert region it passes through heading to or from Cape Town It was carrying tourists, who pay a hefty amount for the trip. One wonders how an engineer can start a journey if the tanks are not carrying enough for the part of the trip assigned to the loco's.
John Bakeer wrote:Morning All,Had a query from one of my US correspondents that has aroused my curiosity; Is there a web site that gives the lowdown on the Hogwarts Express i.e. What and where it really is? The last I heard it was at Carnforth, but their web site is useless.
This site has a Gremlin! I replied to Sprulz and up popped my earlier post.
I give up.
Churchward wasn't much on ergonomics. In order to operate the throttle and at the same time see where he is going the drivers of his tender engines had to lay across the reverser-damned uncomfortable to say the least, not many loco' designers paid much regard to crew comfort.
Come on guys, some one must know about Hogwarts Express.
Tulyar,
Nice pic's. The 37 smoking like a Duchess, Interesting!
Any one noticed? This little puffer is running in reverse!
Tulyar15 wrote:There are some pics I took of the Pathfinder Railtour to Aberystwyth, on this (regularly updated!) website:-http://www.nwrail.org.uk/nwnews.htm
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Tulyar - I can't get into your link.
If, however, the 37 was 248 I've been told it's a bag of spanners at the moment and smokes gleefully at the slightest provocation.
Deltics...well
http://www.preserved-diesels.co.uk/2007b/55019_4.htm
and
http://www.preserved-diesels.co.uk/2006d/55022_13.htm
for some clag.
Quite the most astonishing effect I've ever seen was whilst I was manning the Irish Traction Group sales stand at Bury one day.
1041:-
http://www.preserved-diesels.co.uk/2004/1041_35.htm
made a departure a lot worse than this! It took a good five minutes for the smoke to clear!
Snippet from the BBC website's Welsh News page today.
It seems that an Aberystwyth to Birmingham train ran at 80 mph through a 20 mph Temporary Speed Limit on the single track @ Ty Mawr, between Caersws and Newtown on 29th August.
The TSR was imposed following discovery of a "rail defect."
RAIB inquiry to be held.
Hwyl,
Martin
The North Wales web site is very good, I keep it on my favourites list.
Well it sems to have finally happened!
http://www.freightliner.co.uk/newsdetail.aspx?newsid=52
GE is breaking into the UK market.
I recall that quite a few pages of this monumental thread have been concentrated on the poor build quality and poor adhesion characteristics of the European EMD product and I also recall a debate about the alternatives available.
It has long been a disappointment to me that no European operators have chosen to seek a superior product to the EMD offering. Equally disappointing has been the failure of European manufacturers to fully capitalise on the paucity of a high output diesel for EU use.
With the impending sale of EWS to DB (still pending EU approval although agreed domestically) this represents an extremely timely breakthrough for GE in the European market and I am exceptionally pleased at this news.
A response from Vossloh/Siemens now also must be an inevitability.
Interesting....What I find odd, is that on this side of the Atlantic, EMD's are genrally thought of as being more reliable than GE's. (Just from what I read anyway.)
Would a Chinese locomotive ever have a chance in Britain?
Murphy,
The Chinese are closer to the US loading gauge and would foul just about everything along the track.
The new channel tunnel link and the Central Railway (if it ever opens?) have a generous loading gauge. The mind boggles at the thought of a Chinese puffer going from Bootle to Paris. I remember one of the preserved lines getting its hands on a Baldwin 2-8-0, but it wouldn't go round corners and it knocked lumps off the line side equipment.
I have been a 'Trains' subscriber for over thirty years and have seen the demise of the great names, but from what I can gather, there appears to be little to choose between today's GE and EMD products..A lot of re-builds get Caterpillar power units though.
Murphy Siding wrote: John- I was thinking more along these lines: Presumably, GE will have to redesign their equipment to work on British loading gauge, the same as EMD had to. At this point, it's already been accepted, to have foreign built units on British rails. That being said, I wondered if China, or some other industrial country with lower production costs might try to enter the market?
If China had the ability to produce capable locomotives why would they be buying 300 new diesel locomotives each from EMD and GE? Also they are buying similar sized quantities of Bombardier and Siemens electric locomotives.
Happy Thanksgiving US folks!
Murphy - the European EMDs are'nt particularly unreliable.
They are prone to leaky cabs, excessive vibration and high noise levels for engineers. In leaf fall season they are badly prone to wheelslip. They are also slow on acceleration, which can be a major issue in the more heavily trafficked urban areas of the UK where freight has to be fitted in around intensive and fast commuter service.
Beaulieu - a valid point about EMD and GE exporting to China, but would any of us be surprised if this was the last such order? The Chinese will doubtless "clone" them and construct their own versions.
China do build their own stock already but it's largely home designed or perhaps borrowing off USSR prototypes. The UK Bus industry has recently had a Chinese model (King Long) demonstrated to them but the take up has been negligible, apparently due largely to it's obsolete (by Western standards) design and engineering. One can only assume that this problem is endemic in their rail development too.
Other than WD locos built in the US to UK loading gauge I'm not aware of any US built Standard Gauge steam locos operational in the UK. Ian Riley has a pair of 2-8-0 Alco frames at Bury although as far as I know it's only the frames that he has.
On the narrow gauge front, however, Ffestiniog have "Mountaineer", an Alco 2-6-2T which ran for many years as an oil burner.
Simon Reed wrote:Happy Thanksgiving US folks!Murphy - the European EMDs are'nt particularly unreliable. They are prone to leaky cabs, excessive vibration and high noise levels for engineers. In leaf fall season they are badly prone to wheelslip. They are also slow on acceleration, which can be a major issue in the more heavily trafficked urban areas of the UK where freight has to be fitted in around intensive and fast commuter service.Beaulieu - a valid point about EMD and GE exporting to China, but would any of us be surprised if this was the last such order? The Chinese will doubtless "clone" them and construct their own versions.China do build their own stock already but it's largely home designed or perhaps borrowing off USSR prototypes. The UK Bus industry has recently had a Chinese model (King Long) demonstrated to them but the take up has been negligible, apparently due largely to it's obsolete (by Western standards) design and engineering. One can only assume that this problem is endemic in their rail development too. Other than WD locos built in the US to UK loading gauge I'm not aware of any US built Standard Gauge steam locos operational in the UK. Ian Riley has a pair of 2-8-0 Alco frames at Bury although as far as I know it's only the frames that he has.On the narrow gauge front, however, Ffestiniog have "Mountaineer", an Alco 2-6-2T which ran for many years as an oil burner.
Simon, only the first handful of each order will be built in the US, after that it will be just the microprocessor controls and certain other bits.
Re: the Class 66 in the UK, the leaky cabs are partially a function of slipping EMD quality control during the time when GM was trying to sell EMD. The vibration unfortunately is common to the 12 cylinder 710 engine, engine speed, number of cylinders, and firing order mean the 12 cylinder engine is exhibits more vibration than the smoother running 16 cylinder engine. Slower acceleration is partially the result of needing to control the engine emissions during throttle up. EMD locomotives were always noted for quick acceleration until the advent of modern emission controls. The higher noise levels are what are found in US locomotives, standard practice to wear earplugs in US locomotives.
I don't know if you saw mention that the GEs would be equipped with diesels manufactured by Jenbacher in Austria (Jenbacher is a GE subsidiary now), these will not be GEVO powered. There was a mention on a European forum that these will push out the remaining Freightliner Class 86 and 90 electrics. Some of the new GEs will be for expansion while others will cause Class 66s to be moved from HeavyHaul to the Intermodal part of the business replacing the electrics.
I wouldn't expect Bombardier, Siemens, Vossloh, or Voith to be interested in the UK business, too small a potential market to engineer a locomotive to fill the business. If Freightliner hadn't ordered 30 locomotives in one batch GE wouldn't have been interested either. Fitting into the restricted UK loading gauge forces a lot of compromises. Except for the SNCF Fret order from Alstom and Vossloh (running late too), there have been no large orders for diesels from any large railroad.
John Beaulieu
John,
I know that the European EMD experience bears little resemblance to the models known and loved by North American customers. I had'nt really thought of this as being a symptom of GM's divestment of it's EMD arm; more that the 66 and it's derivates had always been regarded by London as very much a secondary source of revenue and therefore somehow an inferior product.
I've also seen expressions of doubt about the suitability of a Jenbacher power unit in heavy haul rail service. My answer would have to be - why not? 60 years ago where were Paxman, Maybach, Cummins, Deutz etc.? This is evolution, and if the practicalities of fitting a Jenbacher unit within UK gauge outweigh the downsizing of a GEVO let's at least give it a try.
The same arguement goes for the European builders. At present although the UK market is intrinsically constricted it is still the most bouyant, and potentially the biggest diesel market in Western Europe. As Eastern Europe finds its economic feet a demand will establish itself, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing number of open access operators in Poland.
In terms of engineering constraints the advantages afforded by Berne gauge over UK are negligible, so why not build a standard model to UK gauge which would still be amply suitable for Berne gauge Eastern European operations.
That may sound overly jingoistic and parochial. In many cases it is to the UK's great detriment that the Victorian ethos was "we'll do what we want and the rest of the world will just have to keep up with us." Commercially, however, it must make sense for the European manufacturers to create some truly pan-European designs reflecting the conditions of all of their potential customers.
The impending DB purchase of EWS will doubtless greatly influence matters: the negative attitude of HM Government towards European Alliance may cancel this advantage out.
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