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Post by grahamhewett on Jan 23, 2017 21:55:46 GMT
In that case, we have no railways in Britain apart from the London and Glasgow Undergrounds and the various preserved railways. Perhaps what you mean to list are all railway operators which have been legal entities, of whom there have been quite a lot, but many fewer than entities which have owned infrastructure, some of whom, but not all, have also been operators (collieries for example, owned the tracks in their sites but few actually ran trains - apart from one or two which spectacularly also ran frequent passenger services). So, a franchised TOC would be an operator, so, too would be an open access operator. LU would be an operator but NR wouldn't. (I don't think the Swedish structures can be read across to the UK: we have no equivalent "national operator" like SJ these days). The 1992 re-organisation of the railway system was far more radical than many appreciate, and was deliberately designed to prevent the existence of any national operator.
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Post by grahamhewett on Jan 23, 2017 17:49:16 GMT
@inner Circle - you'll need to decide whether you want the first date to be the date the company was formed or the day on which the first trains ran. Similarly, the second date needs to be either the day that the last train ran, or the day the company/organisation was dissolved. As others have pointed out in earlier posts, the GWR was formed several years before it ran a train, and it survived after the nationalisation of 1948 for a short while until it was wound up, even though its last train had run on 31 December 1947. You'll also need to decide what is a railway - will you include Railtrack and Network Rail, for example?
Specifically on BR, you will need to track it through the British Transport Commission and the franchising process; it survived for a long time after its last train ran. (It was never a company, always a statutory corporation). It did, however, own all the franchised companies before they were sold off, so you will need to track those.
The position with London Transport is even more complicated because it was formed as the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933 from many preceding companies, became the London Transport Executive as part of the British Transport Commission, became a freestanding statutory Corporation when the BTC was abolished (but without a name change), was subjected to GLC control, and then removed from GLC control and renamed LRT as a statutory corporation. This in turn was handed over to TfL control.
You will also find some oddities such as the Waterloo and City and Underground Extensions Railway Company, which was formed specifically to run the W&C for 4 days prior to its transfer to LRT, and such things as Heathrow Express and the former dock railways which provided passenger services, not to mention the London Necropolis Railway....
You'll be busy.
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Post by grahamhewett on Jan 2, 2017 16:47:22 GMT
humbug - oh yes - best played when drunk with a lot of LU track experts... (There's another similar one we devised to be played on the fold out map of the real BR rail network, which led to even more prolonged arguments amongst the experts).
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 30, 2016 13:52:51 GMT
@class411 trt yes, it's supposed to be another variant of Trigger's broom/axe story - I first came across it in relation to the Glasgow tram fleet where on some standard cars, the body had been rebuilt, the trucks replaced and only the frames survived. stapler - Don't worry; contributors to this site will shortly organise a whipround to replace your ageing kit... [BTW, do Christmas lights go out* of date in technology terms - mine always seem pretty basic?] *"Go out" , of course, only too frequently.
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 30, 2016 11:34:34 GMT
Sloppy journalism. The fleet with the youngest average age is Transpennine, at nine years, but there are many larger fleets with a range of ages including some brand new trains. The largest fleets all tend to cluster around the average - most of the outliers like TfL, Merseyrail and transpennine are quite small fleets, with just one or two classes. I'm genuinely puzzled as to why people are surprised that the average age of the fleet is ~ 20 years. All of the fleet will have been bought with a business case which will have assumed that the economic life of the kit is 35-40 years, the median of which is.... BTW, we shall soon see the demise of the sailor's jack knife syndrome - modern kit has so much software that cannot be easily replaced after 5-10 years, let alone 25-30. (Anyone still got a punched card reader these days...?) snoggle - the exchange between McLoughlin and his Perm Sec was entirely theatre to satisfy the Public Accounts Committee. The point was that the business case (as opposed to political/moral/nutritional or whatever) for replacing the Pacers was weak and that was what had no doubt been briefed to McLoughlin; his Perm Sec wanted to ensure that his back was suitably covered when he was overruled - I dare say, he drafted both sides of the exchange of letters.
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 22, 2016 17:11:00 GMT
Recommended - the loo on a Turkish steam hauled branch line from Izmir to Buja c1970 - loo available as a simple hole in the corner of the luggage van. If that's Buca & not Buja, then: metro/commuterlooks like things are looking up there & not down the pan. Not a lot there about the Khazi, even he of Khazakstan, of whom whistlekiller2000 kindly provided a photograph in mufti, so we must speculate or research further. As for tomato plants, more likely broadcast, as per apple trees on Uxbridge branch & many a motorway embankment, by birds or possibly foxes. I can't vouch for the washroom behaviour of either, beyond noticing in recent years, when pigeons hop on trains at southern termini, I've yet to see them forming a queue for the facilities, which, as they tend not to form an orderly one for rummaging about for discarded wraps, paninis etc., may tell us something; then again, not. Yes, Buca (tho' the "c" is pronounced as a "j" in Turkish, maybe with a cedilla) - it may be state of the art kit now, but my 1970 trip was behind a wheezing Henschel of c1910 on a rake of ageing 6 wheel stock with the aforementioned luggage van as a wooden 4-wheel vaguely mobile garden shed. [BTW, yes, it was Turkish food - I blame the aubergines myself. When we reached Buca, then a sleepy country town, we ate in a cafe in the main square and I needed once more to visit the facilities. The "Follow me" said the obliging landlord, leading me round a corner where a bicycle was parked. "Jump on". And so the two of us sped off to a remote corner of the town where some of the usual footprint variety of loos were available...]
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 22, 2016 10:56:53 GMT
Recommended - the loo on a Turkish steam hauled branch line from Izmir to Buja c1970 - loo available as a simple hole in the corner of the luggage van.
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 12, 2016 16:36:29 GMT
castlebar -- I seem to recall a similar deal applied (possibly only to workmen's fares) on the trolleybus routes northward from Golders Green. I don't yet have chapter and verse; the search continues...
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 7, 2016 13:46:24 GMT
In the same vein, I see that Volk's Electric Railway still uses 2 cars from 1892 (as well as some slightly younger ones)
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 7, 2016 8:41:14 GMT
silenthunter - but not, alas, in daily frontline service. I see that the Great Orme Tramway still claims to have its original 1902 stock in daily use (well, being a funicular, they haven't much choice, have they?); it may be that some of the other clifflifts around the UK also still have quite elderly stock (eg Lynton-Lynmouth looked quite antique when I used them in 2013, but may be replicas)
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Post by grahamhewett on Dec 4, 2016 14:44:59 GMT
Amongst non-preserved railways, some of the Chesham Ashbury stock ran from 1898 to 1960. BRB inherited a fair number of locos dating from around 1858-1869, some of which made it into the early '50s, so achieving 90+ years in some cases; the longest lived being an ex-NLR crane tank of 1858 which lasted 93 years. The biscuit might, however, if we allow overseas railways, be given to a loco of the Graz-Koeflacher Bahn in Austria which has been in continuous service since 1860...
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Post by grahamhewett on Nov 1, 2016 19:53:45 GMT
BTW, should have added that some operators - notoriously Barcelona - operated a 26 hour clock just to deal with night services and the things that went bump when the clocks chsnged.
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Post by grahamhewett on Nov 1, 2016 19:52:12 GMT
On the night buses, didn't the rule used to be that journeys starting before 0200 carried on as if the clocks hadn't changed; journeys scheduled to start after 0200 ran as if they had? Quite what happened about positioning stock and crew if the timetable wasn't a repeating hour wasn't clear. But - pre-computer... rheostar - the staff are lucky, then. My father-in-law, who was a foreman at British Steel, used to work over the change with no adjustment either way; it was assumed that, over time , the swings matched the roundabouts.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 27, 2016 12:31:27 GMT
May well have been a short term thing. By the '50s, their lunch time workings to Ealing Common clearly showed the wagon part filled with kit. Not quite clear how much shunting was needed at Ealing Common - certainly the R and Q stock sets tended to remain in the same 4s and 2s for long periods at that time. 'Fraid I can't remember back as far as the CDE stock formations (apart from the cars parked on the Ealing Common Alps for many years) so those might well have required more setting out before entering service each day.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 27, 2016 10:46:43 GMT
@atlastrack - Graeme Bruce's magnum opus on LU works vehicles makes it very clear indeed that L8 and L9 were used to carry stores between Acton and Ealing Common; in particular,he notes that the business case for renewing them in 1958 was based on a comparison with the cost of using lorries to convey the stores and that it was a change in the economics of lorry operation that did for them in 1969. No mention of shunting, alas.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 23, 2016 16:42:03 GMT
nickf- thank you for finding that. Interesting to see that North Staffs wagons were still around unrepainted in 1930. A very great pity that the line didn't survive - surely a more attractive tourist attraction (and more interesting to the enthusiast) than several neighbouring preservation projects - all gas works tanks/shabby cl 31 diesels on vandalised Mk1 coaches. Accucraft make live steam models of the L&M locos and some coaches but not, alas, the transporter wagon.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 20, 2016 22:00:31 GMT
Yes, when I worked there, there were several Area Inspectors of Ancient Monuments or Area Architects who regularly petitioned the typing pool, in the manner that only such erudite could, for word processors to automatically have an Æ Key on every machine. Quite rightly so, of course. Why stop there? Why not go for the OE combo, too? [The HBMC certainly had a Whitehall reputation for being extraordinary, even by Whitehall standards, only the College of Arms was stranger].
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 20, 2016 21:08:05 GMT
@chris W -might be the Railway Magazine which didn't abandon letterpress until the early sixties (if I recall correctly). There wasn't a great deal of choice for railway periodicals back in the day. L8 and L9 were amongst my favourite works stock because of their bizarre appearance. There was a working in the late '50s which saw one appear at Acton Town around midday presumably to take wheel sets and other kit to Ealing Common depot. theblackferret -nice to see the use of AE in Rutupiae
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 19, 2016 9:48:48 GMT
One Swiss railway (the forerunner of the present SOB, I believe) used a similar system in place of rack, whereby the vehicle wound itself uphill using (presumably) several wheels engaged in a screw thread laid between the tracks. That didn't last long: a train jumped the screw and ran back down hill with devastating results after which the line was rebuilt...
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 18, 2016 21:31:38 GMT
afarlie - it's quite likely that some of the cliff-lift services had no onboard staff well before 1923, although whether they abandoned /never had permanent engine house staff is less clear. .
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 18, 2016 19:12:48 GMT
I you want exclaves in British counties you can't beat Cromartyshire, shown in red below For complexity I don't think it's possible to beat Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau. The Yellow areas are Belgium, the cream the Netherlands I believe even that map simplifies things -my Belgian friends tell me that in fact the whole town is divided into many more than a hundred parts - some individual houses - and all the territorial public services such as telephones and water are duplicated. [I recommend googling enclave and exclave to see some really bizarre cases - in some Indian states especially, with some enclaves completely being surrounded by another state itself being an enclave, a bit like Russian dolls). Swiss canton Fribourg highly commended... Back on stations, the Dulwichs and Actons seem to be especially unhelpful although I would give a special award to the Sudburys where all the qualifiers seem intended to mislead. Precisely where is Sudbury?
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 16, 2016 18:32:40 GMT
@dom K - you shouldn't believe any of the ORR figures. The earlier years are based on ticket sales data and are demonstrably inaccurate within the Travelcard area(and have been comprehensively rubbished by passenger groups and others who have conducted actual surveys of boarding alighting punters). ORR's problem stemmed from the fact that they had to make assumptions about the relationship between Travelcard purchases and the specific stations used. You can imagine the rest. Fairly recently (2009?), ORR caved in and admitted they were wrong and began to base station useage on observations. For some stations,especially in inner London, there was an immediate step change in trend - some stations showed an up to 4 x change... This is a great pity:in NSE days, we actually counted and so our historic figures can't now be linked in terms of trend to ORR's product.
BTW,there is a similar problem with ORR's estimates of passenger journeys - each trip that involves a change of TOC leads to an extra journey being counted. 'nuff said.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 16, 2016 9:57:44 GMT
Never seen a picture before! Just wait for the crayonistas working on extending it ....
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 7, 2016 16:22:38 GMT
Where to start ? S Bermondsey in NSE days had a reputation as the worst on the network, and was used as an actual public lavatory; Shoreditch used to look like a long-abandoned shed... Sudbury and Harrow Road was difficult to identify as a "live" station from the street.
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Post by grahamhewett on Oct 5, 2016 8:52:11 GMT
@chris M - not to mention the sea "tractor" service to Burgh Island in S Devon... But perhaps you had in mind Volk's sea-going electric railway at Rottingdean?
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Post by grahamhewett on Sept 20, 2016 9:50:41 GMT
The train formations must have been a fleet manager's* despair: B2 2 1 1/3 3 3B - all different!
* Possibly fleet managers didn't exist as such in 1898.
A propos sound recordings, I wonder if anyone bothered to record the post-1923 ts with its characteristic rub-a-dub compressor noise.
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Post by grahamhewett on Sept 19, 2016 17:04:09 GMT
spsmiler - Snowdon's book on the Met stock states that the full seconds and thirds had 7 compartments each, firsts and the 1/3 compos 6. (As you say, this led to 3rd class punters in the compo having a luxurious amount of space!) There are drawings of these, including the 1/3 compo in the same chapter. There were also brake 2nds and brake 3rds. [Some of us remember their final incarnation on the Chesham branch with great affection, especially the lincrusta ceilings - unfortunately, the black and white photos I took on the last day have long vanished*] * On that last day, I rode out from Rickmansworth with someone who was making a sound recording of everything that moved - I wonder whether that survived - certainly Argo never produced anything subsequently.
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 23, 2016 18:52:55 GMT
metman -thank you for that. A theoretical 92% availability for 40+ year rigs is impressive!
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 22, 2016 21:08:39 GMT
There was - another, to Croydon, was obliterated by the London & Croydon Railway. There were also plans to continue to Mitcham, but the arrival of the railways put paid to that. As for large employers, how many worked for British Railways immediately in 1948? I believe the BR figure peaked at around 120 000. There's also the army but I don't have any figures for the peacetime numbers at their peak.
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 22, 2016 14:28:46 GMT
theblackferret - only £250k eh? BTW is there necessarily a difference between plant engineers and a sex shop...? [This is a respectable forum, however and any answers should be left under a mat somewhere]. One tends to overlook just how large the dock labour force was - at its peak perhaps around 150 000. The PLA was probably the country's largest employer until the NHS was set up.
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