Recent content by Dr Hoo

[Sigh] If only we could see this 'plan'. For those unfamiliar with the Monsal Trail (which I visit quite often for walks and cycle rides) it enjoys a broadly steady gradient of around 1:100, rising from Bakewell, only by virtue of significant engineering works. These include six tunnels and...

(Noting that this is rather veering off third rails at Headbolt Lane.) This is completely untrue. Quite a few people have been electrocuted after climbing over or dangling items over the 'old' bridge parapet standards. These have been raised for new work. Relatively recently there have been...

I’m not sure that I would simply endorse your final paragraph as it stands but it was certainly the case that the incidents that I experienced and describe happened on BR in the mid-1980s so would inevitably be in the minds of ‘safety regulators’ when the Electricity Regulations were being...

As I have done before from time to time, can I assure people that attending the Coroner’s Inquest on a nine-year-old schoolboy who got onto a third rail line through a hole in the fence made by rail staff to create a shortcut to a depot is an awful experience. There is NO ‘acceptable sacrifice’...

Peak Rail?

And heavy freight (and why not heritage operation/charters too?).

The Hindlow line (also often mentioned in terms of Dowlow or Briggs) is currently busier than it has been for many years since the re-opening and reconnection of the Hillhead quarry. A lot of stone is going to HS2.

The turning point for third rail really came with the Electricity at Work legislation in 1989, which came into effect in the very early 1990s. Essentially any conductor carrying lethal voltages has to be either insulated or out of reach. Conventional third rail on open line (I.e. not tunnel or...

Thanks for this. (Is there a typo, most references seem to be for a plan for 2022-2038?) I am unclear as to the current status of the plan, because most links are to Draft or Consultation papers, often un-dated. Can you clarify, please? The suite of documents listed on 'civic' sites runs to...

From looking at RTT it is far from clear that ‘millions of tonnes’ of stone go via East Manchester before heading south. In normal circumstances such traffic will run via Dore South Curve or via Altrincham and Northwich. (I know that during cyclical maintenance, typically one week in six, these...

More like 165,000 and the vast majority of whom live nowhere near the Monsal Dale line, e.g. in Glossop or Ashbourne. The fact that Bakewell is the largest town in the National Park, with a population of around 4,000 says it all. The former stations are not well situated in relation to the...

Quite. I would have thought that the New Mills incident would be 'Sustained Planned Disruption' in Schedule 4 of Northern's Track Access Agreement, which is surely based on 'negotiation' rather than the formulaic bus costs under the arrangements for typical short pre-planned works.

But isn’t a ‘town’, I believe.

Looks like a ‘chaldron’ waggon. Definitely North East, not Wales.

It would be helpful if the OP could be a bit more specific about when the imagined character was travelling, e.g. time of day and of year. The situation would be rather different, say, between a summer evening when the sun in the West would throw the Tower into silhouette; a foggy morning in...