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Unimetals do not have a wide portfolio in the UK - they seem to concentrate on scrap, recycling and selling on the recovered metals. If they cease operations there are other locations the units can go to.

Not enough juice. It needs upgrading.

I haven’t, nor the Mk 2D-F fleet - I was specifically mentioning the stock that was used on dated and extra trains in the period you were referring to. It was done to prove to you (& others) that privatisation wasn’t responsible for the decline in that type of working with that type of stock...

They did them as a matter of course up to B exam on a Brush 2 and C exam on a Baby Deltic. They could help out on C exams on Brush 2’s. D or E exams would always be done at 34G/FP. incidentally, Deltics didn’t have E exams, their biggest was a D.

Hitchin also used the Cambridge branch for running in type 2 locos under repair or exam there, usually LE moves.

There were 6150 Mk 1 and early Mk 2 ordinary service LHCS day coaches (i.e excluding caterers, pullmans, sleepers and non corridor) in service as at 31/12/71. By the time the stock was handed over to the ROSCOs at the end of March 1994, that total had shrunk to just 125 and a considerable number...

If anybody had put a Deltic on an ordinary service on the East Lincs, they would have been sacked! Deltics were intensively diagrammed in those days and strictly for ECML services. When I used the East Lincs services in 1969/70 they were cl.47 hauled. Boston men used to work those trains as...

No, we didn’t, at least in 1994 when the stock transferred to the ROSCOs. The 45’s had long gone as had most other conventional (i.e. non push pull) LHCS trains. The IEP programme 80x sets were ordered by the Government, not the TOCs and the pre-COVID promise that was made on GWR was that every...

I can tell you with absolute certainty that Lumo is not going to be delayed in getting its stock because the DfT couldn’t get its act together. There is not a chance that the DfT are going to break the law in trying to interfere in private contracts. Hitachi are not liable for consequential...

The railway isn’t run by accountants and wasn’t in BR days. The decisions on locos and stock were/are largely taken by Commercial and Operating Management in conjunction with Engineering colleagues. Accountants are there to tell you where the business is heading, how much things cost and to...

The Treasury always wanted to see a reduction in rolling stock so going for new, longer vehicles was something that BR used to try, to great effect in retrospect.

A class 150 unit lease at £200k a year - they aren’t that cheap! Leasing got assets off the public books and the MEAV leasing regime gave the DfT (and the TOCs) financial certainty and avoided the large variance in costs and cash demands you get when you have to pay for all the overhauls...

The Old Oak workabus was a half hourly service each way with a half hour gap in service each shift for meal breaks. Two minibuses working (in theory) at once. If one went mechanical, it would then be a loco. The tannoy at the Oak would sound with a message something like this, “The 1500 workabus...

The payments to Hitachi are more expensive than a conventional lease because it’s not a lease, it’s a daily train supply agreement. You collect the train off Hitachi in the morning and hand it back at night, or whenever the contract says. There were no options on the original contracts - it was...

The first coach is a sleeper first. The second coach is a Pullman. The loco is immaculate, exhibition standard. There are giant A boards on the platform. My money is on it being there for display, but where on the LNER?

Fragmentation of the industry didn’t start with privatisation - Sectorisation was the start and it got fairly brutal between all the sectors and sub sectors. Beggar-thy-neighbour attitudes on the railway almost became a sport in itself. The Region and Route structure favoured by Hendy has a...

SWR still seem to be working to the plan that has 34 x 701 diagrams in by the end of the year. This plan predates the current MD. It was slightly back end loaded in the autumn because of the interworking crew diagrams. So I would be expecting more 701 diagrams appearing before the end of the...

Unless it was specifically covered in the agreement that ended the franchise in 2020, FG won’t be paying the fine -GWR (DfT) will. It probably won’t even affect the management fee that FG get from the DfT because it relates to a pre-NRC incident.

Did you read #103? The detail is below. The March 1990 version of the BR NSE Railplan had the SW fleet as 78 cars of cl.171 and 6 cars of cl.165, full fleet being reached in May 1992, when the LHCS would finally be withdrawn. The proposed LHCS run down was 81 vehicles in Oct 1991, 24 in March...

The Waterloo-Exeter service in NSE days was going to be operated by the end door version of the Turbos, the class 171. A few 165 units were also due to be built for SW duties. The Turbos were to be an NSE standard and built in greater numbers than they actually were. At one time the 166 units...