Random Transport Chatter

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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Dave »

For the record... Penzance-Aberdeen is 1256 route kilometres, and the journey takes 13h 23m; the average speed is 93.87km/h (58.33mph).

This includes:

11 minute layover at Edinburgh
5 minute layover at York
10 minute layover at Birmingham New Street
5 minute layover at Bristol Temple Meads
6 minute layover at Exeter St Davids
6 minute layover at Plymouth

Assuming station duties could be completed in 3 minutes at each of these, the timetable allows 25 extra minutes to catch up time. For example, today's service was delayed up near Stonehaven; it completed station duties at Waverley in 3 minutes.

Pilot's right - this is effectively a number of services; XC has always taken a path of another railway (or region, under BR).

From Aberdeen to Edinburgh, it's effectively a regional semi-fast service, before taking the mantle of a high-speed intercity train down as far as Leeds. It's only really between here and Bristol (via Derby and Birmingham) that the train is forging a unique path. From Bristol down to Plymouth it becomes a high-speed intercity train again, mixing it with Great Western's HSTs.

It's from Plymouth to Penzance that the train suffers real ignominy - effectively becoming a stopping service and calling at every shack, hut and lamppost on the way to Penzance. In fact, until recently the unit that formed this service ended up running a Class 2 stopper back to Plymouth the next morning - that's no way to use a train capable of 125mph! That's changed now...
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Pilot »

Dear Cambrian Line,

I completely and utterly hate you.

Regards,
Me!
Dave wrote:Assuming station duties could be completed in 3 minutes at each of these, the timetable allows 25 extra minutes to catch up time. For example, today's service was delayed up near Stonehaven; it completed station duties at Waverley in 3 minutes.
It's still 30 down passing Moorthorpe, It's being regulated all over now to avoid it delaying other trains, which, of course, makes sense! It's certainly a weird one as to why it was delayed as well
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Redirect Left »

Dave wrote:
Pilot wrote:Assuming station duties could be completed in 3 minutes at each of these, the timetable allows 25 extra minutes to catch up time. For example, today's service was delayed up near Stonehaven; it completed station duties at Waverley in 3 minutes.
It's still 30 down passing Moorthorpe, It's being regulated all over now to avoid it delaying other trains, which, of course, makes sense! It's certainly a weird one as to why it was delayed as well
It's currently on the approach to Bristol Parkway, still running 20ish minutes late.
By its current ETA, it's expected to break even and start arriving on time by Newton Abbott.
I'm guessing as long as they get the delay down by Penzance, no fines are levied?
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Pilot »

Redirect Left wrote:
Dave wrote:
Pilot wrote:Assuming station duties could be completed in 3 minutes at each of these, the timetable allows 25 extra minutes to catch up time. For example, today's service was delayed up near Stonehaven; it completed station duties at Waverley in 3 minutes.
It's still 30 down passing Moorthorpe, It's being regulated all over now to avoid it delaying other trains, which, of course, makes sense! It's certainly a weird one as to why it was delayed as well
It's currently on the approach to Bristol Parkway, still running 20ish minutes late.
By its current ETA, it's expected to break even and start arriving on time by Newton Abbott.
34 late by Newton Abbot, they messed that up a touch ;) All fines would probably go on the original train to cause the delay, and you can't write off delays because it still arrived at it's destination on time I believe, Idk the full rundown with regard to delay charging
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Ameecher »

As long as it arrives within 10 minutes of it's planned arrival at Penzance then it is on time regardless of all the delay along the way. Stupid system.
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Redirect Left »

Ameecher wrote:As long as it arrives within 10 minutes of it's planned arrival at Penzance then it is on time regardless of all the delay along the way. Stupid system.
That does seem rather stupid, "all those people we messed up at 90% of the journey? Oh well!".
Currently en route to Par, now 31 minutes later.
It managed to go down to 22 minutes late for Bristol Parkway, then left Temple Meads 25 minutes late, then Taunton at 35 minutes late, and its not recovered from that. ETA for Penzance now is 16 minutes late. Wonder what the extra hold up was?

I've been oddly fascinated by this one trains journey through the country for far too long now :p
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Pilot »

Redirect Left wrote:Wonder what the extra hold up was?
A late running passenger train at Worle that went off down the Weston line. Headway will likely be 4 mins there, so it would have had to wait, etc.
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by piratescooby »

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/new ... ce-switch/ , Has anybody heard any thing else on this story ? :roll:
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by YNM »

Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:... Or is that route done with an HST ?
The 0820 Aberdeen to Penzance is normally operated by a Class 220/221 Voyager, capable of 125mph (200km/h). I believe a HST would be wasted on such a route to be honest!
Well that's "similar" to an HST IMO...
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:I was talking about things that is well-limited to around one and a half hour, like future Crossrail or Brighton to London...
Depends, would you want to stand for 60-90 minutes if you, for example, had a disability, or were travelling as a family with a small child, or were trying to get some work done on the way in (as many people in the UK do)?
It's what everyone here do anyway - as cramped as possible ! If you have a disability (to the point of requiring wheelchair or something) I suppose you won't even bother going on the train at peak cramped times ! In off-peak times however, those gangways seating gives more wheelchair space.

Also, there you go on the different ways to see trains - either as the only answer or as a better answer. Here, most users see it as the first, because of the massive convenience on travel times and resistance to delays and jams. Otherwise busses or personal vehicle fills the spot nicely.

Also, what about London Overground ?
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:That sort of journey time here (13 hours) would easily sums up as long distance and you'd get to be assigned to seats.
Whilst you CAN reserve a seat on a Long-distance train, it is not mandatory, and the unreserved seats are on a 'first come - first served' basis.
We don't have that system anymore ! The long-distance economy trains used to go that way, but since the massive overcrowding got a spotlight, an emergent ambition for better service (the difference between economy, bussiness and executive class now is only the level of aircon-ing, seat type and ofc price) and halting tje proliferation of "calo" (unofficial ticket "brockers") all long-distance train requires prior reservation (you almost can't just turn up, buy a ticket and board without prior reservation nowadays !) and true passenger identity (ID and ticket checks done on entering the platform on departure time, and occasionally onboard). Local trains always go with "however many tickets we can sell" and there are no prior reservation possible.
Pilot wrote:And to call this train '1 train' is a bit wrong I feel, as it is effectively about 5 services rolled into one.
Dave wrote:For the record... Penzance-Aberdeen is 1256 route kilometres, and the journey takes 13h 23m; the average speed is 93.87km/h (58.33mph). This includes:

(Layovers)
...

Pilot's right - this is effectively a number of services; XC has always taken a path of another railway (or region, under BR).
Well, that's one hell of a service then :mrgreen:
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Redirect Left »

YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:... Or is that route done with an HST ?
The 0820 Aberdeen to Penzance is normally operated by a Class 220/221 Voyager, capable of 125mph (200km/h). I believe a HST would be wasted on such a route to be honest!
Well that's "similar" to an HST IMO...
The Class 220 & 221 Voyager range is capable of 125 MPH, which is the same range as the specifically named HSTs Class 43 (the old diesel ones) and the 91s (the slightly newer electric ones which have a higher theoretical speed of 140 MPH, but i believe they never actually go this high in operation and limited to 125, so god knows if they're even still capable of that extra speed), although they're a lot shorter than a typical long distance high speed train is at just 4 carriages each (mostly, a handful of 221s are 5 carriages), and a quarter of 2 (leading & rear) of them is the staff / driving cab, so essentially only about 3 + half of passenger use. HSTs carry nearly always double that, and the Class 390 Pendolino high speed is 9 or 11 carriages.

CrossCountry trains have had the tilt functions disabled in their 221s to reduce costs, I'm not sure if this has any restrictions on their max speed at some areas, as like the 390s its designed to help it ease into corners faster. Interestingly the 220s have the physical space to install the tilting equipment, but it was never a feature of that train (they use similar if not identical body shells)
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Geo Ghost »

Redirect Left wrote:the 91s (the slightly newer electric ones which have a higher theoretical speed of 140 MPH, but i believe they never actually go this high in operation and limited to 125, so god knows if they're even still capable of that extra speed),
They are still very much capable of it, and higher if pushed. In fact, I think one of the locos clocked a electric UK record of around 160mph once upon a time.
Reason they don't go above 125mph is simply down to signalling. Upwards of 125 requires in-cab signalling, like HS1. There were experiments made with '5-aspect' signalling which had a flashing-green to permit trains up to 140, but it wasn't rolled out due to safety concerns. Faster you go, the less time there is to sight lineside signals after all :P

Little bit of trvia on the subject of tilt. MK4 coaches were designed with tilting in mind which is why there is that slight curve at the bottom of the coaches. Not too surprising as the 91s and MK4s took a lot of design and features from the APT-P ;)
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Dave »

The reason they disabled the tilt system is that there was nowhere on the XC network that really benefitted from it, once XC units stopped running up the West Coast.

There's a handful of miles of 125mph running between Birmingham and Sheffield I think, and obviously once you're on the ECML. I don't *think* any of the GWML west of Bristol has 125 running, but in all three of these cases, the 125 limit is not under EPS rules, so tilt is not required,
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Pilot »

YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:... Or is that route done with an HST ?
The 0820 Aberdeen to Penzance is normally operated by a Class 220/221 Voyager, capable of 125mph (200km/h). I believe a HST would be wasted on such a route to be honest!
Well that's "similar" to an HST IMO...
A lot of railfans would not be very happy with you for that comment! :lol:
YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:I was talking about things that is well-limited to around one and a half hour, like future Crossrail or Brighton to London...
Depends, would you want to stand for 60-90 minutes if you, for example, had a disability, or were travelling as a family with a small child, or were trying to get some work done on the way in (as many people in the UK do)?
It's what everyone here do anyway - as cramped as possible ! If you have a disability (to the point of requiring wheelchair or something) I suppose you won't even bother going on the train at peak cramped times ! In off-peak times however, those gangways seating gives more wheelchair space.

Also, there you go on the different ways to see trains - either as the only answer or as a better answer. Here, most users see it as the first, because of the massive convenience on travel times and resistance to delays and jams. Otherwise busses or personal vehicle fills the spot nicely.

Also, what about London Overground ?
Many people who are disabled in the UK have jobs which may require travelling in peak times. The train is certainly a lot better than driving! Also, London Overground is basically a heavy rail extension of the tube, most journeys made on the Overground are relatively short (15-20 minutes) so comfort is not much of a factor, and the seats on LO are dreadful anyway! Plus, if you had a seat on LO, you'd likely end up with another person's bottom in your face, which is okay if they're attractive (and smell nice), but otherwise, not so much.
YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:That sort of journey time here (13 hours) would easily sums up as long distance and you'd get to be assigned to seats.
Whilst you CAN reserve a seat on a Long-distance train, it is not mandatory, and the unreserved seats are on a 'first come - first served' basis.
We don't have that system anymore ! The long-distance economy trains used to go that way, but since the massive overcrowding got a spotlight, an emergent ambition for better service (the difference between economy, bussiness and executive class now is only the level of aircon-ing, seat type and ofc price) and halting tje proliferation of "calo" (unofficial ticket "brockers") all long-distance train requires prior reservation (you almost can't just turn up, buy a ticket and board without prior reservation nowadays !) and true passenger identity (ID and ticket checks done on entering the platform on departure time, and occasionally onboard). Local trains always go with "however many tickets we can sell" and there are no prior reservation possible.
The British rail system is very much about the convenience of getting up and going. As we can sell as many tickets for a train as we want here, there is no point being a ticket broker either, as you can simply walk to a ticket machine, get a ticket and within a minute be on the train to wherever you are going (for example, if I decided I wanted to go to London now, I could be there in 3hrs 30 minutes, and 1 hour of that is the bus from my House to Central Manchester!). The only thing we have any sort of ID requirement for are Railcard Discounted fares, where the ID is simply the Railcard itself. If you have a 16-25 Railcard like myself, that also includes a Photocard, where as a Disabled Railcard I believe does not have one.
Redirect Left wrote:91s (the slightly newer electric ones which have a higher theoretical speed of 140 MPH, but i believe they never actually go this high in operation and limited to 125)
Same deal as the 390s, capable of 140, never actually able to go there due to the signalling restrictions mentioned by Geo. Sucks really, all that work was done to upgrade the WCML to 140mph standards (Trent Valley, etc) and now the signalling can't handle it!
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by YNM »

Pilot wrote:
YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:... a Class 220/221 Voyager, capable of 125mph (200km/h).
Well that's "similar" to an HST IMO...
A lot of railfans would not be very happy with you for that comment! :lol:
So much for that :lol: yes it's a very different system but similar capabilities anyway (and one is super old !)
Pilot wrote:Many people who are disabled in the UK have jobs which may require travelling in peak times. The train is certainly a lot better than driving! Also, London Overground is basically a heavy rail extension of the tube, most journeys made on the Overground are relatively short (15-20 minutes) so comfort is not much of a factor, and the seats on LO are dreadful anyway! Plus, if you had a seat on LO, you'd likely end up with another person's bottom in your face, which is okay if they're attractive (and smell nice), but otherwise, not so much.
Ah, I see. Still, why LO sets haven't been refurbed to that gangway seating then ? Harder to sell or lease otherwise ?
Pilot wrote:British rail system is very much about the convenience of getting up and going. As we can sell as many tickets for a train as we want here, there is no point being a ticket broker either, as you can simply walk to a ticket machine, get a ticket and within a minute be on the train to wherever you are going (for example, if I decided I wanted to go to London now, I could be there in 3hrs 30 minutes, and 1 hour of that is the bus from my House to Central Manchester!). The only thing we have any sort of ID requirement for are Railcard Discounted fares, where the ID is simply the Railcard itself. If you have a 16-25 Railcard like myself, that also includes a Photocard, where as a Disabled Railcard I believe does not have one.
Long distance travel down here is pretty much a planned one - you can't just turns up suddenly somewhere else completely unplanned (and if you do it's not pleasant in any way ! even in private vehicles).

The idea of brokerage was that they could sell tickets so people doesn' have to go through the queue for lockets that were present, that's all. Now that tickets are available in convenience stores and the ID requirement it's all gone.
Pilot wrote:Sucks really, all that work was done to upgrade the WCML to 140mph standards (Trent Valley, etc) and now the signalling can't handle it!
Maybe someone should dig the APT project - they had in-cab signalling hadn't they ? (though, in the end, it came with a "max 125" sticker)
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Geo Ghost »

YNM wrote:
Pilot wrote:Sucks really, all that work was done to upgrade the WCML to 140mph standards (Trent Valley, etc) and now the signalling can't handle it!
Maybe someone should dig the APT project - they had in-cab signalling hadn't they ? (though, in the end, it came with a "max 125" sticker)
Sort of. Not the kind of 'In cab signalling' we have now, but a rudimentary version of it I suppose. It used a System called CAPT - (Control-APT).
They had beacons in the track which transmitted the speed to train was permitted up to, based on the signals ahead. That was it in a nut-shell!
In fact, CAPT also had an audible warning for restrictions which needed to be acknowledged within a few seconds, in the same way AWS does.

Bit more random trivia for you :P
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Redirect Left »

APT is the one train I do regret not being able to see whilst it was running, it's now pretty much falling apart at Crewe Heritage Centre, and is almost certainly never going to be fit for use on the network again.

Another train I'd love to have seen in service, but was unfortunately retired due to issues was the Class 151. Visibly looks better than the 150 that won the contract instead, but the gearboxes were absolute trash.
Should I ever become rich, I'd try to do a Tornado but using the 151* because I just love the design of it and would love to see one on the network.

*after i purchase a 3 car 144 when they go to scrap when retired and convert it into a huge length house, static caravan style, or maybe a train set in an actual train?
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Geo Ghost »

Redirect Left wrote:it's now pretty much falling apart at Crewe Heritage Centre,
It
most
certainly
is
not
;)
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Pilot »

Pilot wrote:Dear Cambrian Line,

I completely and utterly hate you.

Regards,
Me!
My feelings for the Cumbrian Coast line are also the same right now :evil:
Geo Ghost wrote:It most certainly is not
It's had a lick of paint since I was last at the CHC. It was in a sorry state the last time I was there.
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Ameecher »

Haha the Cumbrian coast and it's brilliant 13 mile long block section. You want to run more trains? Buy some signals!
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Re: Random Transport Chatter

Post by Redirect Left »

Geo Ghost wrote:
Redirect Left wrote:it's now pretty much falling apart at Crewe Heritage Centre,
It
most
certainly
is
not
;)
They've obviously done it up since I was last there, last time I was at Crewe Heritage centre, the internal was fine, but the external was a complete screwover.

I'm going to guess that
and is almost certainly never going to be fit for use on the network again.
is accurate though. They won't do a Flying Scotsman and get it back in service for special Back to the 80s excursions? :p :p
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