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Direct Rail Services Ltd Passenger Trains Test Runs (28th- 30th December 2011)
- Thread starter Jdrowlands
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Crimson_Quiff
Member
driver of '423 playing to the enthusiasts by opening up through whitehaven tunnel
Indeed! Top bit of thrash was had on the Sellafield-Carlisle today!
Photos - http://fyldegrowler.weebly.com/latest-photos.html
Videos: 423 departing Sellafield - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MngaHh31hU0, 423 departing Whitehaven - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAy2Ee1-Hbs and 423 departing with ECS at the Citadel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NxKQYgmaT4
Crimson_Quiff
Member
18:30 normally, that's the arrival from Sellafield. But we did arrive a few minutes early last night! But the departure is more or less straight after arrival. It's: Passengers off - ECS to depot!
Be warned, Friday's turn could drop a Sulzer device as 423 will be out of hours and 409 is not in the area!
Straight away, and it normally comes in earlier than 18.30
Crimson_Quiff
Member
It was 20 down arriving into the citadel tonight! Dragging brakes on the rear coach at Corkickle.
When I used it a few weeks back it was 20 early into Carlisle!
Chester025
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How? It's not booked off Dalton until 1815.
Blindtraveler
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all creddit to them, there dont seam to have been many train faults with this
Sorry to be an anorak here but BNFL does not exist as such now, Sellafield is run by Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. DRS is now wholly owned by the NDA as it was previously owned by BNFL. I suspect on paper DRS will be making money on this route but it'll be hardly a significant cost for the NDA. I suppose this makes DRS the only other taxpayer-owned rail company apart from East Coast. I suspect I will be corrected about that if I'm wrong.
Crimson_Quiff
Member
My bet is still on for Spoon Menace! :P
Crimson_Quiff
Member
TGVDUDE
Member
Went on this thursday in the end good trip, long way to get their though, video link below.
http://youtu.be/ctYMX72_Vbw
http://youtu.be/ctYMX72_Vbw
TGVDUDE
Member
12 Week reflection on the trial between DRS, Northern Rail & NR/ORR? will now determine the future
junglejames
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Depends what you see as essential. If those passengers now have to head onto Northern Services, and so make them full and standing, you could say it was essential.
If they decide to get the car out, thus making the roads around there too busy, then whilst not essential perhaps, it is certainly highly desirable.
If you want to take things literally, then very few services are essential. Could you cut the number of London to Edinburgh services down to 75%? I reckon you could, thus those 25% of services arent essential, but they certainly are desirable.
I dont know the area and services well enough, so couldnt say if this service to Sellafield is essential, but just because it stops for 12 weeks, doesnt mean it isnt.
Id say its like most services. Highly desirable, but not essential.
WatcherZero
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You expect it to have become fundamentally essential after just a few weeks of operation?
No, but I don't expect it to be dropped, rather kept on to allow numbers to rise. If people can manage fine without it, it's not needed. I'm not the only one who raised his eyebrows at 12 weeks' consultation. Why? I could design a spreadsheet in an hour that would crunch the data, and would have had it ready and waiting to give The Right Answer as soon as the last day of the trial was over.
Listen, I want it to stay on as much as anyone else, but the cold hard world of commercial reality unfortunately has to intrude on the latest bashers' day out.
madannie77
Member
It was a trial planned to be of 6 weeks duration and has ended at the end of that period. I do not know why there is a 12 week consultation, but there is more to the operation than just commercial viability. It might also be significant that the 12 week consultation period will end in May, on the same weekend as the current timetable on that line.
Commercial reality is not the be all and end all of this trial: the operators of Sellafield intend to cut drastically the number of cars on site (and on the roads leading to the site), which can only mean improved bus services to the site and more and longer trains, as the existing services simply cannot cope.
I'm not entirely sure what the consultation will entail but it might include some sort of application to NR for future services. I certainly think that the morning service should be kept as the previous morning timetable was poor, and the evening service was quite well used.
junglejames
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Then why bother starting it in the first place? We'd survived years without it, so we never needed it in the first place. Same could be said for a lot of services. Often though, its a case of thinking about the future.
Yes, 12 weeks seems daft, but do we know if they really can do without it? Admittedly i dont know what the services or roads are like, but if stories of trains to Sellafield fully loaded, with some not even having any standing room left are true, then can they really do without it? It may seem on the outside as if you can do without it, as they are stopping it for 12 weeks, but thats not necessarily the case. There are plenty of trains you could pull, and on the outside it looks as if they are managing, but in reality you have trains running full and standing, and some people now reverting to cars.
As i said, I dont know what Northerns services are like around there, but if you are getting trains arriving full and standing in the morning or afternoon, then no, you cant do without this DRS service.
IslandDweller
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- 5 Dec 2011
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"Admittedly i dont know what the services or roads are like"
Both are pretty diabolical. Not uncommon for local train services to be single unit and on certain sections of the route full to bursting.
The local road - there is only one road to access Sellafield - the A595 - is nose to tail at shift change time.
Sellafield is the dominant employer in West Cumbria - by a huge margin. Local road congestion is closely correlated to employee travel to/from Sellafield. Look at the highways agency traffic conditions web page and (on the days their sensors are actually connected) you will see the A595 glowing with congestion at regular intervals.
The unique factor here is a dominant local employer who happens to have a "train set" to experiment with. However, the rest of the local public transport network is so rubbish (I visit the area very often - and tried my most recent visit without a car - it was a logistical nightmare - back to the rental car for future visits.) A worker special is great, but can't help suspecting that it needs much more than this to break the local car dependancy.
Both are pretty diabolical. Not uncommon for local train services to be single unit and on certain sections of the route full to bursting.
The local road - there is only one road to access Sellafield - the A595 - is nose to tail at shift change time.
Sellafield is the dominant employer in West Cumbria - by a huge margin. Local road congestion is closely correlated to employee travel to/from Sellafield. Look at the highways agency traffic conditions web page and (on the days their sensors are actually connected) you will see the A595 glowing with congestion at regular intervals.
The unique factor here is a dominant local employer who happens to have a "train set" to experiment with. However, the rest of the local public transport network is so rubbish (I visit the area very often - and tried my most recent visit without a car - it was a logistical nightmare - back to the rental car for future visits.) A worker special is great, but can't help suspecting that it needs much more than this to break the local car dependancy.
CallySleeperKid
Member
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