Recent content by redbutton

I know a Southern driver who moved to Gloucester a few years ago, FWIW he seemed happy with it compared to the south London metro work he was doing before he left.

The standard has come into force which allows OH departments to refer for further testing, but my understanding is that not all of them are A- aware of the standard, and B- have incorporated it into their own company policies. So it's very much YMMV at this point. It's still a step in the...

Has anyone had contact from XC recruitment to confirm receipt of their B1 form or any other information about when they anticipate vacancies to open up?

A couple of updates: Southern London Bridge drivers lost Streatham-Sutton via Wimbledon during the pandemic, the service was suspended in the first lockdown and the company made no arrangements for drivers to refresh it before everyone lost their competence. Southern Redhill drivers recently...

The contract for Southern drivers based at Redhill to operate GWR services over the North Downs has ended (and I'll leave it to others to opine as to which side initiated the split), so GWR are cutting the service to compensate. I've heard it will become a half-hourly skip-stop service instead...

Is it not still the case that trainees get their ORR (formerly EU) licences after they finish their training and get their key? How do they drive under instruction if they need to be licensed to do so?

If they just wanted a few one-off drives, I'm pretty sure all they would need is a willing TOC (does WCR still hire Drivers on zero-hours contracts?) to take them on as a "trainee" who can then drive under instruction. I don't even think they would need any actual training or qualifications...

Yeah I was at a motorway service area yesterday where Gridserve had upgraded the two posts and added a 7kW slow AC post, so the site could theoretically handle five cars, but there were still only two bays marked out with tons of hashed area either side, so only two cars could use the facility...

That's strange, what should happen is the unit should split the available power between the two cars, so instead of the 150kW maximum for one, you would get 75kW for each. But maybe they haven't configured it to do that yet. It might be worth reporting that to Gridserve to see if that's the...

That's true, but many drive battery packs like the one in your Toyota subdivide the cells into modules, so individual modules can be replaced with refurbished ones without replacing the whole pack. Especially with the early Toyota units, the car would report a "dead pack" but once you actually...

"Self-charging" hybrid is a myth. It just means it charges from petrol. If your daily driving is less than about 20-30 miles, consider a plug-in hybrid (PHEV). I have a 70-plate Kia e-Niro with a 64kWh battery, it sounds like you're driving something with about 40kWh. Great for a city car...

Assuming a 50kWh or better DC rapid charger at each rest stop, my Kia could make that journey in approximately the same time. At that speed my car would do about 250 miles from 100% to 0% but obviously you would never want to run it all the way down to zero, so you plan your route so that you...

To add a data point for the original question, I drive a 70-plate Kia eNiro 4, achieving 4.5mi/kWh in the summer and 4mi/kWh in the winter, paying 5.5p/kWh for charging from 2130-0230 via the Octopus Go Faster tariff. That means I'm paying approximately 1.375p per mile for fuel, then you have...

Especially in heavy rain like we had earlier today. (I don't know whether it was raining in Salisbury at the time of this incident.)

Technically the number plates are reflective but in my experience they always have crud on them. They're only required to be legible from about 20 metres away afaik.