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Post by grahamhewett on Jun 1, 2012 11:17:22 GMT
I remember that 0005 well, living in Pinner, which meant leaving central London at about 23.40, otherwise a long walk from Harrow. One feature which surprised was finding a copy of that day's newspaper already discarded, presumably having already made a round trip.
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 30, 2012 18:37:58 GMT
Been done before... If I could discover how to post pix on this forum, I'd attach a nice pic (1) of the Veischedetalbahn showing their "loco" pulling a rake of road wagons and (2) a very large Soviet dump truck, also trolleypowered, as used in mining. The Veischedetalbahn opened before the first world war and was in reality not a bahn at all (shades of the late lamented Teesside Railless Traction Board) but a trolley tug pulling road wagons - they had a good selection of vans, open wagons etc. Hamburg Harbour authority also operated a similar trolley tug to pull otherwise horsedrawn wagons up the hill out of the docks. And there were plenty of trolley lorries in the Soviet Union - some still about in Moscow as service vehicles. (Bradford also had a trolley lorry and a trolley van as part of the 1911 fleet; it seems they used the trolley van for parcels deliveries using a skate whenever they had to run over the tram network).
Presumably Siemens have just dusted off some old plans?
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 27, 2012 17:19:30 GMT
norbitonflyerAldenham o/h renumbering - Indeed - and it led to awkward existential discussions amongst the bus spotting fraternity of the day as to what exactly was being collected/had been seen. I recall the final conclusion was that all one had spotted with any certainty was the actual physical stock number unless one swung under the halfcab canopy and clocked the body number... GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 27, 2012 15:00:37 GMT
kabsonlineBut be careful if you want to clear the entire fleet - as you will see from the Hardy book, some stock has been renumbered to keep it within the set pattern. (It's not as bad as the Aldenham system of allocating bus numbers after overhaul which could - and did - end up with two vehicles bearing the same fleet number standing beside each other; at least, I think it isn't as bad - certainly some BR works renumbered stock on overhaul so that vehicles going through the works swapped running numbers; they weren't supposed to, but they did... Whether Acton had such nefarious habits, others may know) Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 20, 2012 9:25:38 GMT
The difference between any sort of cab and a spectacle plate would seem to be that a spectacle plate was just that - a flat (maybe slightly curved at the top) piece of metal stretching most of the way across the front of the footplate, with two "portholes" to look through; a cab would provide some sort of roof at least (but not necessarily have a rear or side plate). Some of those early spectacle plates seem to have been pretty minimalist, even being "waisted" below the spectacles, presumably to save metal.
Didn't I read somewhere that early Met and MDR drivers objected to cabs as they were "less healthy"?
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 19, 2012 15:42:55 GMT
It's freight that will determine the outcome of this in the end...
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 19, 2012 11:55:30 GMT
@stig
You are right that there are only two ways out of this - more capacity/less demand. The problem with increasing capacity is that demand increases to reflect the capacity available (an unfortunate message that I spent much of my career concealing from the Treasury); in fact, the analyses we did showed that after Central London employment, the next biggest influence on passenger volumes was capacity offered (not, you note, price or congestion, which came a a long way behind). The same bit of work showed that pricing off demand long-term was almost impossible. Interestingly, RATP came to the same conclusion - I once asked their DG what the practical effect of the RER network had been on relieving congestion on the roads and the metro - his reply was that they had bought about 6 months' relief.
But yes, let's expand the system - and here comes another thread - the issue in London seems to be not so much the absence of new lines but the capacity of key existing stations to handle the volumes. We probably need new stations as much as new lines. [The capacity of existing stations is probably limited by the ability of 2 sets of escalators to shift the punters fast enough to clear the platforms, and double-ending the stations is very expensive].
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 19, 2012 8:52:44 GMT
Not sure whether Londoners are unfriendly - over half the contents of the average tube carriage seem to be visitors these days, and they definitely keep themselves to themselves. There is a certain cynical "seen it all before" evident, tho'. I particularly remember a scene outside the SRA where a man (unfortunately not Bowker) was floored by armed police who remained with weapons pointed at him - passers by simply stepped around the body without a second glance.
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 18:54:15 GMT
To come back to the exam question as set - why didn't the GW develop its suburban traffic - it may be - and we are handicapped here because Victorian railway companies didn't leave many public documents about their planning policies - that they didn't need to. The bulk of the commuter network south of the Thames appeared long before commuter traffic existed and was often built so as to shut out rivals from building competing lines to the 4 southern companies' trunk routes (Brighton/Solent/Dover). The Brighton was the most aggressive of these and was clearly afraid of rivals stringing together a number of local lines, each justified to Parliament as serving a local need but which, eventually formed a competing route. [It's the same technique as Watkin used to insert the GC and Met into the mainline network.] Having built these networks, filling them up with commuters was one way of attracting traffic and revenue. The companies to the West and NW of London didn't need to build lines in the London area to protect their core routes - the chance of anyone stringing together enough local lines in the London area as the basis for competition on trunk routes to Bristol was pretty slim so the GW didn't have to wash its territory clean, as it were.
It's virtually impossible to prove this explanation but the timing and observed company behaviours seem right.
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 11:54:54 GMT
castlebar - my apologies - I was thinking about a similar "event" on the 97 norbitonflyer - I agree that the southern companies had every incentive to develop suburban traffic early - that makes the GN the odd one out showing a decided interest in suburban traffic and even toying with electrification despite its long/medium distance passenger and freight traffic. Even the Midland seemed quite keen - to the extent of buying LT&S - despite having the heaviest coal traffic towards London. It's an interesting point as to whether electrification led or followed the growth in commuter traffic. Certainly, after the War, the electrification of the GE and the Kent outers led to an enormous increase in commuting perhaps because of significant reductions in journey times made possible by faster acceleration. Thameslink and the LNW suburban outers are more recent cases. But before World War I, it's less clear - Metroland was designed to fill up steam trains and Met electrification to Harrow was a byproduct of having to do something about the Circle. LTS seemed content with steam for commuter traffic for many years after electrification would have been possible. Another factor driving commuting(see Metroland!) is the relative gradient in property prices between inner and outer London compared with the cost of commuting - the balance has changed back and forth quite a lot over recent years, but I suspect that up till about 1990, the balance was greatly in favour of commuting. Why! We even had people commuting from Bath and York by the mid '90s (the chap who came in from Wem daily, however, can be ignored as he was travelling on a staff pass...)
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 10:40:50 GMT
Taking the opportunity of some incipient hoovering to reflect on Castlebar's comments, and at the risk of provoking the moderator's wrath about thread drift, there seem to be three separate issues here:
- why did stop spacing increase on modern metro construction? - why was there a difference between motor bus and tram stop spacing? - why was the GW so apparently indifferent to suburban traffic?
On the first of these, perhaps it represents a change in function: when metros were first built, they were essentially inner city people movers in competition with buses (early tube posters show the punters literally flying off the tops of buses into the tube stations) but maybe engineers and planners came to realise that that wasn't a market in which they could compete because of surface to platform access times. Amalgamation with their local bus and tram operators across Europe removed the need to compete. Even so, it has left us with major gaps in the central London network of tube stations - Fitzrovia, Mayfair,Belgravia, for example.
On surface stop spacing, I confess I have no obvious explanation. Horse buses stopped anywhere on demand and I suspect that in London motorbus stops only appeared around 1910. But electric trams had stops from the outset. Maybe the difference is that tram operators had readymade stop poles in the form of municipally owned street lighting masts (but did that apply to the LCC?) and so it was cheap to put up the flag as it were, whereas the LGOC had to pay for its own posts and therefore wanted fewer of them.
GW policy is even more obscure. Clearly, they remained interested in suburban/short distance traffic (they had the largest fleet of steam railcars, for example - and see also the parallel thread on through services from the Thames Valley over the Circle). Paddington was hardly more remote from central London than, say, Waterloo. I'm not sure whether it has anything directly to do with electrification - the LSWR had opened most of its suburban routes before that happened, although service levels certainly stepped up once that took place. Nor was the GW averse to taking a stake in the electrified H&C stock. A mystery at the moment?
Graham H
PS Castlebar - I think I recall the stop in question between the Lido and Ealing Town Hall? Trolleybus stop spacing was so close you could usually make it to the next stop once a bus had come into sight (not if it was a Q1, tho') and beating a Routemaster if you were between stops was no contest...
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 8:46:27 GMT
At first glance, the research makes sense, but only at a macro level. If you look at individual systems ans, even more, at individual lines, there are some marked differences. For example, station spacing on the Moscow and Petersburg systems is much more than we would be used to here. Station spacing on the central area stations of the Piccadilly and Northern lines is much closer than those on the Victoria or Jubilee, reflecting different approaches to services over time. Line 1 of the Paris Metro is basically an underground tram in terms of stop spacing, but the outer reaches of the 13 (don't go there) have very long interstation spacing - and the structure of lines is different in Paris, too. Because Paris lacks the same double city centre focus that we have in London, the lines in the central area are pretty snakey - the 8, for example - and the trunk haul lines which dominate in London, are missing.
The same point might be made about stop spacing on the surface networks - in London, at least, stop spacing on former tram/trolleybus routes is much closer than on bus routes - the 243 between Holborn and Old Street is a very good example of the former.
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 15, 2012 11:59:08 GMT
Yes, there was a stub off the northbound track - probably no more than 100-150m long as the lift emerged about 2/3 of the distance between the mainline buffer stops and the throat. The entrance to the stub used to be just about visible from the train but has almost certainly been sealed by now.
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 15, 2012 8:53:14 GMT
Then there is the (probably true) story about the Paris Metro driver who was in the habit of leaving the train to coast into the headshunt and exiting to the platform to await the rear cab to come alongside, at which point he reboarded it and applied the brake. This saved walking down the length of the train. Only one day, the rear cab was locked..
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 12, 2012 9:05:28 GMT
Always learning something new!
A quick look at the July 1938 Bradshaw shows five trains off the GW, all to Liverpool Street. These were (1) Hayes 0752 Padd 0819 LS 0840; (2) Burnham 0728 Padd 0825 LS 0846; (3) Slough 0816 Padd 0839 LS 0859; (4) West Drayton 0827 Padd 0902 LS 0922; (5) W Drayton 0850 Padd 0925 LS 0946. Four trains returned from LS in the morning. There were no afternoon inbound workings and only one afternoon outbound (lunchtime on Saturdays). As there were only four return workings in the morning, presumably one set stabled at LS between the peaks.
The 1922 Bradshaw shows an almost identical pattern.
One mystery is that the arrival and departure times at Paddington are identical, and there is no difference shown in point to point times either side of Paddington in either direction, so quite how the loco change was effected and how long it took is unclear - no doubt the WTT would clear that up. Given the closeness of the timings, the operation must have required 4 locos.
As to stock, the 1922 Bradshaw describes the service as a GW one so probably GW (compartment) stock .
Graham Hewett
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Post by grahamhewett on May 8, 2012 18:07:23 GMT
Are the shots of the 1935 stock the only ones known or did LT produce some publicity at the time?
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 8, 2012 14:16:16 GMT
My spies in the current data room for the next GW franchise say that the spec assumes that there will be a cascade of 165s to the West Country branches after CrossRail, presumably with the necessary clearance works being done pretty soon! This is supposed to trigger a cascade of 15xs northwards to replace some Pacers and allow other services to be strengthened. Some 165s will need to remain based at Reading for the Thames Valley branches.
At the other end of CrossRail, it is certainly the current plan for CrossRail to take over all the Shenfield stoppers once the tunnel is open - there has been some suggestion that the new CrossRail stock will oust the 315s before the tunnel opens. As to the Parliamentary Train from Paddington to the Chiltern, on the evidence of its sister service to Wadnsworth Town, it will probably become a much-cancelled bus, or even that extremely rare thing, a statutory rail replacement bus.
Like all DfT meddling in rolling stock matters, I dare say all of this will turn out not to happen.
Graham Hewett
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Post by grahamhewett on May 7, 2012 17:15:51 GMT
Harsig - thank you very much for the WTT detail, which I will file away electronically! Interesting to see that Rayners Lane and the gasworks could require up to 2 daily trains, although my recollection is that train lengths were inevitably quite short, given the available siding lengths and the steep bank at Eastcote which triggered this thread.
GH
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 6, 2012 12:33:51 GMT
Mrfs42 - and I thought I had problems with the storage of "vital historical records" as they are described to the household authorities here. My selection of tube WTTs is measly by comparison and dates from the days when the surplus were sold off in the shop at St James's Park. I don't think I go back beyond about 1971.
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Post by grahamhewett on May 6, 2012 12:21:29 GMT
Nice try, Castlebar! You don't know how close you were - by one of those extraordinary coincidences that usually arise, I was at Manor House School, Hanwell, only two streets away from Drayton Manor, between 1955 and 1959. What are the chances of having a doppelganger so close?
But look, if you really short of 2/6, I reckon that, discounted forward, that's worth all of £2 today; I could probably spare that ...
Graham Hewett
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Post by grahamhewett on May 5, 2012 18:14:07 GMT
Thank you mrfs42! In your own time! (Spending this weekend decorating, which has involved moving 20 years of timetables, you have my sympathy).
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 5, 2012 17:50:49 GMT
Well, that was one of the several things that puzzled me about the operation, but not being an electrician by training or inclination I hestitated to challenge what I was told at an impressionable age.... If it was domestic house coal, that would have been a(nother) reason for the service's demise as the domestic coal trade collapsed after the Clean Air Act 1956 - in fact, I'm surprised it lasted long enough at Eastcote for me to remember it.
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 5, 2012 16:51:52 GMT
I recall watching a Standard 4MT make several attempts to rush the bank up the siding in Eastcote with a (very) short train of coal wagons - probably around 1962. I understood at the time that this was coal for one of the rotary substations there. The working was around midday and I saw it on other occasions recessing at Rayners Lane. I assume that the loco came from Cricklewood (it was certainly in poor enough nick!).
Can anyone shed any light on the practice, when it ceased and what other points were served?
Graham Hewett
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Post by grahamhewett on May 5, 2012 15:51:08 GMT
Sorry, for the sake of precision (!), we buried the lift when WIT was built; as norbitonflyer says, the stock changed over via the well in front of the depot. (Certain elements in NSE management tried to wind up the Department by suggesting that the new stock would go in via the lift and then have to be left there once the lift was buried - perhaps a ploy to get some extra funding at the depot?)
Graham H
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Post by grahamhewett on May 4, 2012 10:21:10 GMT
It's still there under the Eurostar platforms - probably under 23. We simply buried it when the new stock went in; the branch tunnel is also still there, although trackless.
Graham Hewett
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Post by grahamhewett on May 3, 2012 8:22:16 GMT
Yes - I'm sure that HEX has grandfather rights on the main lines (maybe also some on the reliefs also); another issue is probably that with Crossrail providing a direct service to many of the major destinations, HEX has probably passed its sell-by date - Paddington is not really a major destination in its own right, and the time gains from the faster HEX trip compared with CrossRail will be largely dissipated by the need to change at Paddington (bearing in mind that the standard interchange penalty is 20 minutes).
GH
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Post by grahamhewett on May 2, 2012 16:54:30 GMT
Interestingly, the bidders for the GW franchise are being asked how they propose to integrate HEX into their service plan.
To pick up DrOne's point, the basic problem with CrossRail from BR's point of view was that it linked the "wrong" London termini. Liverpool Street handles approximately twice as many vehicles in the peaks as Paddington, and the last three decades of planning for CrossRail have been dominated by a scrabble to find enough western traffic to balance the flows. Hence schemes to (a) take over the Met outers, (b) the Euston outers, and (c) the Wycombes to supplement what is available at Paddington. Liverpool Street to Waterloo would have killed many more useful birds. However, the origin of CrossRail was to relieve loadings on the Central so Paddington it was.
Graham H
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