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Just to be clear, the photo you took shows no antimacassars. Are you saying they were just missing on that particular unit or that GWR are not providing them at all on the 165 3 cars working the North Downs route?

It would have been done with full knowledge and support of the DfT. Burnham, if he wants to make a political point, should be asking why the DfT agreed to it.

Indeed they would. All the HST sets would have gone and the DfT would have had a look at reducing the 150 or 158 fleet. The Portsmouth-Cardiff provision would have been exactly the same as now. Bit of a plea here. The morning run out of the Bristol based west DMU fleet is very dependant on...

The solution to the IET problem is to be able to isolate the Rheo brake in certain circumstances - that needs a modification to the units but should be possible. It isn’t only Dawlish that causes the issue because basically wherever you can get salty water on the roof in quantity, the traction...

No - their locos and their drivers are not passed for NR working and their locos aren’t exactly compatible! An IET really needs another IET to assist in running conditions. You need brakes.

The 802 were meant to be Dawlish proof by having the brake resistors on the roof, rather than having vulnerable to water equipment below the solebar, like on the 800. But the problem is that the amount of salty sea water spray in high wave conditions shorts them (and therefore the traction...

Huncoat originally had two WB (William Bagnall) 0-4-0F engines, both arriving there new. They were WB 2989/51 and WB 3022/53 and neither now survive. In 12/58 Huncoat acquired HL 3746/29, a larger 0-6-0F from Slacks Valley electricity works and that is now preserved at Tanfield, arriving there...

You would suspect wrong - the RAIB do read this forum!

A 48DS weighs only about 7.5 tons. The larger and more numerous 88DS weighed between 17 and 20 tons.

The standard gauge loco is indeed a 48DS and that had me looking at my records. Clitheroe was shunted on the standard gauge, right up to nearly the end, by a 1928 4W Overhead Electric loco, built by EE. But in 1967 Clitheroe got RH 305304/52, acquired from Rawtenstall Gas Works when it closed...

The decision to hand the GW units back had nothing to with ASLEF - it was done by the DfT to save leasing costs as part of the exercise to reduce total DfT rail budget expenditure. Every fleet that had its lease end date coming up was examined by the DfT to see if they could do without.

All the DfT TOCs are “profitable” as they are just cash flow entities, for which the TOC “owner” just gets management fees off DfT. So I Squared can’t load up either Chiltern and XC with debt and sell them on. TOCs also can’t just be sold on - the DfT has to approve change of owner. Given that...

Whitemoor was a big location for storing Vanfits but up to 100 were usually stored just south of Peterborough in sidings on the upside. 1980 was the year of the big clear out (I think they started to use AB vans on some flows from that year) and I had to get rid of the Peterborough ones, as did...

When you use a closed line for storage, you operate it as a siding or sidings so you don’t want to be opening up boxes or anything like that. You want to keep it simple. So the most you can disconnect and clip up, make any crossing gates hand operated, and if you do need to keep a box...

Probably not a good idea because of the number of punters who get on and off at Ely. There is quite a demand to go to/from north west of Grantham from/to various parts of East Anglia and Ely is where they connect into and out of that service.

I already have taken the first page into account. I support a bridge option for Queen Adelaide and moving from half barriers to full barriers for some of the AHB crossings on the Ely-Peterborough stretch because the road traffic levels and likely downtimes would demand it but I would be looking...

It is the degree of level crossing work that I would probably challenge. I have had this elsewhere when I have put on extra services and challenged it successfully as it was all too obviously being taken as an opportunity to do some gold plated upgrading to the crossings. I am not a fan of NR...

Once you do away with all those single leads at Ely, the capacity that is unlocked is huge. Same with redoubling Haughley. Three passenger trains an hour between Ely and Peterborough does not clog up capacity on that stretch of line, nor does a reversal at Ely with the Norwich-Liverpool cause...

Quite good. Went through there on an off peak Peterborough last week and 11 got on.

There was an “understanding” between the DfT and a very senior FG person over a non HT related matter (which I am not going to get into here) that resulted in HT giving up the 222 units, taking on the 180 units and the DfT then not objecting to the resulting Track Access application. HT were...