If you live in Kent, and I know a few of you do, then you will be well aware that the railway between Dover and Folkestone Central has been closed since January, when the English Channel did a pretty good demolition job on the sea wall at Dover, resulting in the line being closed ever since. It says something that Network Rail can't get their signals to work properly every day (of which more later), but can rebuild a railway to withstand the elements over 3 months ahead of schedule. They achieved it at Dawlish a couple of years ago and now Dover. The line officially re-opens to passengers on Monday 5th September but a few test trains have been on the line already. This picture was taken by Kelly, who has kindly given me her permission to use it here - what a shot of the Javelin on the rebuilt line curving towards Dover Priory, the P&O ferry and Dover in the background in glorious sunshine. Well done to all concerned in the rebuild and thanks to Kelly for the picture.
 |
| Southeastern Javelin on the rebuilt line at Dover. pic (c) @xMissKellyx |
 |
| Simonds MCV Evolution on the 581 at Beccles |
 |
| And connecting with the 580 to Yarmouth (take my word for it) |
It is never pleasant to have to report the sudden demise of a bus, but on Thursday Our Bus' E300 VAG 608R caught fire on the A47 near Acle and was unfortunately totally destroyed. Luckily the bus was empty, and the driver, the owner of the company, escaped without injury. There are pictures floating around if you search for them, but I've decided against publishing any.
Now a little follow up from last week. It would appear my comments regarding window hanging enthusiasts were not welcomed by all window hanging enthusiasts, so I might just point out one thing. I was talking about public trains, such as the short sets where window hanging is illegal anyway, not heritage lines where the trains aren't going fast enough to affect ventilation, and as a rule Mark I stock is used which have opening windows in the coaches. You don't want a reputation, don't earn it. But there is a much more serious point. There is currently an inquest going on as to how a man was killed after his head was struck by a signal gantry near Balham in South London. It would appear the victim was trespassing in a guard's compartment on a Class 442 Gatwick Express train, and leaning out of a window which had a notice above it saying "Do not lean out of the window". When I first heard about the incident I rather assumed it was a person probably drunk showing off to his mates as I saw a thousand times in my time as a guard. But no. This man was a volunteer on the Bluebell Railway. If anyone should have known the dangers of sticking your head out of a window at 60mph it was him. I have extreme sympathy for his family, friends, those who witnessed it and had to deal with it, but none whatsoever for him. This is the precise region what is now Southern had bars put across the windows of VEPS in the 90's. I expect some person will anonymously very bravely call me names again for expressing my views but I stand by them.
 |
| VEP with window bars - do we have to go down this road again? |
Have a good week everyone and don't lose your head.
Mr anon I will stop deleting your comments when you stop using inappropriate language. If you want your views to remain that is all you have to do.
ReplyDeleteI have no experience in running railways (or buses for that matter. Thank God). But I doubt the signalling system or the staff are to "blame". Two things do concern me, though: as with everything else we have no patience and the pressure to do everything quickly, may be something has to give; and how "hot" we run our services so that anything unexpected causes chaos, which takes time to unravel. I've commented before that many of us seem to have such difficulty in managing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteSame true of the over-enthusiasts. I seem to remember that sticking yer head out of train windows has always been up there as one of the top ten "accidents", with a few others I could mention involving vehicles (of all types). Stupidity isn't something we grow out of. Rather we seem to proceed on the basis that we're immortal and takin' a chance is always worth it, after all "nuffin' can happen to me". Most gamblers miscalculate the odds; it can, and does. But, in the heat of the moment (literally), we don't think like that.
So when a signal fails it's not to blame. Ok that's an interesting concept.
DeleteI strongley suspect that the unexceptably high failure rate of signals is down to poor and unsuitable equipment. The fact that we are geeting very high failure rates in the hot weather tends to confirm it. The issue is almost certainly down to the lineside equipment. YOu have an uncontrolled environement which is subject to extreams of temperture and electronic equipment does not like that particular big swings in temperature. THe equipment should be designed with components intended to work at extended temperature ranges it should also be ruggedized and proteted aginst rain and dirt etc and it also needs ventalation including forced air which means fans. THese themselves should be alarmned as unfortunatly fans are not the most reliable things so need to be monitored for failure
DeleteSticking your head out of a window does not stop the ventilation.
ReplyDeleteSee you can do it when you try! And when you are in a Mk II coach with no aircon on a blazing hot day anything obstructing the windows at the ends of coaches is going to affect what little ventilation there is and heads and bodies at every window certainly will. You'll tell me next a closed window doesn't affect it either.
DeleteTo failing signals, you can also add "speed restrictions due to hot weather". Maybe i've missed something but it wasn't that hot this week! Today has been a wretched day for Abellio. Track closures,signal problems and a fatality at Romford,yet in the eyes of the weary traveller,it will all be Abellios fault. Wouldn't matter if Abellio,First,Nat Ex or even the cast from Bread had won the franchise;years of serious under investment in the infrastructure has left the operators at the mercy of Network Rail. Shiny new trains? Yes,fantastic but they will still get held up by signal faults,late running freight trains, overhead wire issues,people walking on the track and so on. Lack of running stock or train crew? Now that's another matter? Who would run a train service.....
ReplyDeleteI confess, Trevor, that if I was going for the franchise I would want to be in control of the infrastructure too, with decent financial incentives to get it right.
DeleteI totally agree about the new rolling stock. I said initially that a 30 min delay on a new train is the same as a 30 min delay on an old one. Pretty sure passengers want punctuality before anything else.
Exactly. Maybe some people got a bit carried away with the spin and sound bytes coming from Abellio,the Government and local MPs. Once it sunk in,questions were being asked with no real answers forth coming. Ask the 5 day a week commuters what they want and to a man,it will be a train that turns up on time, gets to my destination on time,is clean and to a slighty lesser extent,free WiFi and plug sockets/USB. Probly too late to scrap HS2 and redistribute the funds. Just a thought.....
DeleteOK you can print money Mugabe-like (though it becomes worthless the more you print without the economic activity to support it), but you can't get more than 24 hours in a day (apart from a few seconds every several decades as nature doesn't run to the atomic clock).
DeleteIn National Rail's case it's something like 50 or less hours in a week when they can have the lines free of trains, except over Christmas and New Year when they work anyway. (How many of the rest of us do that, by the way?) And they seem to use up pretty much all of it, and have done for years. How do we actually expect them to renew everything yesterday, even if the money grew on trees?
Bet Network Rail would love you as their Press Officer! We all know about the decades of under investment but is it too much to expect that when something is fixed or installed it doesn't break down the next day. Progress is meant to be better I thought.
DeleteAs I type train services are being heavily affected by signal probs at Needham Market - the third time this week. If money is tight, as it is for everyone then surely it's better to get it right first time than buy cheap and spend the next God knows how long fixing it and paying delay fines.
No one has yet suggested how many delays due to signal failures there were in the 1960's. Perhaps the silence says it all. Perhaps the same number of times the person on the other end of the phone couldn't help because "the computers have gone down"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBus services have to be paid for and the bulk of the users are pensionersd. The reimbursment for the passes does not cover the costs
DeleteA sensible system in my view would be to bring back an annual charge for the passes. I would link it to the tax band the pensioner is in. So lets say the notional value of the pass is £250 a year the typical 20% tax band pensioner would pay £50 a year for the pass thats less than £1 a week for unlimited travel. If though sauy a pensioner pays no tax they would still get the pass free
The alternative optio is to keep the paasses free but you may not have many bus services to use it on
Not sure if it's across all their routes, but Galloway have withdrawn the 10 trip ticket here on the 118/9 along with raising fares. That was purely down to the declining reimbursement for free passes. I do not see how passes can remain free with operators carrying the cost. Unless there is either a flat yearly fee or a nominal fee per journey, operators will continue to cut costs/routes or just not bother bidding for tenders. Then everyone loses...
DeleteCalm down Smurf it's only a blog! Be as critical as you like as you don't use profane language.
DeleteAs for stand up if it's too much to expect equipment pronounced as progress and advancement to be better and more reliable than the equipment (and men) it replaces then sign me up for Live at the Apollo. As for telecommunications the basics still work. People complain because of mobile signals, lack of wifi for gadgets, poor video and gaming quality etc, but I can still pick up my basic landline phone and call my old mum in the same way I could 40 years ago from a phonebox. Signals are a basic aspect (pun intended) of operating a railway and SHOULD be as reliable as they were 40 years ago when they were operated from signal boxes by men pulling lovingly cared for levers. Would love to know how many signallers the fines paid for signal related delays would cover.
The Beccles Town Service is a unique situation derived from unique circumstances, with a local firm compromising with local people and residents groups. I very much doubt it is a blueprint for the future, pleasing as it is. I have been advocating an annual charge for bus passes for years now, and as ticket machine technology advances there will be easier and painless ways to achieve that with minimal admin and sudden cost to the pass holder. An Oyster Card type pass that is prepaid and takes £1 for every journey made until the requisite amount (I have said £25-30 a year) is reached. Thereafter travel is free. give it a few years and it will happen.
In the meantime fare payers are literally paying the price for councils not reimbursing free passes adequately enough. This won't encourage them to use the buses more regularly so could end up being a false economy. No good having 9 people paying an extra 50p on a £5 fare if the 10th person gives up getting the bus.
Thank you - you've been a lovely audience!
The dreadful failure rate of modern electronic signsallinmg system can only be down to in muy view poor design. THey should be far more reliable than the old mechanical signalling systems but are not
ReplyDeleteI suspect a lot of it is down to the equipment not being designed for the environment it is usings in. In signal cabin you have a ground benign controlled environment but for line side equipment you do not. It is a harsh envirionment subject to shock and vibration and extremes of temperature as well as dirt and water , oil etc
THe next generation of signalling larfely moves away from fixed signals and instead keeps the trains a safe distance apart depending on the speed they are doing this also means that in many cases the tracks can be better utilized
Re. the sad incident of the gentleman killed when sticking his head out of the window: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fatal-accident-balham
ReplyDeleteHi Steve Galloway update another Stevensons bus is here volvo b10m Alexander bus 60 seater m233tbv to be used as school bus and double decker replacement when off road
ReplyDeleteThe new bus is fleet number 357
ReplyDeleteIt appears that National Express are axing their service 787. Camberidge, Luton Airport, Heathrow Airport
ReplyDeleteI have nevso train can run direct to Heathrow. THe line actually exists although it may not be electrified and it was single track. THe linnk is near Willesdon Junction and it connect to the GWR line near Old Oak conmmon it is about 0.5Km of trrack
Eh?
ReplyDelete