Recent content by Chris Hamilton

It was always a bit strange that when the rest of ScotRail moved out of Buchanan House, the control function stayed broadly co-located with that of Railtrack. I suspect that it was more down to there being a lack of space at Caledonian Chambers to house a control room, or lack of money in the...

That explains it, thanks. Grabbed a few photos during my break of it and the Tractor. Probably been a very long time since any passenger stock was shunted into Carstairs depot and will be a very long time before it happens again.

Does anyone have any idea why XC 221126 is sitting in the Engineering Sidings at Carstairs? It was coupled directly to 37423, but the tractor departed solo to return south last night (17/04/25). Very unusual to see a passenger unit sitting in the usually exclusive domain of Stoneblowers...

I’m assuming you mean its an Emergency Crossover that’s being installed and isn’t signalled (i.e. The signaller can move the points remotely, but can’t set routes and would have to talk the train through the protecting signal) or is controlled locally by a Ground Switch Panel? If thats the...

I have a strange link to a few of the replies in this thread. I've actually, over my near 20 years in the railway, worked in the S&T at Bristol (Temple Meads and Parkway), Exeter, Carstairs (twice), Motherwell and Haymarket and can speak to the geography of a few sections. Haymarket S&T (or...

Welcome. The only regularly scheduled Steam that still exists in the UK operates on the West Highland Extension between Fort William and Mallaig on the west coast of Scotland. By regularly scheduled, I mean actually operates at a set time every day over a set period of time (twice a day in the...

It's a handy tool when working on the railway. While I would never use it to decide if it was safe to be in a red zone (which we aren't allowed to be these days anyway), it is a handy tool to see where trains are when it comes to dealing with the signaller. If I can see that there's going to be...

Last time I was at Warrington Bank Quay, I had disembarked an Avanti on Platform 2 and crossed over to 4 to pick up a service to Manchester. The platform was very congested at one end, so I stepped over the yellow line (when there wasn’t a train in sight) by about a foot width, and next thing...

Unit isn’t needed for a couple of hours at Edinburgh in the current timetable, and it's apparently too tricky to try to change ends to take it to Craigentinny, so they just run it as normal to Glasgow. It was always a handy thing for LNER, because it wasn’t vital to run it every day (as the...

I used to live in a new build that backed on to the Holytown Lines that bypass Motherwell through Ravenscraig. Couldn’t see a thing in summer because of the leaves, but in the winter would get a good view of freight to Mossend and Coatbridge. The hourly bizarre empty stock movement from Whifflet...

I believe there was some initial confusion as to whether the accident was on the bridge at Gretna near the A75 (which would be Carlisle PSB) over the GSW or the one at Kirkpatrick Fleming over the WCML (right on top of the route boundary between Carlisle PSB and West of Scotland SC - Carstairs...

On ScotRail, where the lampposts are painted, the bands are usually ScotRail blue, as it contrasts with the white paint. But where the lampposts are unpainted (new stations, renewals etc), they are usually reflective yellow tape (Though blue tape is found on some older renewals). On painted...

Not necessarily a UK wide scheme, but I’ve always thought that CityLink could be rearranged to provide integration with ScotRail, in a similar fashion to Amtrak Thruway. An obvious dilemma is that CityLink is a private company, but if it wasn’t, or the owners were amenable to change (or sale)...

That’s not double blocking, just a protected overlap for WN543. Something similar happens with GMM399 at the end of Platform 2 at Motherwell (though, made more complex by the length of trains serving Motherwell). If a train is approaching platform 2 and GMM399 is at danger, then it will be...

While I don’t know if there is a theoretical maximum speed, a lot comes down to how far you place your Distant from your Home signal, in order to create a braking distance. In the past, that would have had a limit based on the maximum length of a wire run and the visibility of said signal from...