Search results

Nobody else was allowed to take an interest - it was a direct award procurement exercise. Competitive bidding for DfT rail operations finished years ago. And it isn’t a franchise - it’s just a management contract, running the TOC on behalf of the DfT. The DfT make all the crucial decisions on...

The selling of the MPD was after the closure plan for Marylebone had been throughly trashed but it wouldn’t have made too much difference as the noise complaints from the flats on the other side were being received even in the days of the Albion engined DMU’s. Some of the residents even...

Children would like to keep the LHCS but the previous minister made a promise to the leader of Westminster Council that they would be withdrawn and that promise still stands. The problem has been obtaining the replacement DMU stock in the short term to allow it to happen. The fundamental...

You are not far off what they actually were saying in the modernisation report - you have it almost spot on in fact. The freight side was the weakest part of the report - moving to hubs was mooted but they took an age to do it and seemed fixated on trying to do what they had always done, just a...

At times BR was not starved of funds - it depended on the Government position. For example the mid to late 1980’s were a boom time for BR investment authorisations, compared to the rather grim 1970’s. Cutting costs isn’t about making the railway profitable - it’s all about keeping within...

They are the all operator revenue figures from LENNON, which form the base all operator revenue figures in MOIRA. Totally checks out. The person at NR who allowed these revenue figures to be put into the public domain won’t be doing that again!

That was the line Vivarail first tried to persuade GWR to let a battery 230 loose on. The turnaround times were then pointed out to them.

3886 to 08718 - official date 7/75. It was the Fort William shunter. Only Peak 125 remained to be done after that - official date 12/75.

Professionally speaking, you would have to pay me to take 175’s. The Coradia design is great for the punter but a maintainers nightmare and if you want to design out all the bad features, you would probably scrap them and build new - it would be cheaper. They are more suited to a route or...

It was a decision taken by Intercity not long after they took over the whole fleet from CM&EE BRB/Regional responsibility, iirc. Mid 1988 strikes a bell.

43000 had been withdrawn long before that date and renumbered into the departmental coaching stock series, as had 43001.

Any change to a DfT TOC ROSCO contract has to be approved by the DfT - no exceptions.

Brilliant - I couldn’t recall it so dismissed it but I must have seen it - time does dim the memory, unfortunately! There was an earlier query raised about the earlier 31/4 conversions. They were shopped as part of the normal shopping cycle so CM&EE York would have liaised with BREL as to the...

I saw 86202 chalked up as 86.502 (the original intention for the 86/1 fleet) in Crewe Works in late autumn 1972 too. 86201/3 had been outshopped by then.

It was a bit more than that. The xx.xxx way of describing the number was on official documents at the very start but it never seems to have been applied - the gap being apparent on the locos. So, given that way of thinking, you can easily see why 000 wasn’t used for first in class. It was...

A defining moment came early in their existence when the TOC members wanted to put out a statement which wasn’t exactly DfT friendly. The NR people said everyone had to be co-operative now and they couldn’t agree to anything unless the DfT agreed to it. That rather set the tone for what...

Before BR? The Railway Clearing House had a role in setting some standards but it was done more on a collaborative and facilitating approach rather than by pure “top down” imposition.

Because the DfT are behind in the process with the others (South Eastern as well the other two) in determining what they want GWR to go to the market for. There is no “own cash” involved here - it’s the DfT wanting to go on fishing expeditions to see what they can get and what it will cost...

I have always felt that the sub classes were only split out into separate number series when there was a significant difference, rather than just automatically doing it. The not using zero as a class beginner was definitely a M&EE thing, wishing to always start a class at 1 so that the...

Chiltern is where the DfT would like them to go - GWR have had previous experience of 180’s so are not that keen to take on more engineering trouble. In any event, the train crew training costs for GWR would be huge - they have their eye on the TfW 158’s.