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Great Western Railway


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10 hours ago, Aizoon said:

You do realise that, in thirty years time, they'll be lovingly restoring the last 143 as a tribute to the Golden Age of Diesel?

I already find it slightly weird there is a class 58 and 60 preservation group. I can understand the 125 group getting the protype valenta going again - will look great with a set of mk3's in the same livery.

No wonder people are recreating diesel classes at the moment though.. the Class 23 project is quite something.

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42 minutes ago, phantom said:

Anybody remember these? 

(WsM hasn't changed much) 

Screenshot_2015-12-17-21-46-53-1.png

The 125 group has just sent there 3 Mk3 coaches for repaint.. pretty good guess they'll come back in that livery to go on the back of the Class 41.  Shame they scrapped the other loco really..

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17 minutes ago, phantom said:

Not a fault of GWR, but will massively affect the area http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35376805?SThisFB

FGW/GWR were quite happy to hang onto the coattails when it was looking good though. The GWR website today still says "Why we’re spending £7.5 billion to build you a Great Western Railway".

If you're going to take the glory, you've got to take the beating with a big stick too.

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 I would hope some heads at NR should be rolling after this.. its' been a farce since day one. I believe the budget has gone from £900m to £1.8bn to £2.8bn.  Surely someone must of relised the potential problems with tunnels along the route.

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2 hours ago, phantom said:

Not a fault of GWR, but will massively affect the area http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35376805?SThisFB

Am sure @Maesknoll Red knows more - but some of the errors I have been "told" by someone that works for NR are astonishing

 

2 hours ago, phantom said:

Not a fault of GWR, but will massively affect the area http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35376805?SThisFB

Am sure @Maesknoll Red knows more - but some of the errors I have been "told" by someone that works for NR are astonishing

Not sure why it's quoted @phantom twice.

It doesn't mean that you won't see the new trains, they will have to run on diesel rather than electric until the wires are up.  About half the HST fleet has to go and meet cascade commitments, they are going to Scotland and have to have the doors and CET work done.

It has really scuppered all the planned cascades of stock, manning levels, training programmes, etc etc. But there is no way those IEP's can be parked up and not used, too expensive and too much egg on face, so they will be used running on overhead where available and the V12 MTU engines where there is no juice.

This in itself will give problems that have to overcome, fuel ranges, more use of the engines than invisaged and planned for, some more servicing and spares needed, timetable timings - an HST is faster accelerating than an IEP on engine power.  

This really was a shockingly badly planned project and if the constant rumours I hear are correct, the Severn Tunnel is proving to be a huge stumbling block, shame they didn't put a rail deck on the SSC.

There are many many questions, to which there seem to be no answers, but I genuinely think that the senior management aren't withholding information, they just don't know the answers themselves yet, as the target dates keep changing, making managing the change of rolling stock very difficult, if not nigh on impossible.

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Christ I'd not even thought about the Severn Tunnel. I know they are dropping the trackbed in the likes of Box. I'm guessing thats a complete nono in the ST.

The IEPs diesel engines were only a stop gap really weren't they, I think they are designed to be removed at a later date?

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17 minutes ago, Tomarse said:

 I would hope some heads at NR should be rolling after this.. its' been a farce since day one. I believe the budget has gone from £900m to £1.8bn to £2.8bn.  Surely someone must of relised the potential problems with tunnels along the route.

It's not just tunnels Tom, the much lauded machines for putting up the catenary posts can't cope, the posts have been put in at depths that would suit the foundations for a block of flats, when the work takes place near houses, they have to have 6 weeks notice, the machines don't complete the work in the notified time, so they have to go through the notification process again to go back and finish it.

It looked to my untrained eye that they were just cherry picking the easy bits and there were odd bits of work going on from Swindon to Airport Junction, now they seem to have withdrawn from that and concentrated on the Reading to Didcot section, which was supposed to have been completed months ago and the test train running on it. Once that is done, I think they will then concentrate on Reading to Airport Junction (that's where the overheads into Paddington start/finish).

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9 minutes ago, Tomarse said:

Christ I'd not even thought about the Severn Tunnel. I know they are dropping the trackbed in the likes of Box. I'm guessing thats a complete nono in the ST.

The IEPs diesel engines were only a stop gap really weren't they, I think they are designed to be removed at a later date?

Some of the track in the Severn Tunnel is suspended, AFIK lowering it is virtually impossible and the other solution of a solid busbar is proving to be unworkable - this is all just here say, but from good 'sources'.

The engines in the Bi mode IEP's were intended to stay, as they will be needed for the diversionary routes (B&H, round Glos and Lydney) and for the Cotswolds past Oxford.  The full electric 9 cars have one 'donkey' engine, just to clear the line or get to a station in the event of overhead line/pantograph failure.

Lots of stories emerging about attempts to alter specs and contracts, but nothing I can speculate on an open forum.

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7 hours ago, Maesknoll Red said:

It's not just tunnels Tom, the much lauded machines for putting up the catenary posts can't cope, the posts have been put in at depths that would suit the foundations for a block of flats, when the work takes place near houses, they have to have 6 weeks notice, the machines don't complete the work in the notified time, so they have to go through the notification process again to go back and finish it.

It looked to my untrained eye that they were just cherry picking the easy bits and there were odd bits of work going on from Swindon to Airport Junction, now they seem to have withdrawn from that and concentrated on the Reading to Didcot section, which was supposed to have been completed months ago and the test train running on it. Once that is done, I think they will then concentrate on Reading to Airport Junction (that's where the overheads into Paddington start/finish).

My friend who works on the WCML said to me about 12-18 months ago they were using the wrong approach to it all and would have to change it with regards to the posts. Figures.

I haven't been down the line on work lately but I did find it odd they had got most of the stuff around Reading done.. figures.  The thing is once Crossrail is open I would imagine GWR/First are going to lose a lot of business as people will use that to get to Reading. It will be great for the rest of us as it won't be so much cattle market from Paddington to Reading.

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7 hours ago, Tomarse said:

My friend who works on the WCML said to me about 12-18 months ago they were using the wrong approach to it all and would have to change it with regards to the posts. Figures.

I haven't been down the line on work lately but I did find it odd they had got most of the stuff around Reading done.. figures.  The thing is once Crossrail is open I would imagine GWR/First are going to lose a lot of business as people will use that to get to Reading. It will be great for the rest of us as it won't be so much cattle market from Paddington to Reading.

Yet another example of non-railway engineers thinking it's easy because they don't understand the problems :(

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1 hour ago, Aizoon said:

Yet another example of non-railway engineers thinking it's easy because they don't understand the problems :(

I think my friend is more than qualified to make an opinion on it. He said its one of the worst projects in the history of NR. 

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2 minutes ago, Tomarse said:

I think my friend is more than qualified to make an opinion on it. He said its one of the worst projects in the history of NR. 

I wasn't referring to your friend - I totally agree with him. I was referring to the contractors who are making such a balls-up of the project. 

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1 hour ago, Aizoon said:

I wasn't referring to your friend - I totally agree with him. I was referring to the contractors who are making such a balls-up of the project. 

Ah ok my bad. He said a lot of it was arrogance and they think they know better than the advice given to them from people  from other regions. 

Really should government stepping in and demanding answers (I know they stopped it for a while) 

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The catenary looks pretty over engineered to me, when you look at the sunken tubes, the uprights and the cross members, they all seem pretty excessive to support a thin bit of wire......  Compare it with that that holds up the wire from Airport Junc to Pad.

I have also heard from more than one person that up around Pangbourne, the residents have been kicking up about the eyesore, two rumours about that, one that they will paint the catenary green, another that it will be removed and replaced with something less intrusive to the view........  Not sure I believe the second rumour, but with this clusterf### who knows!!

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2 minutes ago, View from the Dolman said:

GWR trying to distance themselves from the cuts. But they were happy to steal the glory when it was first announced. The railway must be the most morally corrupt industry out there, especially with operators like GWR.

This is generally NRs fault for going wildly over budget. Imagine GWR are pissed as they've had to adapt electric IEPs into bi-mode and they'll run slower than current HSTs on diesel power! (Slower acceleration) 

Some top brass at NR should be getting sacked for this mess. 

What odds on travel west funding going? 

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So no electric trains at Temple Meads then - well what a surprise!

It makes you wonder who makes the decisions to go ahead with certain tasks and then follows up with this kind of announcement - surely they should have had a P45 in the post by now !

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