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Glastonbury special working allocation anomaly - is this possible?

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peter166

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Today 1C71 07.14 Paddington to Castle Cary is shown on Realtime Trains as being formed of unit 800320 to Reading & then units 800320 plus 800001 & 8000021 from Reading to Castle Cary. Thats 19 coaches! It then returns empty as 5A71 to Reading.
I assume it must an error ?

 
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zwk500

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Sounds like a unit swap at Reading, or could be a simple error from the data feed.
 

TurboMan

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Passcomm activation on 1C71 at Reading. Train was full and standing which meant the crew struggled to identify where the passcomm was to reset it. Passengers detrained onto the unit off 1A07 which terminated at Reading to form a continuation of 1C71, while the original stock from 1C71 was used (once the passcomm was found and reset) for 1C08. So no, not a 19 car formation!
 

peter166

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Thank you the explanation. Sounds like a fairly chaotic situation at Reading hence the delay of 70+ minutes
 

Signal_Box

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I believe a 9 car can attach to a 9 car for rescue purposes so a 18 is possible.

No reason why it couldn’t operate in service aside from not having platforms long enough (generally) Gloucester could manage it though.
 

waterboo

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Out of interest.... Castle Cary must surely have a short platform. What's the disembarkation / embarkation procedure for Castle Cary, considering the 10 car IETs that serve the station during Glastonbury?
 

Wychwood93

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Out of interest.... Castle Cary must surely have a short platform. What's the disembarkation / embarkation procedure for Castle Cary, considering the 10 car IETs that serve the station during Glastonbury?
Sectional Appendix shows:
Platform 1 (up) - 198m
Platform 2 (bi-directional) - 197m
Platform 3 (bi-directional) - 70m

Platform 3 is to/from Weymouth.

The other two platforms can manage a single 5-car - a 9 or 10 require SDO!
 

TurboMan

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I believe a 9 car can attach to a 9 car for rescue purposes so a 18 is possible.
True, but the EBS has to be operated for such a formation. So it's not something that would be done in normal passenger service (there was a plan for GWR to run 15-car ECS moves with the EBS operated, which is why on 802s the EBS doesn't need a special key to be reinstated, the idea being that the driver would do it once the units had been uncoupled for passenger service).
 

Signal_Box

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Out of interest.... Castle Cary must surely have a short platform. What's the disembarkation / embarkation procedure for Castle Cary, considering the 10 car IETs that serve the station during Glastonbury?

Cary will take a 9 or 10 car I’m sure..
 

Western Sunset

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Though 9-car / x2 5-cars serve Cary on a daily basis. I suppose the only difference being that these specials terminate and are full to standing.
 

Lewlew

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True, but the EBS has to be operated for such a formation. So it's not something that would be done in normal passenger service (there was a plan for GWR to run 15-car ECS moves with the EBS operated, which is why on 802s the EBS doesn't need a special key to be reinstated, the idea being that the driver would do it once the units had been uncoupled for passenger service).
What’s an EBS?
 

Signal_Box

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Emergency bypass switch - basically it isolates the passcoms and brake handles in all cabs except the leading one.

So for example if a passcom which is connected to the braking system is pulled the brakes won’t come on, hence the requirement for a train to come out of service when the EBS is isolated.
 

skyhigh

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So for example if a passcom which is connected to the braking system is pulled the brakes won’t come on
That's very much traction specific though. A lot of newer stock has a separate isolation for passcoms and they'll still work when EBS is operated.
 

Efini92

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Emergency bypass switch - basically it isolates the passcoms and brake handles in all cabs except the leading one.

So for example if a passcom which is connected to the braking system is pulled the brakes won’t come on, hence the requirement for a train to come out of service when the EBS is isolated.
It bypasses the train wire, sometimes called train wire 4 amongst other things. It won’t apply the brakes if the train divides or a door is open (though it would cut traction power, unless the TIS is also isolated) as well as the things you said above.
 

Towers

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That's very much traction specific though. A lot of newer stock has a separate isolation for passcoms and they'll still work when EBS is operated.
Presumably due to 'modern' passcoms allowing speech comms between the passenger and driver, so any brake application becomes rather academic anyway!
 
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