Recent content by GW43125

And even now, with 701s quite often running around with no toilets...

Didn't touch Grand Jn- reversed in New Street platform and went back north via Sandwell & Wolves. Highly doubt Avanti know the route towards Rugeley, and if there is there's nowhere easy to reverse round there. Once you're past Wolves it's 125 up to Stafford anyway. EDIT-looks like it got to...

9M50 (and I think possibly one other) went into New Street, reversed back up to Stafford then reversed again to come up the Trent Valley.

I'm sure there was a similar delay in the snow in the New Forest a few years ago

They have only one unit available at present. 222s haven't exactly been famed for their reliability recently, so it has, predictably, failed with no spare.

Ah, I stand corrected! I'll drag myself over to the 93 thread as I've clearly missed something!

93s are or can be fitted with the Dellner couplers for this exact purpose - there's a few photos doing the rounds of them set up as such.

I recall one on the Western a few years ago (Ealing?) where the effect on the pigeon dislodged some concrete off the bridge and shut the job down

458/0 were, once upon a time, 100mph. Though fairly swiftly restricted to 90mph from memory. The farewell tour in 2015 certainly made use of the 90mph capability!

Issues with the 93s I'm told.

Fire at a substation near Longhedge Jn which has reportedly taken out a bunch of feeder cables.

Could just be the preheaters or something-sprinters for instance belt out quite a bit of smoke when you start them up!

I find it happens to me at least once a week, in fact a couple of weekends ago I managed 3/3 701s with no working toilets. Compared to an 8 car 450 where you'd almost always have one or more working. I do feel that not fitting the "cupboard" toilets was a bit of a step back.

As a Reading line resident, it's something we've been begging for for years-getting up to Vauxhall to catch a train from King's Cross, for instance, is a pig when the rounders aren't running! Quite happy to take the 2 minute time penalty if it means not staggering across Clapham Jn with a suitcase!

I'm sure I remember reading/being told that the 442s were being changed to be on the same control systems as the 455s as part of the retractioning (but don't quote me on this)-unfortunately it being dark in the video means you can't tell from the jumper cables/pipes! IIRC 456s were 15mph...