Transport Tycoon Forums

It's ridiculous how they constantly change the name of when something goes into public run.
Directly Operated Railways was the last one, and now "Operator of Last Resort". Trying to make it sound like some kind of terrible thing...

RMT and unions are quite funny though, jumping on the news going "We told you this years ago!"

Wonder what knock-on effect it may have for other Govia-run franchises...

At least they don't just slap 'OPERATOR OF LAST RESORT' stickers underneath the old companies logos to rub it in on the liveries.

The Operator of Last Resort has a few under its belt now, London North Eastern Railway, Transport for Wales, and I believe Northern is still under that too since early 2020.

I have to say though, I use LNER & Northern very often, and they're all run really well and seem to be a lot more stable and less likely to go full foobarr than in the past. So I kinda hope the OoLR hold on to them instead of refranchising them out, which yes I know, is a dream that'll never get fulfilled.

Redirect Left wrote: ↑28 Sep 2021 13:27 At least they don't just slap 'OPERATOR OF LAST RESORT' stickers underneath the old companies logos to rub it in on the liveries.

I'd find that quite amusing.

Well, this week has been an interesting one...

Tractor taking out some Level Crossing barriers and overhead lines.
Enfield Town service testing the buffers trying to arrive into the booking hall.
And a single Rat completely destroying the signalling system on the ECML for hours.

Did I miss anything else?

Geo Ghost wrote: ↑14 Oct 2021 23:02 Well, this week has been an interesting one...

Tractor taking out some Level Crossing barriers and overhead lines.
Enfield Town service testing the buffers trying to arrive into the booking hall.
And a single Rat completely destroying the signalling system on the ECML for hours.

Did I miss anything else?

Didn't know rats had superpowers

dol422 wrote: ↑15 Oct 2021 07:22 Didn't know rats had superpowers

Teeth and an interest in cables apparently!
And then becoming a rather impressive conductor across a set of high voltage electrical contacts

My local bus did not run last night... again - fourth occurrence and second for this particular time (last bus of the night that serves my area which is quite annoying).
For some reason, bus drivers do not know why (which for some reason is all they can say when I go and enquire about it).

Buses and bus drivers seem to be a rare commodity nowadays it seems.

Geo Ghost wrote: ↑14 Oct 2021 23:02 Did I miss anything else?

In the last week?! A lot

A few weeks ago, a London Overground train rammed the buffers at Enfield station, it has now been released (by various media outlets) the driver was on cocaine at the time. If this is true, then that is very alarming progress in the investigation. Thankfully during the accident, only two people were treated for what were described as minor injuries.

Source: MyLondon or BBC News.

RAIB have released a statement regarding the collision which occurred at Salisbury on Sunday evening.
It confirms what a few people were wondering which was if one of the trains had passed a danger signal due to poor adhesion.

It's unusual to get this much detail from a statement saying they are investigating, but I'm glad they have done as it puts a lot of questions to rest right away.
Was a very nasty accident and whilst it is fortunate no one was killed and that it wasn't human error, it's still incredibly saddening to hear one of the drivers suffered life changing injuries

For those who don't know, basically what happened was a GWR service was signalled normally through a converging junction heading into Salisbury. At the same time however, a SWR service was attempting to slow for a red signal protecting that junction, but encountered low adhesion. Despite the drivers' attempts to stop and even applying the emergency brake, the train continued to slide through the protecting signal, and collided with the side of the GWR train passing over the junction resulting in both trains partially derailing, and extensive damage.











What annoys me is the number of times over the years I've heard the general public laugh at reasons like "leaf fall, wrong type or snow/rain" and such things as "stupid excuses" and thinking we make things up.
This is exactly the reason why these reasons are not 'stupid'. Leaf fall season can be incredibly risky and dangerous, especially with other weather conditions too. If anyone ever laughs or complains about 'stupid excuses' like leaves on the line and poor weather, I'm referring them to this example of why we have to be careful.
I recall reading a few years ago about an incident with Scotrail Service which occurred in the early 2000s, 1B47 I believe it was, which slid for nearly 2km in emergency braking due to very poor rail adhesion.
I've been caught in wheel slides before and they can take you by surprise suddenly. Some can be kinda interesting in a way, but other times they can be quite terrifying if you're trying to slow for a reason and can't tell if the train is going to slow and stop where you want it to.
Metal wheels on metal track is fantastic for high speeds and low rolling resistance. Bloody awful for adhesion in bad weather though, especially when you consider the total surface area for each axle contacting the rail is going to be far smaller than that of just a 5pence piece!

I would much prefer the preexisting moniker 'National Railways' to 'Great British Railways'. The latter (which sounds as if it is going to be akin to a quality bus contract partnership) is akin to Stars and Stripes on subway cars or the tricolor/double headed eagle on damn near everything, just shouting 'We have a tiny penis'. If any standard livery occurs and happens to feature the Union Jack like Scotrail uses the Saltaire, expect to hear my derision.

Had a rather chaotic train journey home on Saturday night. Which answered the question, how many 158s does it take to get to Sheffield from Leeds?
Three, it was three.

We were meant to be on 158868, reinforcements were called in when far too many people started queing up to, so 158859 was pulled in behind it to give us 4 carriages instead of 2. Those two trains tried and failed to couple (we've all been there) for a while, the original 868 got the blame fir problems and they eeventually they gave up and got another train to pull in to do the journey coupled to 859 instead, lo and behold, 158755 arrives. Driver refuses to take 755 & 859 coupled, as that'd give five carriages, which is too long for some platforms on the stopper via Moorthorpe to Sheffield, cue leaving the broken 868 and the not coupled 859 on Platform 1 behind and we all set off on an overcrowded 3 carriage 158755. I guess 158s don't have selective door options to not allow passengers to fall to the tracks if the platform doesn't extend long enough down the train, unless the problem was one conductor for two linked trains needed to correctly manage the doors on two units.
Credit to the rather harassed looking driver & conducter giving updates* to the weary folk on the platform watching it all unfold as the trains tried to couple for a while as more and more 158s piled up on Platform 1.

Apparently, Leeds conveniently is full of spare 158s on a Saturday night.

* granted a lot of the updates was more shouting at other staff members about the calamity rather than direct interactions with the passengers, although the driver did directly speak to me when i did the usual routine of "rough night for you tonight!" as he passed and relayed most of this directly, rather than overhearing stuff

UK ticket prices really do amuse me.
Later in April I am going to Bristol. Easy enough, I'm in Wakefield, we can get a direct CrossCountry train to Bristol. Turns out the cheaper route is actually, a train to London, then use the underground to change between Kings Cross & Paddington, then get a train to Bristol from there, using LNER, Underground & GWR companies rather than just CrossCountry.

What gives, railway. What gives.

Redirect Left wrote: ↑16 Mar 2022 18:45 What gives, railway. What gives.

It's the Railway. There is no logic - it just is as it is

I'll try this topic, as I couldn't find one that explains the London Underground price model well enough

This summer, I will be in London for about 48 hours. I'll probably only travel in Zones 1 and 2. Instead of getting an Oyster card, I believe I can just tap my phone (Samsung Pay).

Am I better off buying an Oyster card, or should I just tap away until it caps me for the 24-hour period? If yes, what is the cap? I won't be making hundreds of journeys, but would like the ability to not worry about overpaying.

Chrill wrote: ↑31 May 2022 20:04 This summer, I will be in London for about 48 hours. I'll probably only travel in Zones 1 and 2. Instead of getting an Oyster card, I believe I can just tap my phone (Samsung Pay).
Am I better off buying an Oyster card, or should I just tap away until it caps me for the 24-hour period? If yes, what is the cap? I won't be making hundreds of journeys, but would like the ability to not worry about overpaying.

Unless it has changed, the Oyster itself costs £5, plus the credit you put on it. Caps are applied not only to Oysters, you can use a contactless card and it will also receive the same caps, just remember to use the same credit to debit card each time, else it can't keep track, that will avoid the extra £5 cost of the Oyster, with no changes to caps you'll get, nor are the individual fares different between Oyster & contactless.
Assuming you do stick to Zone 1 & 2 only, the cap is £7.70 per day. As far as TfL care, a rail day is from 0430 one day, until 0429 the next day, so anything between those hours goes into a 1 day cap.
You can find information on caps on the Transport for London website here, as well as calculating a new cap for different zone combinations (I did 1-2 for that above).

Edit: to be clear, you can also use Samsung Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay, if I was too specific or too vague with 'contactless' and 'debit/credit'.

So basically, I'll travel unlimited for £15 for two days within Zones 1-2. That's a decent deal!

Germany is doing the 9€ ticket right now; unlimited travel on all local trains, busses, subways, trams, etc across the entirety of Germany for the entire month. ... unfortunately I didn't get to use it much since I rather travelled longer distances and absolutely did not torture myself by going via local trains

Still plan to do a few trips here and there; I mean, come on, gotta use such an opportunity after all (just, if it's any sort of distance, I'd still rather take an Intercity, so, eh, probably won't amount to that much use ... ).

Pyoro wrote: ↑23 Jun 2022 08:26 Germany is doing the 9€ ticket right now; unlimited travel on all local trains, busses, subways, trams, etc across the entirety of Germany for the entire month

Ah, well we also have that in the UK!
The 'All Line Rover' covers all rail lines, minus local tram & bus services and some 'premium' services such as Heathrow Express and also isn't valid on the London Underground, but other than that, go where you want!

The price is just ...oh dang, £540 / €640, for one week. Yup, I'm beginning to see a few downsides to ours compared to Germany's...

Pyoro wrote: ↑23 Jun 2022 08:26 Germany is doing the 9€ ticket right now; unlimited travel on all local trains, busses, subways, trams, etc across the entirety of Germany for the entire month. ... unfortunately I didn't get to use it much since I rather travelled longer distances and absolutely did not torture myself by going via local trains

It's funny, if this was even suggested in Sweden that political party would be ridiculed for being communist and face replies like "How would you fund that?". We're not the social democracy we once were...