Recent content by The Engineer

I can confirm that when Alstom tendered for new 11-car Pendolinos and extra cars, one option in that tender was for short-formation Pendos for the Birmingham to Scotland trains. Far from being outdated, the latest Pendos just delivered have had technical upgrades where required to remove...

Hi Yurec, this is a really specialised area, so I wish you all the best in your research. I have located an interesting paper by the IEEE here:http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5557440&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5557440 Some...

St Asaph qualifies in the same way as St Davids - it has a cathederal and is a church administrative district. Which, after all, is how cities were originally defined in our fair isles!

The RAIB’s preliminary examination found that the derailment occurred because the locomotive was driven significantly faster than the permitted speed over the junction. This resulted in its wheel flanges climbing over the outer rail of a curve just before it would have reached the up fast line...

Agree - would not fit at all! The Scottish sleepers DO NOT make money - the government keeps subsidising them for the benefit of the Scottish MPs :wink: They've tried to withdraw them a few times but always failed on political grounds, with the government underwriting the losses...

Many of the later closures (late 60s into the 70s) were mainly Beeching proposed closures that had been opposed but eventually carried through. Later closures included the Waverley Route, for instance. On the flip side, some Beeching proposed closures were successfully opposed (e.g Kyle of...

Glad to hear it was a good outcome! :D (sorry she lost all her stuff, though....) :(

and Earlestown :D --- old post above --- --- new post below --- .... and Drumbreck is another (Paisley Canal line) as Corkerhill yard is wired for EMUs. And possibly Corkerhill station too??

Hi Plannerman, I think that the climb out of Moorfields new station onto the old railway viaducts out of Liverpool Exchange, towards Sandhiills, may be the steepest on the Merseyrail network. I'm not sure of the value though... As a young engineer, we did tests on this bank with the new...

Leaving it to the day of travel means you won't get the Virgin or TPE advance rates. The fares you've found sound very good for "day of travel" rates!!

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with LM.. About a year ago I booked a first class return to London with LM rather than Virgin. LM cancelled the train (it was turned round short) and on contacting their staff they immediately arranged to put me on a Virgin train south albeit in standard...

Yes, it made a nice change from the usual traction. I was waiting for the 17:22 to Preston so couldn't go over and have a closer look. 378.256 was nice and shiny, not accumulated and dirt yet! Just one more to deliver after this - 378.257.

Spotted this at Rugby yesterday - 378.256 leading 378.214 south into Rugby about 17:08, departed north again via Trent Valley about 17:18.

This is also Class 156 diagrammed - electrified as far as Corkerhill Depot only. Good ride as it takes you past Shields and Corkerhill depots....

Thanks both. I'll ask my chums at Longsight tomorrow and see if I can get to the bottom of it....