Railways Blog

Using the sides of railway locomotives as advertising billboards is a recent development which, while not always very aesthetically pleasing, at least earns money for the railways that would otherwise have to come from either fares or subsidies. But I’m not sure what to make of this one.

Cold Spring Shops has some North British diesel-hydraulic power!

Steve Karlson likes them in green. I have to say, I preferred them in the later maroon livery. Probably based on memories from early childhood, when I lived in a house overlooking the the WR main line out of Paddington (I was even born in a room overlooking the line!) At that time, the majority of ‘Warships’ were in maroon, with those still in the original green a minority.

A recent discussion on the Demodellers mailing list debated the relative merits of green vs. maroon on the ‘Westerns’. I only ever recall them in maroon (or the later blue), and to me a green one just looks completely wrong.

Seeing a preserved ‘Warship’ in action on the East Lancashire Railway (in BR blue with yellow ends!) made me feel old. It’s now 32 years since the last one retired from service, meaning the two survivors have been museum pieces for more than twice as long as they were in BR service.

The Beeching Axe has fallen on Patrick Crozier’s Transport Blog. One of the very first blogs on my blogroll. I don’t always agree with Patrick’s libertarian views, but his postings were always thought-provoking and well worth reading.

Warley coincided with the BBC Clothes Show Live at the NEC, attracting vast crowds. A lot of these people would be those who don’t travel by train on a regular basis; the sort of people who won’t use the train again if they have a bad experience on one the few times they do use the train.

So how did the railway manage? These are my experiences travelling between my home in Cheadle Hulme and the NEC.

Cheadle Hulme to Birmingham International

I tried to book a seat two days earlier, and found that my first choice of train, one running direct from Macclesfield to Birmingham International, was already fully booked. So I booked a seat an earlier service, involving a change at Birmingham New Street. This meant getting up half an hour earlier to arrive about ten minutes ahead of the next train.

Turned out I could have had that extra half hour in bed after all; I got to Macclesfield to hear the announcement that the Manchester to Birmingham Virgin Voyager was running late ‘awaiting driver’ (Had he overslept?). It then predictably got stuck behind the same all stations stopper I would have been on had I been making from my original choice of train.

Now twenty minutes late, they announced that passengers for Birmingham International should change at Stoke on Trent. I realised that the connecting train would be the very one which was already fully booked, and would be standing room only. Since I’d booked a seat though to New Street, I decided to stay put.

Stuck behind another local between Wolverhampton and Brum, the shiny red and silver train managed to lose even more time by the time it arrived at the subterranean hellhole otherwise known as Birmingham New Street.

I hate this station! Birmingham may well be a lovely city, but my overwhelming impression of the place is this dismal, claustrophobic underground car park of a railway station. Truly the armpit of the entire British railway network. And on a busy day like this, with milling crowds attempting to get to the NEC, you don’t see it at it’s best. The next departure to Birmingham International turned out to be a very late running Northhampton semi-fast that should have left half an hour earlier. It turned out to be a six car 323, meaning those who saw it pulling in could sprint to the far end of the platform and get to the empty coaches at the end first.

Birmingham International to Coventry

All the hotels near the NEC were either full or outside my price range, so I ended up booking a room a few miles down the line in Coventry. Just after six o’clock, the platforms are Birmingham International were full of Clothes Show Live crowds heading home. The first two southbound trains were a Pendolino for London, and a Voyager for Bournmouth. Both were a few minutes late, and announced as not making their advertised stops at Coventry. The Coventry passengers ended up on the all stations local, and pretty much filled the three coach 323. It turned out that both long-distance trains did call at Coventry after all, but were pretty much wedged full leaving Birmingham International with people making longer journeys. The ‘not stopping at Coventry’ line was to keep the local Coventry passengers off them, a tactic that made sense when the railway was attempting to cope with extreme crowds.

Coventry to Birmingham International

The next morning was the one time things went really pear-shaped. I arrived at about 9:45 to find a large crowd milling around the platform. Turned out two consecutive trains had been cancelled, with the 9:32, one of the ubiquitous 323s having failed. The next train was the 10:04, originating from Northhampton, and running several minutes late. When the four car class 321 arrived it was already full and standing, and there was no way everybody was going to get on. I decided that I didn’t want to become a squashed sardine and decided to wait for the 10:32. Meanwhile the 10:04 didn’t depart, and just sat there with a passenger density sometimes referred to as ‘Indian’. It was still there when the stock to form the 10:32, another 3-car 323, arrived from Birmingham, and the portion of crowd who couldn’t or wouldn’t squeeze onto the 10:04 boarded it. 10:32 came and went, and still the 10:04 didn’t move. Then came the announcement that the 321 had also failed, with the brakes jammed on. Everybody got off, and naturally attempted to board the train I was on, which now became as Indian as the 10:04 had been. Finally it departed, making perfunctory stops at four intermediate stops despite the train being way too full for any further passengers to board. When we got to International, the 321 was right behind us! Evidently they’d unfrozen the brakes and got it going again. Not a good day for the railway. How many victims will go by car next time?

Birmingham International to Cheadle Hulme

This time everything ran to time, and the length and frustration of the journey was caused not by delays or breakdowns, but the complete failure to timetable sensible connections. We had the delights of a half hour wait at Stafford, and another 45 minutes at Wilmslow, waiting for the dreaded rail replacement bus. (And now I find out that Stockport and Cheadle Hulme will be closed on Sundays until March!) As well as bad connections, there was severe overcrowding on some trains; a 4 car Voyager is not adequate for a Birmingham to Manchester run.

Verdict: Could do better. No more than a C Minus, I’m afraid. I think it’s worth juggling resources for large events like this weekend. Why not draft in a some commuter stock that’s normally standing idle at weekends to work relief services on busy routes? I’m sure a 100mph class 321 could work a Birmingham to London or Birmingham to Manchester relief. 3+2 seating commuter stock might not be ideal for a 2hr journey, but it sure beats standing in the vestibule of a Voyager.

Virgin Trains Saver Return to Birmingham
- £28.80

Two day ticket for the Warley MRC exhibition
- £15

Overnight Accommodation
- £39.95

One Dapol GWR 14XX tank engine
- £49.95

Expression on Steve “Electric Nose“ Jones’ face
- Priceless!

Warley (the Gencon of model railway exhibitions) is over for another year.

Nice to meet Steve Jones at last; he spent the weekend on the DCC demo stand. Other familiar faces were Alan Monk and Steve Grantham from my old club in Marlow, and the dreaded Roechard Wibd (seen playing with Norwegian kettles on “Ulvik”)

Saturday morning saw the usual feeding frenzy at some of the traders, and the predictable scrum around the Bachmann and Dapol stands. Both companies had a display of their new models. Bachmann’s surprise new model in the Graham Farish N gauge range turned out to be a test moulding for a “Super BG”; something for my CJM 67 to pull! The chassis is all-new, not based on the old Farish BG chassis, and far more detailed. They also displayed test mouldings of the previously-announced 57′ Mk1 suburban coaches. Dapol, meanwhile had some new liveries for the class 73 electro-diesel, and a preproduction version of the 45xx “Small Prairie”.

I was very tempted by the 73, which really is a superb model, and very much moves British N gauge forwards. But I can’t justify one for a layout based on the west of England. Maybe a self-contained shunting plank based around it, using freight stock I’ve already got?

The N-Thusiast class 22 looked a little better in the flesh that the photos I’d seen. But not much. While I’d like model of one of these short-lived little diesel-hydraulics, I’m afraid Dave Jones’ offering fails to capture the appearance well enough for me.

As always, there were some very good layouts; I even liked some of the narrow gauge ones!. I find a great many narrow gauge layouts rather twee, especially the freelance ones. But “Dduallt”, based on the famous spiral on the Ffestiniog railway and set in 1988, and the finescale “Borth-y-Gest”, a ‘might have been’ set in the same top left-hand corner of Wales both featured some fine modelling without the slightest trace of twee.

Some of the best layouts were the smaller efforts; one that really impressed me was the 7mm “Braunstone Gate”, inspired by Vic Berry’s scrapyard in Leicester. The whole thing just oozed atmosphere.

There were a good selection of N gauge layouts, most of which seemed to be diesel-era. My favourite would have to be “Sea Wall”, based on the West of England main line between Dawlish and Teignmouth, with the distinctive red cliffs and tunnels through the headlands. When I’d seen the layout before, it has been running transition-era kettles and green diesels. This time it was a mix of blue era and privatisation era diesels; they even had a couple of scratchbuilt clay tigers.

I spent too much money again; apart from the ultimate sad kettle already mentioned, I now have a complete 7-car set of Farish Mk2 coaches in First Great Western ‘Flying Fag Packet’ livery, some more Artrans grain hoppers (which will become china clay Polybulks), some ATM Y25C bogies (now I can make a start on the pile of unbuilt wagon kits) and another Minitrix twin car transporter. Unfortunately the price of these things makes a complete block car train rather too expensive, but the three of them I’ve now accumulated will look impressive as part of the consist of a wagonload freight.

King Pot Noodle (as he is known) is introducing an N-gauge model of a North British Class 22 diesel-hydraulic. These short-lived locomotives are one of the few classes never represented in kit form in N. For a layout set in the West of England between 1958 and 1972, they’re pretty much essential. Slightly before my chosen period for British-outline modelling, but they’re part of my childhood (I was 11 years old when they last ones were withdrawn), so I’d be prepared to turn the clock back for the occasional operating session to justify running one.

I have to say I’m not terribly impressed by pictures of this model; the shape of the cab doesn’t seem right, with the slope of the windows at a bit too much of an angle. I’ll reserve final judgement until I see one in the flesh at the Warley show in two weeks time.

Boing Boing tells us of the latest tale of ambulance-chasing.

A Jeanette, Pennsylvania woman is suing Norfolk Southern railroad because a train hit her when she was walking along the tracks. Patricia M. Frankhouser suffered a broken finger, cuts, and pain. From Pittsburgh Live:

“Defendant’s failure to warn plaintiff of the potential dangers negligently provided plaintiff with the belief she was safe in walking near the train tracks,” the suit states.

The term ‘Frivolous lawsuit’ is totally inadequate to describe nonsense like this. Norfolk Southern should countersue for the emotional distress suffered by the traincrew.

There’s now a preliminary accident report (in PDF format) for last Saturday’s crash. It concludes (as if there was ever any doubt) that the crash was not the fault of the railway industry. It conforms that the level crossing was in working order.

The ‘media feeding frenzy’ I predicted earlier doesn’t seem to have materialised. The most stupid statement of the week seems to be from rail union leader Bob Crow, a 70s dinosaur with a background in London Underground, who doesn’t seem to understand main line railways. His call for every single level crossing in the country to be replaced by bridges or underpasses regardless of cost has been widely and deservedly ridiculed.

The terrible crash has raised the subject of level crossing safety. Christian Wolmar has some very sensible things to say to those demanding “something must be done”.

The unions are saying ‘Oh, we should have underpasses everywhere’. The cost of that would be in the order of billions of pounds.

Level crossings have been taken out on main, very heavily used lines but you can’t possibly have underpasses everywhere, I’m afraid. In terms of risk assessment it is not worth doing. The money would be better spent on kidney machines or the NHS or something.

These are generally little used roads. There are about 10 people killed a year on level crossings but in terms of international comparisons that is quite a low rate. It is just like road accidents – they happen and sometimes there is not an enormous amount you can do about them.

The question of whether or not level crossings should be replaced by bridges cannot be answered without also asking the question “Who’s going to pay for them?”. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and money spent on one thing is money not available for something else. And I cannot see why rail passengers should be asked to foot the bill for something which is only made necessary by the recklessness of a small percentage of road users. If thousands of bridges or underpasses are ‘needed’, perhaps they should be funded by a surcharge on motor insurance premiums?

Sadly, the train driver was among the dead. First Great Western have made the following statement:

Our thoughts are with our customers and staff who were involved in tonight’s incident at Ufton Nervet in Berkshire.

We have been informed by the emergency services that our driver died in the incident and there were further fatalities and customers who have been injured.

We would like to express condolences to the families of those customers and our driver. The family of the driver have been informed and we would ask that media respect their privacy at this difficult time.

The service involved was the 1735 from London Paddington to Plymouth which collided with a vehicle on a level crossing between Reading and Newbury. Four of our staff were on-board … two Train Managers, a Customer Host who was serving in the buffet and the driver.

We are working with the emergency services to do all that we can to help deal with this situation and assist our customers and staff.

We will be co-operating fully with the investigation