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mods note - split from this thread There has been much debate about the reason for some class numbers not having been used when they were first publicised in 1968. Why no 18, 19, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 49, 51, 53 or 54? It has been suggested in some circles that, like the non-use of Class 72...

Videos with audio can be found of most classes of diesel locomotive engine used in the UK. Even Class 15 Class 23 (seems incongrous in that body, and the turbo adds an extra instrument to the orchestra) And hopefully one day the Class 28 But are there any recordings of any of the...

Currently in the last car of a 10 car IEP. The seat opposite me were reserved from St Erth to St Austell - two stations at which only the first six carriages are on the platform. Shouldnt the seat reservation system take account of short platforms?

I see from PSUL and the latest issue of RAIL that the one train a night service (Mon - Thur nighht southbound, saturday morning northbound) that used the curves between Tottenham South Junction (on the Lea Valley Line between Clapton and Tottenham Hale) and S Totenham (on the Suffragette Line...

Two years ago I started a thread remarking on the cornucopia of eight new classes expected to be introduced in 2024 on national Rail, and two on TfL https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/new-class-bonanza-in-2024.259989/ One year ago we observed that only five of the eight classes had actually...

Mod Note: Posts #1 - #7 originally in this thread. A little bit of history. The station was opened with the line in 1875. At the time the Sinclair family owned about a quarter of the entire county, and the land for the railway was bought from Sir John Sinclair, the haed of the family at the...

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-railway-questions-you-were-afraid-of-asking.293158/ I read somewhere that an old rule of thumb for carriage design was 16 to the bum, 16 to the ton. That is a seat width of 16" (implying you could fit six people in an 8 foot...

How do electric trains in foreign parts, capable of working on both AC and DC - or on different voltages - from the overhead, switch over? Are there clever circuits which detect what is coming through the pantographs and switch to the appropriate circuitry in the loco? Does the OHLE at the...

Seen heading towards Richmond sometime about 3pm? Nothing on RTT. Could see very clearly if it was running light or had a train, as I was about twentyn cars back in the queues at the level crossing.

Planning a trackbashing trip to Glasgow which includes the Larkhall branch and the Kelvindale spur (Maryhill-Anniesland)* . I noticed an odd thing, that there seem to be plenty of trains from Anniesland to Larkhall, but in the other diretion a change is necessary at Partick. On further...

Black, BR livery. Northbound near Tamworth. Allellys lorry. Any idea where it was going from / going to and what loco it belongs to?

I was at the Spa Valley Railway yesterday where thay had a double header of a Class 08 and class 09. Something puzzled me. The side rods of the two locos were visibly moving up and down at different rates, going in and out of phase over a distance of a few hundred yards. This struck me as odd...

Not sure which forum this should go in, but the current issue of RAIL says that among the exhibits at Ashford's open day on August 24th will be a Class 74! I think this is very unlikely. It would require a very quick cut and shut of the surviving Class 71 (which is in the NRM and not, as far as...

I happened to meet a film crew in the cafe at the summit of Snowdon recently, making a new TV series on unusual stations, apparently going out in November on Channel 4. (I would have thought that Tim Dunn had mined that seam quite throughly already, but still................) It was only when...

Only Connect makes a rare error. This was the very first question of the new series. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002g7y3/only-connect-series-21-1-whitley-baes-v-caraxians see at 3:21 Error was compunded by her quoting the correct date, and no-one noticing it didn't correrspond to...

Readers may be interested in this National Archives project which has recently gone live. It documents records of injuries sustained by railway employees, mainly in the pre-grouping era - including the compensation they were awarded where appropriate. I was one of the volunteers who transcribed...

I was walking along the Thames Path near Cholsey today when I saw something unexpected crossing the river bridge there. Unfortuneatly as I was very close to the bridge I could only see the roofs of the vehicles over the parapet, but it looked like a pair of HST power cars sandwiching three other...

At previous SVR diesel galas I have been to, modern locos (classes 56, 58, 59, 60, 69, 70, 88) have only been able to operate either with air-braked Mk2 or 3 stock (with a 57 on the back to provide hotel power) or double heading with a dual braked diesel such as a Class 20 to act as a...

There was some limited 10-car operation using 456s before that - but only Platform 5 on the main line suburban side could take them until the rebuilding. (During the rebuilding itself platforms 1-10 were closed and everything moved over, (including the Windsors making temporary use of...

I am looking at how this worked. The original numbering was based on the pre-grouping railways, with post-1923 builds filling the gaps NER 1-2542 GNR 3001-4770 GCR 5001-6494 GNoSR 6800-6915 GER 7001-8900 NBR 9001-10481 The original pre-grouping companies did not, in general, group similar...