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[Shackeng]

Was watching this last night as they changed a broken rail. A gang arrived to do the urgently required work and did not have the correct sized spanner to undo the nuts holding the railkeeper in place!!!!!
Is it any wonder our rail network is in chaos.

[Lizzie Zoom]

Was watching this last night as they changed a broken rail. A gang arrived to do the urgently required work and did not have the correct sized spanner to undo the nuts holding the railkeeper in place!!!!!
Is it any wonder our rail network is in chaos.

Yes, this documentary series which I have religiously watched from the start, is not good PR for GWR, or the railways generally, with constant crisis portrayed (well that does make a good story for the journalists making the programme!!) and hundreds of passengers being mucked around!

Once all the current railway upgrade investment has been made hopefully it will be different, but running a railway which involves complex machines, electrics, and electronics, apart from suicidal people, is never going to be easy.

To not have the right bit for your socket set for a job they knew they were doing can have no excuse!!

[dave the builder]

It's always the one tool you left on the bench or lent to Bob 3 weeks ago "i'll give it you strait back honest" 
thermite cracks most bolts loose pretty quick 
not been on a train in 25 years
I'm sure after brexit all trains will be sorted 
Paddington the bear 1958 ,so 70 years old ,not 24 

[Lizzie Zoom]

It's always the one tool you left on the bench or lent to Bob 3 weeks ago "i'll give it you strait back honest"
thermite cracks most bolts loose pretty quick 
not been on a train in 25 years
I'm sure after brexit all trains will be sorted 
Paddington the bear 1958 ,so 70 years old ,not 24 

    Funny you should say that Dave, as the Team leader of the track gang had to ring a mate elsewhere to borrow the missing socket.  It was just like someone working on a car and ringing a friend to provide the right tool

[Shackeng]

It would have been funny if the economic cost of such a careless approach to work was not potentially so enormous.

[Varche]

Sounds like Spain.

Tradesmen visiting your house never have rhe right tools. The Electrician that turned up to renew our overhead supply frompoleto house used olive oil fromhis lunch and arock to freem the tensioner. Didnt even have a hammer in his tool kit.

There was a bit on Uk tv this morning about SWR whete people had spent 15 hours on a broken down train.!

[Lizzie Zoom]

Sounds like Spain.

Tradesmen visiting your house never have rhe right tools. The Electrician that turned up to renew our overhead supply frompoleto house used olive oil fromhis lunch and arock to freem the tensioner. Didnt even have a hammer in his tool kit.

There was a bit on Uk tv this morning about SWR whete people had spent 15 hours on a broken down train.!

That was probably about the story about a stranded train during the "Beast from the East" saga.  There is always something that brings trains to a halt in the UK. 

[Lizzie Zoom]

It would have been funny if the economic cost of such a careless approach to work was not potentially so enormous.

And that is the thing about running a railway.  Everything done wrong, or a passenger doing something silly, has potentially an enormous cost element.

There again every road accident, or emergency road works, also cause thousands of pounds to be wasted especially when it happens on our motorways. 

All the time we rely on machines and the illogical human mind we will suffer such costs somewhere

[Varche]

It was but to a none expert on trains like myself, could they not have taken a diesel loco and pushed/pulled it to safety? I know there are "rules" but I would have been beyond despair on a train with no heat, light , food or water and toilets for fifteen hours  coupled with no advice from the train company as to what was happening (or not).

I did my time on Midlands cross country trains back in the eighties. Bloody horrible it was too. I remember for example being on the Birmingham train when it forgot to stop at Hinckley ( a regular occurrence) . It could not reverse half a mile due to the "rules". It took me a further 2 and a half hours from that point to get home along with hundreds of other commuters.   

[LC0112G]

It was but to a none expert on trains like myself, could they not have taken a diesel loco and pushed/pulled it to safety?

They did exactly that when a train I was on broke down between Sailsbury and Yeovil Junction. However, that was back in about 1986 in the days of good old BR, or Network Southeast.

AIUI these rescue locos, often called "Thunderbirds", don't exist anymore - or at least they aren't owned/run by the same company that owns/runs the passenger services, which are all private companies. The idea of a locomotive has gone - they are nearly all diesel or electric multiple units arranged in sets of 3/4 carrages. They aren't a loco with a 'rake' of  8/10/12 (unpowered) passenger coaches where you detach the loco and move it to the other end of the train and set off in the other direction at a terminus.

Thomas the tank engine is dead. There aren't spare locos available dotted all over the network that can be press-ganged into being used as Thunderbirds.

[Varche]

There you go then. Great business opportunity for such a loco! You just need a catchy name , an annual upfront fee per rescue loco, few standby drivers. Could be a money spinner for rail preservation trusts.

PS who runs and owns locos that pull freight trains.................?

[TheBoy]

Stop the subsidies on the Victorian shite. Its time we moved on.

I noticed from my trip to the Sunshine State, they don't have Railroads.

[Lizzie Zoom]

There you go then. Great business opportunity for such a loco! You just need a catchy name , an annual upfront fee per rescue loco, few standby drivers. Could be a money spinner for rail preservation trusts.

PS who runs and owns locos that pull freight trains.................?

The problem, or fact is, that modern classes of EMU are designed to work in sets and their electronic brains are now very difficult to connect to by a traditional, now outgoing, diesel locomotives.  It is hard to even slip an addition coach into a 3 or 4 car set, and that is why you regularly see two, or even three, EMU complete sets joined together drivers power car to drivers power car.

There couplings and general connections, like air brakes, can be different even between EMU types, and totally unsuitable for locomotive connection, being often at different heights to each other. 

As LCO112G correctly stated spare diesels are now not an option, with even the freight operators examples not compatible with most of the EMU's. In addition, as stated, those freight operators have nothing directly to do with either the passenger train operators or Netwoork Rail, so are not expected, or can afford, to hire their loco's out, and that would be very expensive.  Each loco journey costs a large fee to Network Rail, and for them to drop their freight duties to assist another rail company and accumulate huge mileage costs as they travel to help a stranded EMU, is just not viable from a commercial point of view, or desirable for profit hungry freight companies and their passenger company opposite firms.

As for steam locomotives being used as muted not that long ago that is a non-starter.  There are not enough of them, let alone those air brake equipped; there are all the H&S implications; the maintenance costs, would be enormous, if they are available in the part of the country where they are required, and there is still that compatibility issue with the EMU's!!!  There would also be the little issue of the Environment!

So the suggestion was either an April fools joke, or some kind of stupid suggestion by a journalist who knows nothing about railway operations. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/diesel-steam-trains-rail-electricity

No, the answer is to build and maintain the latest EMU's to a far higher standard so the chances of them breaking down is relagated to "rare".

[LC0112G]

I agree with Lizzie. For an 'rescue' loco system to be any use, it would probably have to be run by Network rail, as a kind of AA/RAC for the railways. It's just as likely that a freight train would break down and block the line as a passenger train. They would need to position locos around the network, with probably 50 or so miles between QRA sites. Given the size of the network, you'd need dozens if not hundreds of locos.  Add that to the 24 hour crewing requirements and the costs quickly balloon out of control. So instead of that, Network Rail just fine the operating company if their trains break down causing delays.

Another thing you'll often notice with the steam loco excursions is that there is often a diesel loco in the set either directly behind the steam loco, or on the other end. That's so that if the steam loco breaks down the diesel can continue push the whole lot out of the way. I doubt using steam locos as Thunderbirds would work - the steam loco would probably break down too making the situation worse.

Eurotunnel do have a number of diesel "Thunderbirds" to pull dead electric trains out of the channel tunnel. However, they only have to worry about 30 odd miles of track.

[Lizzie Zoom]

I agree with Lizzie. For an 'rescue' loco system to be any use, it would probably have to be run by Network rail, as a kind of AA/RAC for the railways. It's just as likely that a freight train would break down and block the line as a passenger train. They would need to position locos around the network, with probably 50 or so miles between QRA sites. Given the size of the network, you'd need dozens if not hundreds of locos.  Add that to the 24 hour crewing requirements and the costs quickly balloon out of control. So instead of that, Network Rail just fine the operating company if their trains break down causing delays.

Another thing you'll often notice with the steam loco excursions is that there is often a diesel loco in the set either directly behind the steam loco, or on the other end. That's so that if the steam loco breaks down the diesel can continue push the whole lot out of the way. I doubt using steam locos as Thunderbirds would work - the steam loco would probably break down too making the situation worse.



Eurotunnel do have a number of diesel "Thunderbirds" to pull dead electric trains out of the channel tunnel. However, they only have to worry about 30 odd miles of track.

..........and only the Eurostar EMU and Chunnel freight train loco's - therefore very limited number of classes -'to be compatible with