Same problem in that the DfT signs off on all costs. Graham, you know this.

 

No, but it's far easier!

 

Well ... he could have addressed the problems of getting staff and a reliable service on the other six days in the week and explained why after all these years they haven't achieved it.   With Hendy and customers in the room, that might actually have brought something to the pinpoint attention of Lord Hendy who is, after all, very much more a public transport person and advocate than we've had in the past.

 

Or HS2, who can do it for far longer than four years, and at many multiples of the cost

 
With Hendy in the room, and the DfT on the hook as we know for any & all additional costs on the railway, MH did refer a couple of times to the need to get a 7 day railway. In the circumstances, about as much as he could address?

 
Slightly off-topic, but all GWR IETs have an abundance of water supplies on board and if there is a power failure they can usually go over to 'Diesel' mode to keep all the important on-board systems including air-conditioning on until the train can move.

GWR 387s have no water on board and if there is a power failure they are usually stranded and start to 'load shed' quickly, meaning important on-board systems like air-conditioning only work for a short while.

The wrong way round?

 
The GCRE's own website (apologies if it's already been posted and I've missed it):
https://www.gcre.wales/

Subheading is "The UK’s first net zero railway".

 
If you follow the link at the start of this thread, it still leads to a .gov.wales page giving the status in early 2021, with:

That could easily take four years to get nowhere, couldn't it? Just ask Go-Op how!

 

Great in diameter and circumference, yes.
Great in height, maybe, but only a bit above average.
Great in cuteness, no way.

 

While no doubt size matters, it's not the specific criterion. Delays are to be attributed to NR if the animal (including birds) is a risk to safety of the line. If not - presumably it's then a driver not wanting to harm a poor little birdie - that's left with the TOC (and to be discussed with the driver). There are two footnotes to that section of the DAPR (Q1.8.1), one of them specific to swans:

X8:   Animal Strike or incursion not within the control of Network Rail     EXT ANIMAL

So that's one of things things NR pay for though they are not held to be responsible.

 
...and as I only paid £36.58 for it thanks to Uber's ongoing 5% off promotion, I'm quids in

Ok I actually got £1.92 back in Uber credit, but I've already used that on my commutes. And of course it doesn't cover the cost of driving to Chippenham and back to pick my wife up, which was during my working day. I didn't try suggesting she should just wait ~2 hours at Swindon for the next train to Melksham as I had a pretty good idea what the answer would be

 
I seem to recall that a swan is the size of trespasser where the delay problem (and repay responsibility) moves from the TOC over to Network Rail, although I am not sure how line-side fences are supposed to keep a swan out of the railway reservation. Is it true that swans can only take off from water?

 

Yes, I thinks it was 588 metres above sea level (and, yes, I missed an attraction)


I'll have to take my big feet there some winter soon!

 
Perhaps in the 5 year delay somebody might point out that: "high-speed ............. with testing speeds of potentially up to 125mph" is not really considered "high speed" anymore !

 

Update:
Great, although no indication why they rejected it the first time.

 
Looks like good BBQ weather on Sunday.

 

The irony siren is earsplitting!!!

 
From Place North West

 

?? - I suspect you are reading or I am quoting somewhat out of context.

My contacts (and there are several in Wiltshire and Somerset who were there) did find the day very useful and gave no indication of the whole being a waste of their time.  Indeed they said the networking was most useful.

The criticism was more a disappointment at GWR's failure to adequately address the issues of service reliability. I wasn't there so I have no view - but reliability does need to be urgently addressed on the ground, and in writing "urgently" and "on the ground" you have a conundrum for the conference organisers.   Nothing urgent that's effective on the ground has been done for years, and what good would a longer section at the conference giving explanations (excuses?) and making (over?)optimistic promise actually do?

 

A follow up because these are important things for passengers.   It seems that the making of connections even at times of some disruption, and schedules that are gentle enough to get back on track, are the norm and not the exception.

Regular readers will have seen my Visit to Makov article which happened to be made the day of my (!) failed connection to the GWR conference ... but this is about getting there.

The junction with the main line is at Cadac from where the train leaves up the branch every hour. Clockface. And the platform (if you can honour it with that description) is off to one side, across the yard, very much a reminder of Liskeard.   We set off around 10 minutes late - the 4 carriage train already had a comfortable load of people on board, more joined during the delay, and we were finally dispatched by a red-hatted staff member waving a baton at us.   Connection maintained.

Our pacer bucked and bucketed up the valley, calling and wayside stops and crossing roads and paths with limited and varying protecion, and a few horn toots.  People hearabouts seem to know that they should not get in the way of the trains, and the mentality of everyone needing protection against Darwin Award tendencies is absent.

We pulled into Turzokva - on the way to Makov -  7 or 8 minutes late.  Turzokva looks to be quite a substantial town, and the service beyond there does not merit 4 carriages - so we piled out of the 4 car, some of us into a 2 car that was on the same track just ahead of us and others headed for their town business / homes.  And our 2 car set off perhaps 3 or 4 minutes late but with the connection maintained.  Again, a pacer and a series of stations now up to the top of the valley - I think I saw a sign that said "588 metres" but I could have been wrong, or that could have been the distance to some attraction I missed.

We headed back down, starting on time.  The upper valley 2 car set and the lower valley 4 car set both have 20 to 25 minute "runs" so timetables recover the odd delay of a few minutes here and there, and the arrangement with the train change at the intermediate station allows an hourly service all the way, without the need for point changes, passing loops operating, or excess capacity carrying too much fresh air in the upper valley.

The lower valley train arrived late into Turzokva on its upward run (but I noted that the upper valley train was held once again) and we set off back down a few minutes late.  Arriving perhaps 8 minutes late into Cadca, the connecting train to Zilina and beyond was already waiting, connection maintained.  Rather than rush up the platform to the subway, we all used the barrow crossing to get to that posh electric train taking us into the city, under the accepting eyes of the dispatch staff ... and so we set off, delay reduced and passengers happy.

On the approach to Zilina, part of the rebuild is a viaduct and there's just a single operational track over that at the moment.  We had a couple of minutes to wait while a train came the other way, so were perhaps 10 down into Zilina - not that it seemed to matter to anyone.  Passengers for Vrutky and beyond were accommodated for sure - it was the same train (!) and I can't tell you about long distance stuff to Kosice and Bratislava except to say that a 5 to 10 minute late departure for those is often flagged up, and I suspect connection are held.

 
Sad News,

a delay of five years?

wondering what railway technology will have been developed in that time 

 
From ITV.com

 
From the BBC:


My highlighting. CfN.

 

I have: broadgage is great. 

 
Glad to see that "water was being handed out to passengers on delayed trains"........at least they didn't have to rely on a Deliveroo driver with a deadly aim! (Or should that be Delivereau?) 

 
I doubt that the general public are ready for this yet.

Child killed by human operated cab=="what a terrible accident" Legal action against human drivers is normally muted, even if life has been lost. I suspect that judges, magistrates, and jurors tend to sympathise with the driver "There, but for the grace of god, went I."
Children and adults killed on the roads are accepted as part of modern life. Any attempt to reduce the death toll is branded as a new "war on drivers"

Child killed by automatic cab== "my child was murdered by the large corporation who built and/or operated the vehicle." ban these automatic child killers now.

Even if automated cabs are demonstrated to be safer than human operated vehicles, the objections would remain.

 
Wednesday June 25


Stock running ECS to Hereford.

 
The last round trip has now, just, been reinstated.