Recent content by vikingdriver

I imagine this would be a direction to explore, most people have a price! There are also union related restrictions in some places, and these vary TOC to TOC - for example having to make yourself available by the middle of the previous week, unable to specify particular parts of the day you...

We have a certain number of drivers who can be off each day and that's your lot and it's meant to allow the service to still run normally. Obviously you still have training, sickness, medicals, etc that may see further drivers non-driving on a particular day. We very much rely on overtime to...

They can barely muster 2/3 carriages on the West of England services to Waterloo, let alone 9 throughout the day!

I'd like to think most crew kept an eye on the orientation of the unit. A first class at the country end could often reward you with a return via Warminster and an early finish as the unit was 'turned' at Westbury! If you ran back via Yeovil you just returned the first class to the wrong end...

There were two Yeovil Junction to Westbury and return ECS moves, with the 4 Bristol returns covering the Salisbury to Westbury section. That was for Salisbury depot alone.

At least the drivers can sit in the air conditioned shunters cabin for some respite from the horrific sauna like environment they are expected to work in!

Not drivers.

Just imagine the clubcard points if it were a Tesco filling station!

It's not listed in the sectional appendix as having modified working available to be introduced. Not to say you 100% can't though, the page on the Network Rail website is from December 2009.

What do you mean by 'proven' running times for the past several weeks? Everything has to follow the speed restrictions so nothing has changed. I think today is the first day with one of the restrictions lifted.

Once you go past that yellow, you're on their time. Take as long as you feel is needed to safely get to that red - worst case scenario they ask for a delay report.

I understand it was some unknown white substance found heavily contaminating the entire wheelset of the unit and the railhead. I gather that's being investigated to find out what it is so they can work out where it's come from.

It's not from 'leaves on the line' so the weather won't fix the problem. The engineering train was the railhead treatment train to sort the issue out and hopefully reopen the line, hence it being more of a priority than the service train.

It is currently unsafe to operate trains. Nothing to do with Yeovil crews.

Working trains on this line for a long long time, there's an awful lot I'd be looking at before I blame Yeovil depot! It wasn't 100% certainty before Yeovil existed either, it was common to have trains turned at Honiton, drivers were very familiar with shunting there. There have been numerous...