TheSignalEngineer

My conclusion when it was first proposed was that you would probably just about get enough room for 16' 6" (as in the height where you don't need warning signs on a bridge) using the minimum floor height wagon then available. The type of wagons he is proposing for 1 lorry are 25m long, 45t tare weight and 25t axle load.

Think he may be in trouble there. This is a typical cross section which was included in the publicity stuff at the time. Don't think I would fancy trying lowering the trackbed by 700mm based on that. There was only about 300mm of ballast on top of the rock in places.

He was born just down the road from Royston Vasey, the place not the person.

Reminds me of the last Management grades Vacancy List our office received in the run up to privatisation. 42 jobs, 39 of which were legal and accounting, the other three were for people who knew how a railway was put together or how it operated.

OMG, that picture reminds me of my wedding suit!!

Crown? Twice the weight.

Post-privatisation up to and beyond the collapse of Railtrack many projects were absolute chaos. The original West Coast Route Modernisation project had teams already contracted and working on designing OLE when the track layout hadn't been agreed and under the assumption that there would be Moving Block with no lineside signalling These are two fundamental 'Must Know' items if you are going to get things like OLE structures, section switching, neutral sections etc correct without redesign later. In other bits of the job mega-million alterations were planned to get a few seconds off the running time between locations. One I was asked to assess saved 15 seconds and would cost £10m. I suggested an alternative which would save 12 seconds and cost £2m without taking into account the fact that it needed 25% of the amount of service disruption to actually install it.

Go to the first post of the topic and click on 'Edit' then click on 'Use Full Editor' That should take you back to the screen where you set up the topic. Edit. Beaten to it.

There were usually some engineers ones there at that time. I used one for a test train one night. Ran it at 60mph to Nuneaton and back twice. Nearly shook me to death.

?? The more I looked into it the conflicts of interest between the company concerned (not Carillion) and government get deeper and deeper. Nuff said before I get the site into trouble. Item closed.

No. Someone who has been given lots of Government contracts since then and seems to have either a very charmed life or a fairy godmother.

I must say that some of my experiences with the component parts of Carillion were not always good in the railway field, but they were no worse than most of the others. Under-bidding was a hallmark of the Railtrack Infrastructure Maintenance contracts in the run-up to Hatfield. I was involved in one consortium in 1999 where we bid about the same amount as the incumbent but a third company bid considerably less. Railtrack said they thought our bid was technically the best but we could not have the job because we were too expensive. They tried to knock us down to a ridiculously low price and we told them if someone tried to do it for that the job would fail. They let the contract to the lowest bidder and it was in trouble on service delivery from day one, eventually being one of the catalysts for maintenance being taken back in-house. Our Finance Director later congratulated me for failing to get the contract and therefore not getting the company sucked into the morass.

I've just noticed that BR livery versions of the Hattons/DJM 58xx 0-4-2T have the twin box of auto-fitted locos when they should have a single box. Did anyone spot this at the time they came out?

Problems nowadays are because 1) there is no clear policy about building trains with 'Go Anywhere' (or at least most places) capability. Classes and sub-classes are usually cleared individually for each route. Those permitted are listed in the Sectional Appendix. 2) train crews being tied to one company only sign that company's normal booked routes. Fine if there are workings like the late-niight ECS from Piccadilly to Nottingham which sometimes goes via Marple instead of Stockport, but even that can only keep a certain number of crews familiar with the route.

I assume the second box was for the Autocoach Bell Battery. The 14xx also had two boxes, 58xx had one. ATC-fitted panniers in the 57xx/8750 and 94xx had a single box in the same position as the 74xx. On 15xx it was directly below the middle of the bunker. I haven't found a picture of a fitted 16xx yet.

How things go round in circles. We were going to build a depot for the NE-SW HST fleet there about 40 years ago. Eventually it got built near Burton for the Voyagers.

Think I have spotted another give-away. The 54xx and 64xx all have a conduit from the ATC box which goes across the top of the driver's side step and up into the cab. This is only present on some 74xx so it helps with the ones where the box isn't visible. I feel a chart coming on. It's easier to see the box on a 54xx and 64xx because auto fitted locos have two side by side, whereas the ATC fitted 74xx only has one box next to the sandbox.

When I was looking for strange workings c1960 a while ago I didn't find any mention of a County at Portsmouth but 1011 did get to Souithampton Docks.

At the other end of the spectrum, St Ives, Cornwall. Let's go big again

Benito's pride and joy, Milan. Keep it going.

Yes and Yes. They've already wrecked our police to the extent that we have 2xPC to cover an area of over 20,000 people. That's probably less than 50% of what it needs to give one team on duty 24/7. No further comments as I will start a political rant.

At the risk of straying into politics, the same is going on in Derbyshire. If the authorities get there way there will be no full time fire cover in Glossop and probably Matlock as well. Estimated response time for our area will be 13 to 14 minutes. If you crash your car on the Snake and need to be rescued it will be longer as they have to go past us. When my Dad was a fireman about 50 years ago you were in trouble if you didn't get to the furthest end of your patch in under 8 minutes when the Home Office Inspector called.

They went to Willesden around the time the Peaks arrived, as did the Southern trio.

All 10 went to Camden new IIRC. They were then spread around Camden (4), Crewe North (3), Longsight, Edge Hill and Upperby (1 each) until they went to the Nottingham division when final deliveries of EEType 4s and Liverpool to Crewe electrification released enough motive power for them to be moved on.

A couple of 'ideas' sketches, firstly the minimalist One Engine in Steam version. This could have a Home signal each side of the crossing on the passenger line with all other moves under the control of the shunter or guard. Secondly the Full Fat version. This would more likely be used if the was a frequent train service and a lot of use by road traffic.