Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Misc steam railway, traction, station and rail-related news

Dogsauce said:
I’m guessing it would be towards Leeds at Hebden, but possible it isn’t! There are lines where it changed during the lifetime of them.
Click to expand...
See, I was wrong, courtesy of someone more knowledgeable on the RailUK forums:

The Lancashire and Yorkshire was based in Manchester, and all its lines from there are "Down" (includes the Calder Valley and Huddersfield routes to Leeds).
Click to expand...
 
Another good one is the Festiniog ...
Technically, Up trains used to be going to Portmadoc, not up the hill to Bleanau.
Although usage has changed [recently] to UP being uphill to avoid the potential for confusion.
 
I can't find it now, but the Southampton to Brighton Line the Up and Down changes somewhere between the two stations. So depending on the station you can go Up to Southampton or Up to Brighton.
 
StoneRoad said:
That requires one to know the difference between "UP Trains" and other varieties !

Which isn't always what you might think ...
Click to expand...

Dogsauce said:
I’m guessing it would be towards Leeds at Hebden, but possible it isn’t! There are lines where it changed during the lifetime of them.
Click to expand...
Often, people who live in the North of the country say they are going up to London, despite London being South from where they live
 
Sprocket. said:
After a campaign and fundraising there is now a commemorative headstone for the driver of the Mallard on it’s record run.

Mallard locomotive driver headstone unveiled in Doncaster
Click to expand...

Excellent - good that he is not forgotten. Remember only clerical officers and managers got pensions in those days.

"Sir Nigel Gresley built his A4's , with the speed of a swallow and the strength of a boar" - from a BTP film a bit later on....
 
davesgcr said:
Excellent - good that he is not forgotten. Remember only clerical officers and managers got pensions in those days.

"Sir Nigel Gresley built his A4's , with the speed of a swallow and the strength of a boar" - from a BTP film a bit later on....
Click to expand...
A lot of my relatives worked at Doncaster Locomotive Plant building locomotives and rolling stock over the last century.
Some incredibly skilled craftsmen there.
 
Sprocket. said:
A lot of my relatives worked at Doncaster Locomotive Plant building locomotives and rolling stock over the last century.
Some incredibly skilled craftsmen there.
Click to expand...

Good heritage there :)

Actually - got the quote a bit wrong - "speed of a Greyhound"

Massive privilige some years ago - when allowed onto the footplate of "Mallard" at York and a tour of the dynamometer car , thanks to "contacts" - of course that chime whistle always inspires.......
 
hash tag said:
Often, people who live in the North of the country say they are going up to London, despite London being South from where they live
Click to expand...
In Scotland you say you're going down to London, so it all follows from the hierarchy of the UK which goes Scotland>>London>>rest of England.
 
teuchter said:
In Scotland you say you're going down to London, so it all follows from the hierarchy of the UK which goes Scotland>>London>>rest of England.
Click to expand...

From Rail directions - Wikipedia

Up and down​

In British practice, railway directions are usually described as "up" and "down", with "up" being towards a major location. This convention is applied not only to the trains and the tracks, but also to items of lineside equipment and to areas near a track. Since British trains run on the left, the "up" side of a line is usually on the left when proceeding in the "up" direction.[citation needed]

On most of the network, "up" is the direction towards London. In most of Scotland, with the exception of the West and East Coast Main Lines , and the Borders Railway, "up" is towards Edinburgh. The Valley Lines network around Cardiff has its own peculiar usage, relating to the literal meaning of traveling "up" and "down" the valley. On the former Midland Railway "up" was towards Derby. On the Northern Ireland Railways network, "up" generally means toward Belfast (the specific zero milepost varying from line to line); except for cross-border services to Dublin, where Belfast is "down". Mileposts normally increase in the "down" direction, but there are exceptions, such as the Trowbridge line between Bathampton Junction and Hawkeridge Junction, where mileage increases in the "up" direction.[1]
Click to expand...
 
Yup, I'm aware of the specific railway terminology.

I was just commenting on the general terminology used in the UK which is determined by the relative importance of different parts of the nation. The same applies within Scotland itself - someone in the north of Scotland would never say they are going "up" to Edinburgh or Glasgow - again this is the result of long held consensus that the north of scotland is more important than the central belt.

When someone in the north of England says they are going "up" to London I think it's just co-incidence that in this case it corresponds with the railway term.
 
teuchter said:
Yup, I'm aware of the specific railway terminology.

I was just commenting on the general terminology used in the UK which is determined by the relative importance of different parts of the nation. The same applies within Scotland itself - someone in the north of Scotland would never say they are going "up" to Edinburgh or Glasgow - again this is the result of long held consensus that the north of scotland is more important than the central belt.

When someone in the north of England says they are going "up" to London I think it's just co-incidence that in this case it corresponds with the railway term.
Click to expand...
Plenty of people in the north say ‘down to London’, it’s only poshos and the elderly that use the ‘correct’ terminology.
 
T & P said:
Interesting… Spanish national operator RENFE might be about to start London to Paris services competing with Eurostar…

www.cityam.com

Spanish operator Renfe to operate Paris – London service to rival Eurostar - City AM

Renfe is reportedly seeking to operate a new service between Paris and London, initiating talks with the Spanish ministry of Finance.
www.cityam.com www.cityam.com
Click to expand...

That would have a lower carbon footprint than flying ... not sure how much extra capacity there is in the tunnel. [train paths]
 
StoneRoad said:
That would have a lower carbon footprint than flying ... not sure how much extra capacity there is in the tunnel. [train paths]
Click to expand...
You’d be mad to fly to Paris anyway. It’d be great if they also evolve the service into a single-train route all the way to Spain. Once the Barcelona to France route has been fully upgraded to high speed, I wonder how long a HS service from London to Barcelona could end up taking.

But I guess that would require permission/ commercial agreement with the French, and I suspect that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
 
T & P said:
You’d be mad to fly to Paris anyway. It’d be great if they also evolve the service into a single-train route all the way to Spain. Once the Barcelona to France route has been fully upgraded to high speed, I wonder how long a HS service from London to Barcelona could end up taking.

But I guess that would require permission/ commercial agreement with the French, and I suspect that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...

I confess that I have flown to Paris, but that was from Newcastle ...
However, I did go to Poland by Eurostar and the "Night Train" - ended up at Bialystok for an Esperanto Congress.
 
Puddy_Tat said:
:eek:

i remember that generation of units being new and uninspiring...
Click to expand...

They date back to my early days in BR , and I have a very soft spot for them. They were new trains in the late 1970's , replacing much respected post war units which were in a pretty grotty state and were a reflection of faith for the future. Great thing is that despite the travails of Crossrail , some of them - not many - are still working and are clearly being looked after. A bonus.

As a New Yorker said in the early 1970's - "Brooklyn ain't Brooklyn without the old subway cars" - I sort of feel that myself , as they have outlived my railway "career" ...thank you for my indulgence.
 
davesgcr said:
They date back to my early days in BR
Click to expand...

Buses generally have a shorter lifespan than trains, but there was one milestone when buses that i remember being new when i was little started going in to preservation, and another when it was buses i remember being new when i was in the business...
 
davesgcr said:
42 years old and still in service and in great condition.
Click to expand...
8EBB39FD-3727-46BC-81DF-48DEE9171720.jpeg

A not so lucky one I saw being towed through Parkway on Monday, just hours away from passing through the giant shredder at Sims Metals in Newport.

I love the PEP units though, the 313s appeared in a lot of publicity photos around the time the HSTs came into service, shiny new modern trains, the future. A shame they’re not dishing them out to community organisations for use as classrooms etc. like they’re doing with the pacers.
 
So any early speculation about the reasons for the Salisbury crash? Both trains were travelling in the same direction. Signal failure?
 
T & P said:
So any early speculation about the reasons for the Salisbury crash? Both trains were travelling in the same direction. Signal failure?
Click to expand...

Mulling over this all day (and with over 30+ years of railway practical knowledge I can usually work things out)

I am awaiting the formal , initial report from the Rail Accident Investigation Board , so - no real guess and I ain't going to speculate ....
 
I read a report on the BBC (I think) First Train hit something in the tunnel and caused a signalling issue, 2nd train goes into back of first.
 
yes, thread on rail forums got a lot of speculation, argument, people trying to pull rank and the mods there locked the thread...

the official line yesterday was along the line that first of the two trains de-railed and that knocked out the signalling system.

i'm not expert, but thought signals were supposed to 'fail safe' (i.e. show a stop signal) if the system collapses.
 
I was under the impression that if a driver can't see the signal aspect, it should be treated as a "stop" ... the other version of "fail safe"

I will await RAIB's initial report with interest.

For a derailment, there are a number of potential causes ...
 
Luckily the line speed for that section is 30MPH IIRC. It's certainly slow through the tunnel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

hash tag
Passenger rail turns 200
Replies
4
Views
188
Elpenor
Elpenor
hash tag
rail walks
Replies
3
Views
221
marty21
marty21
hash tag
Waterloo Station - proposed redevelopement
Replies
9
Views
376
Puddy_Tat
Puddy_Tat
danny la rouge
Traffic news apps for travelling in cars
2 3
Replies
73
Views
2K
eightball
E
davesgcr
RIP Station cat - Felix.....
Replies
14
Views
568
tim
tim
Back
Top Bottom