Running Out of Fuel

Cheshire Scot · 2 Jul 2026

mathstrains19 said:
Not sure about the layout at Aviemore, but if it is (/was) just a simple passing loop, then the loco from the Up Clansman would end up at the wrong end of it's train at Aviemore (with no convenient way to shunt it around)

Back then (1980) the third through plaform was still in situ and used occasionally. Perhaps on the day it was occupied by another train, we will probably never know. In the 1990s Aviemore was reduced to two platforms with the third platform passing to the Strathspey Railway with a revised layout.

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D1537 · 2 Jul 2026

Magdalia said:
When the twin tank class 47s 47650-665 were first modified they worked the Aberdeen-Kings Cross sleepers throughout. They became notorious for ruining the GN morning peak by running out of fuel towards the end of the journey, sometimes stopping in the two track section for maximum disruption.

Given that the range of a twin tank 47 is (at a very minimum) 900 miles, that sounds more like there was a failure switching tanks rather than running out of fuel.

Acathater · 2 Jul 2026

Taunton said:
Templecombe on the Up is surprising, because they would be fuelled at Exeter or Newton Abbot before setting off for Waterloo, and if I recall correctly would be expected to do the round trip without refuelling, although there was an emergency tank wagon and pump on the Windsor side sidings at Waterloo.

In earlier diesel days there were issues with poor quality diesel fuel (alias 'the cheapest'), which would leave sludge developing in the tank and reduce the usable contents, let alone clog the pipework - this was a particular issue with the steam heating boiler's burner. If the fuel gauge is unreliable and you are using calculations then you are dependent on the fueller actually filling to capacity each time.

I think the problem was when they were pushed into running a third leg after already doing one return trip

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2026 ==

D1537 said:
Given that the range of a twin tank 47 is (at a very minimum) 900 miles, that sounds more like there was a failure switching tanks rather than running out of fuel.

Or maybe staff not realising the extra tanks had their own fillers

Efini92 · 2 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
As a car driver I'd never set off on a journey without checking the fuel gauge (and I'd get a warning if it's low anyway). As a private pilot I triple check the fuel level of my aircraft visually, using a dipstick and using the gauges, when I'm doing my walk-around checks.

When my dad (who worked in garden maintenance) needed his petrol lawnmower, hedge trimmer or chainsaw on a job, he'd always check the fuel level before setting out, as well as after each job. It's such elementary stuff.

Yes, Control should keep on top of it, but 'stuff happens' during disruption and so it's easy for mistakes to be made. Just utterly amateurish of the railway not to specify fuel indicators in the cab, and a check of those indicators as part of driver handover/train startup procedures. An own goal really.

They’re supposed to be checked on a prep, but given how dirty some are it’s clear that they aren’t.

172007 · 2 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
As a car driver I'd never set off on a journey without checking the fuel gauge (and I'd get a warning if it's low anyway). As a private pilot I triple check the fuel level of my aircraft visually, using a dipstick and using the gauges, when I'm doing my walk-around checks.

When my dad (who worked in garden maintenance) needed his petrol lawnmower, hedge trimmer or chainsaw on a job, he'd always check the fuel level before setting out, as well as after each job. It's such elementary stuff.

Yes, Control should keep on top of it, but 'stuff happens' during disruption and so it's easy for mistakes to be made. Just utterly amateurish of the railway not to specify fuel indicators in the cab, and a check of those indicators as part of driver handover/train startup procedures. An own goal really.

You don't need a fuel gauge in a tain cab though if you know how many miles a full tank will take you and each unit/loco has a diagran with a known milleage plus a buffer and always leaves the depot with a full tank or known milleage from previous fueling.

The occiasional issue arrises when a unit swap occurs and someone forgets to check the folloiwing days fuel requirement if it ends up at a non fueling point.

The other issue is if the train goes for maintenance on arrival at a depot and there is confusion as to if it is meant to be fueled before or after maintenance.

NeakPed · 2 Jul 2026

Efini92 said:
They’re supposed to be checked on a prep, but given how dirty some are it’s clear that they aren’t.

Indeed they are. But does the prep Driver know how many miles the unit is planned to do for the day ?

plugwash · 2 Jul 2026

Magrar said:
Which is what "if we skip this station we'll be alright" suggests.

I would presume/hope that there is a margin between the range figures used for tracking purposes, and the actual fuel in the tanks and that the planning was based on "how far we can go while being confident we won't run out of fuel".

It's worth noting that sheffield and ely on this route aren't just normal station stops where the train stops at a stop along the route before continuing in the same direction. They are places where the train leaves the "direct" route at a junction, reverses and then returns to the route. It's about 4.4 miles from dore junction to sheffield and about 1.4 miles from ely junction to ely (though the "direct" route through ely junction is a bit wiggly).

Brightonboy · 2 Jul 2026

plugwash said:
I would presume/hope that there is a margin between the range figures used for tracking purposes, and the actual fuel in the tanks and that the planning was based on "how far we can go while being confident we won't run out of fuel".

It's worth noting that sheffield and ely on this route aren't just normal station stops where the train stops at a stop along the route before continuing in the same direction. They are places where the train leaves the "direct" route at a junction, reverses and then returns to the route. It's about 4.4 miles from dore junction to sheffield and about 1.4 miles from ely junction to ely (though the "direct" route through ely junction is a bit wiggly).

And in both cases the fuel normally burnt whilst standing at the platform (and any signals in and out) would also be saved. But if those were considered savings worth having then it suggests the tanks would have been running very low on arrival at Norwich.

GPR · 2 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
Mistakes happen but running out of fuel, when there's an obvious and simple way of preventing that, is unforgivable in my view. But the 'not invented here' syndrome that pervades the railway means that there's no urge to address these kind of issues.

The most recent break down that I know of attributed to lack of fuel at my TOC was about 4 years ago. Not sure why it happened but another train had to be sent to come and rescue the train as it broke down on the line.
It just doesn’t happen and to add it to the stock of 200 trains which will be looked to be redundant in the future, it clearly isn’t a plan that is worthwhile.

Efini92 said:
They’re supposed to be checked on a prep, but given how dirty some are it’s clear that they aren’t.

If it’s coming off a depot, the unit should be fuelled and that is 1200 for a 150, 1400 for a 156, 1600 or so for a 195.
They’re coming back 18 hours later having only used 25-40% of the fuel so diagrams aren’t too intensive regarding fuel usage.

172007 said:
You don't need a fuel gauge in a tain cab though if you know how many miles a full tank will take you and each unit/loco has a diagran with a known milleage plus a buffer and always leaves the depot with a full tank or known milleage from previous fueling.

The occiasional issue arrises when a unit swap occurs and someone forgets to check the folloiwing days fuel requirement if it ends up at a non fueling point.

The other issue is if the train goes for maintenance on arrival at a depot and there is confusion as to if it is meant to be fueled before or after maintenance.

Unit arrives for maintenance work. Before it leaves the depot it gets fuelled, oils checked, cleaned and prepped for service.
There’s a person in charge to make sure all the above are done with paperwork included. If it gets missed then it’s a rarity.

NeakPed said:
Indeed they are. But does the prep Driver know how many miles the unit is planned to do for the day ?

If the train comes the depot, it gets fuelled unless the filler cap is popped open and the fuel is to the brim.
It takes roughly 5 mins to put 500 litres in using a bulk loader.

Watershed · 2 Jul 2026

172007 said:
You don't need a fuel gauge in a tain cab though if you know how many miles a full tank will take you and each unit/loco has a diagran with a known milleage plus a buffer and always leaves the depot with a full tank or known milleage from previous fueling.

If those alternative methods are stuck to, then yes the gauge is superfluous. But ...

172007 said:
The occiasional issue arrises when a unit swap occurs and someone forgets to check the folloiwing days fuel requirement if it ends up at a non fueling point.

The other issue is if the train goes for maintenance on arrival at a depot and there is confusion as to if it is meant to be fueled before or after maintenance.

...clearly, experience shows that mistakes happen where the correct procedures aren't followed. And when those mistakes can be avoided through something that is very cheap and simple to implement, it is utterly amateurish not to do so.

6Gman · 2 Jul 2026

NeakPed said:
Indeed they are. But does the prep Driver know how many miles the unit is planned to do for the day ?

No, because the practice is to fill to capacity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2026 ==

Watershed said:
...clearly, experience shows that mistakes happen where the correct procedures aren't followed. And when those mistakes can be avoided through something that is very cheap and simple to implement, it is utterly amateurish not to do so.

So, a driver boards a unit, looks at the fuel gauge and it shows 35% capacity.

What is he/she supposed to do?

Given they won't know how many miles the unit is booked to do, nor when it is next due for fuelling.

Unobrow · 2 Jul 2026

6Gman said:
No, because the practice is to fill to capacity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2026 ==

So, a driver boards a unit, looks at the fuel gauge and it shows 35% capacity.

What is he/she supposed to do?

Given they won't know how many miles the unit is booked to do, nor when it is next due for fuelling.

If the driver has looked at the fuel and has any concerns, they should ring their control and raise them. They’ll make the decision if there’s enough fuel to run with.

Horizon22 · 2 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
...clearly, experience shows that mistakes happen where the correct procedures aren't followed. And when those mistakes can be avoided through something that is very cheap and simple to implement, it is utterly amateurish not to do so.

As mentioned, what would this actually add? The unit diagram matters and that might be detatched from the driver diagram except for the one trip they’re doing that day.

As an example purely off the top of my head, the driver might the take the train A-B and then go on break. The driver might think “oh that’s a bit low”, not knowing the next part is B-C with C being the depot.

Drivers calling up constantly with well intentioned but ultimately spurious calls wouldn’t be beneficial.

Watershed · 3 Jul 2026

Horizon22 said:
As mentioned, what would this actually add? The unit diagram matters and that might be detatched from the driver diagram except for the one trip they’re doing that day.

As an example purely off the top of my head, the driver might the take the train A-B and then go on break. The driver might think “oh that’s a bit low”, not knowing the next part is B-C with C being the depot.

Drivers calling up constantly with well intentioned but ultimately spurious calls wouldn’t be beneficial.

Drivers would be instructed to make sure there is enough fuel (range) for the legs they are driving, to prevent a train running out of fuel midway. What happens after they are in charge would be up to the next driver to verify.

Even just having fuel gauges on units would mean (given modern telemetry) that Control has a better idea of the fuel status of a unit, rather than having to rely on estimates that may be overcautious in some cases and which will be fundamentally wrong when a mistake is made.

Again, there seems to be an incredible sense of 'not invented here' in the resistance the railway has to any change to procedures. Try telling any other TOC abroad that our units don't have fuel status indicators in the cab and they'd probably laugh you out the room.

Sheridan · 3 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
Even just having fuel gauges on units would mean (given modern telemetry) that Control has a better idea of the fuel status of a unit, rather than having to rely on estimates that may be overcautious in some cases and which will be fundamentally wrong when a mistake is made.

New units (or at least some) do have fuel gauges on the TMS, and this can be viewed remotely by Control as well. So as older ones are phased out there will be fewer and fewer around that don’t.

philthetube · 3 Jul 2026

172007 said:
You don't need a fuel gauge in a tain cab though if you know how many miles a full tank will take you and each unit/loco has a diagran with a known milleage plus a buffer and always leaves the depot with a full tank or known milleage from previous fueling.

The occiasional issue arrises when a unit swap occurs and someone forgets to check the folloiwing days fuel requirement if it ends up at a non fueling point.

The other issue is if the train goes for maintenance on arrival at a depot and there is confusion as to if it is meant to be fueled before or after maintenance.

There are many things on the railway that you don't need if things are perfect, AWS for example, they are there to improve safety, reliability of resilience, a fuel gauge would fit in that description.

Haywain · 3 Jul 2026

800002 said:
Not sure if all of those would, though, have an applicable root cause of 'insufficient fuel', however.

The root cause would never be insufficient fuel, as there must be a reason for that status being reached, whether it's due to not staying on the booked diagram or not being fuelled due to some sort of disruption on the depot or whatever.

Horizon22 · 4 Jul 2026

Watershed said:
Even just having fuel gauges on units would mean (given modern telemetry) that Control has a better idea of the fuel status of a unit, rather than having to rely on estimates that may be overcautious in some cases and which will be fundamentally wrong when a mistake is made.

Again, there seems to be an incredible sense of 'not invented here' in the resistance the railway has to any change to procedures. Try telling any other TOC abroad that our units don't have fuel status indicators in the cab and they'd probably laugh you out the room.

Modern units do have fuel gauges and live data that can be accessed remotely. On some stock, such data is also accessible via the driver and their TMS (train management screen) via sub-menus. Retrofitting this seems simple but is probably a bit of an engineering nightmare in reality for trains 25+ years old and rather costly. Trains are almost always swapped off diagrams so this sort of thing doesn’t happen. There’s no estimates - when diagrams are planned track mileage is all known to the exact mile, but you are right to state there is a higher risk if there is for example widespread service disruption. Although almost units are fuelled way beyond their daily requirement.

As for abroad, considering there are a lot of shared rolling stock manufacturers, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in the same boat but honestly, I wouldn’t know. But yours is a presumption and unless an international train driver or someone with knowledge joins the discussion, you won’t know either. Happy to be informed either way really.

Taunton · 4 Jul 2026

Horizon22 said:
Modern units do have fuel gauges and live data that can be accessed remotely. On some stock, such data is also accessible via the driver and their TMS (train management screen) via sub-menus. Retrofitting this seems simple but is probably a bit of an engineering nightmare in reality for trains 25+ years old and rather costly. Trains are almost always swapped off diagrams so this sort of thing doesn’t happen. There’s no estimates - when diagrams are planned track mileage is all known to the exact mile, but you are right to state there is a higher risk if there is for example widespread service disruption. Although almost units are fuelled way beyond their daily requirement.

This technology has spread from the heavy plant industry, where the plant office can see, by mobile phone signal, the live status of each item, plotted on a large wall screen map if desired. It can show GPS location, heading, speed, engine hours, fuel level, any warnings, driver, driver's hours, etc

physics34 · 6 Jul 2026

Happened to me on a uckfield to selhurst depot once. The rear 2 car was very low on fuel. The train was already taken out of service as the depot must have got some warning from the dept that deal with fuel useage i guess! It gave up the ghost over Riddlesdown viaduct. Thankfully we were able to limp to the depot

Bletchleyite · 6 Jul 2026

Didn't run out completely, but the planned last Conwy Valley in-service run of a Class 101 pair was binned off in favour of a 150 (or was it a 153?) due to the fuel running too low to do the last trip. I did enjoy a spirited run from Llandudno to the Junction though...

Running Out of Fuel

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