Controversial railway opinions (without a firm foundation in logic..)

[Egg Centric]

At some point in the future, the practice of leaning out of windows on the mainline will be tolerated once again, perhaps just restricted to railtours. When in the future? Who knows.

Probably the same time that the existing mainline passenger railways are all either shut or heritage operations.

(I can say that without argumentation cause of the whole "firm foundation" thing - but I genuinely do think long distance non high speed passenger rail's days are numbered. Although it must have felt this way in the 50s and 60s too and look what happened)

 

[Gloster]

There are probably more railway enthusiasts in Britian, than in all the other countries in the world put together.

I doubt it. There are probably more in each of Germany and the US alone.

 

[Tester]

There are probably more railway enthusiasts in Britian, than in all the other countries in the world put together.

Japan says hello

 

[riceuten]

There are probably more railway enthusiasts in Britain, than in all the other countries in the world put together.

But it's falling sharply, and the failure of the hobby to adapt is partially to blame.

 

[Egg Centric]

I doubt it. There are probably more in each of Germany and the US alone.

I disagree with both of you. Half the world's enthusiasts are not in the UK but there's no way on God's Green Earth that there are more in Germany and I am extremely skeptical there are in the USA.

 

[riceuten]

Unpopular opinion - sleepers are not worth the money, in my opinion they are expensive and have little justification for cost

It would obviously depend on the sleeper and the cost. In the UK, for sure, they are not worth the cost.

 

[The Ham]

It would obviously depend on the sleeper and the cost. In the UK, for sure, they are not worth the cost.

It depends, for me, if it allows me to spend an extra 5 hours (so basically a whole day) with my family without having to take quite so much leave then yes it's worth the cost. I've also found that sometimes the extra cost over a normal train ticket isn't all that much more.

That's mostly as whilst the cost of fuel one way is likely to be cheaper it then means having to drive two cars back. It also works mean me driving in a car which isn't very comfortable for a long way (I've got to sit in an awkward position due to my height, so I rarely drive it locally).

It's the one area where speeding up the railways to the west country could change the decision, but there's not really enough time discounts which have been identified to make it the case (5-10 minutes by building the Dawlish Avoiding Line just isn't going to make the difference needed).

 

[yorksrob]

But it's falling sharply, and the failure of the hobby to adapt is partially to blame.

Isn't it just that the railway isn't quite as interesting as it once was. I'm well aware that the steam bods would have been saying the same thing in the 1970's, but that doesn't necessarily make it not so.

 

[eldomtom2]

I doubt it. There are probably more in each of Germany and the US alone.

Very much doubt that. Certainly they both have far less as a percentage of the population.

Japan says hello

Japan doesn't even have a single volunteer-run preserved railway!

But it's falling sharply, and the failure of the hobby to adapt is partially to blame.

How, exactly, can or should railway enthusiasm "adapt"?

 

[CarrotPie]

There are probably more railway enthusiasts in Britian, than in all the other countries in the world put together.

Finland has several hundred enthusiasts and umpteen preserved railways and heritage mainline operators. We have a population of 5.5 million. If we have that many, other countries must have many more.

 

[Tester]

Japan doesn't even have a single volunteer-run preserved railway!

Well that's that then

 

[stuu]

Very much doubt that. Certainly they both have far less as a percentage of the population.

Japan doesn't even have a single volunteer-run preserved railway!

Being interested in trains is far more mainstream than in most other countries though, where else does the national broadcaster have a dedicated programme about the railways? (Portillo et al are more travelogues which happen to involve trains, they aren't news programmes about developments and technology)

 

[gg1]

Very much doubt that. Certainly they both have far less as a percentage of the population.

"Certainly"? what gives you that impression?

Japan doesn't even have a single volunteer-run preserved railway!

You can draw from that there are less people interested in the historical side in Japan but it doesn't mean less enthusiasts overall. Considering Japan has been at the forefront of rail technology the past 60 years or so, I would expect Japanese enthusiasts to lean far more towards the modern aspects than the average British enthusiast.

Anecdotally I get the impression that being a rail enthusiast in Japan and Germany (to take two examples mentioned in recent posts) doesn't carry the same stigma as is the case in Britain.

 

[Kilopylae]

Takts don't work in Britain because we don't live in an all-XC hellscape like the German-speaking countries. The national preference for direct trains from everywhere to everywhere ought to be celebrated.

Same wavelength!

The railway should return to its 2000s focus on trying to provide as many direct X to Y routes as possible. Rather than putting pressure on people to change their expectations and learn to love European-style or Tube-style multiple interchange journeys, we should accept, even celebrate as part of our distinctive railway culture, the popular aversion to changing trains.

People don't treat long-distance as turn-up-and-go anyway - they already use online journey planners (or perhaps a dwindling minority rely upon timetables) - so a clockface is pointless.

 

[D6130]

People don't treat long-distance as turn-up-and-go anyway - they already use online journey planners (or perhaps a dwindling minority rely upon timetables) - so a clockface is pointless

That may be so from a passenger perspective, but a 'taktfahrplan' has many operational advantages from the viewpoint of train pathing - especially at junctions - and diagramming of both trains and crews. (Speaking as one who was involved in a small way in Jim Summers' 'Tartan Taktfahrplan' for Scotland in 1982)

 

[Bletchleyite]

People don't treat long-distance as turn-up-and-go anyway - they already use online journey planners (or perhaps a dwindling minority rely upon timetables) - so a clockface is pointless.

Clockface enables consistent connections and eases pathing. There are cases where it's not of value (e.g. every 35 minutes is clearly better than hourly, though I think I'd rather hourly over a 45 minute frequency, and stuff like the dogged every 3 hours on the Conwy Valley rather than planning specific trains timed for specific use cases is just silly*) but in most cases it is still of value even if being able to remember the times from your lcoal station is now less important as checking them is easy.

Or put simply, ONE of the reasons for having clockface (or ideally full Takt including planned connections and platforming) has faded, but the others are still as strong as they ever were.

* A while back I worked out a timetable for the Conwy Valley that actually reduced the number of daily round trips by one but was significantly more useful than what operates now because each trip had a specific purpose and appealed to one or more of the groups that use it rather than being just exactly (give or take the odd minute) every 3 hours. It's on here somewhere.

The national preference for direct trains from everywhere to everywhere ought to be celebrated.

The national preference for direct trains from everywhere to everywhere is because connections aren't properly planned. Have you ever met someone who objects to making connections on the Tube?

Direct trains to London (or your nearest major city if it isn't London) are justified. Direct trains linking random places hourly in the North West, say, just create an unreliable mess.

 

[Magdalia]

That may be so from a passenger perspective, but a 'taktfahrplan' has many operational advantages from the viewpoint of train pathing - especially at junctions - and diagramming of both trains and crews. (Speaking as one who was involved in a small way in Jim Summers' 'Tartan Taktfahrplan' for Scotland in1982).

Taktfahrplan exposed! It is the preference of the supplier not the consumer.

People don't treat long-distance as turn-up-and-go anyway - they already use online journey planners (or perhaps a dwindling minority rely upon timetables) - so a clockface is pointless.

I agree. Also add that many long distance journeys are now booked on advance tickets that are tied to a specified train. For these journeys taktfahtplan and clockface departures are irrelevant to the consumer. What long distance needs is fewer, longer trains, with more direct journeys.

 

[HSTEd]

I agree. Also add that many long distance journeys are now booked on advance tickets that are tied to a specified train. For these journeys taktfahtplan and clockface departures are irrelevant to the consumer. What long distance needs is fewer, longer trains, with more direct journeys.

That would only work if you expect passengers will plan their lives around the convenience of the railway.

The reality is they will look at the timetable, discover the low frequency direct train is not at a time they want to travel, sigh and drive the journey instead.

Frequency is freedom, and not just freedom from looking at a journey planner or timetable.

 

[D6130]

Taktfahrplan exposed! It is the preference of the supplier not the consumer.

If properly planned and operated, it can be of great benefit to the consumer. However, recent lack of infrastructure investment in Germany - its country of origin - coupled with a dogged determination to maintain connections at all costs, has led to something of a performance meltdown there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Taktfahrplan exposed! It is the preference of the supplier not the consumer.

It's both. Quality connections are of benefit to the customer, because it gives them a wider choice of destinations at any time of day.

I agree. Also add that many long distance journeys are now booked on advance tickets that are tied to a specified train. For these journeys taktfahtplan and clockface departures are irrelevant to the consumer. What long distance needs is fewer, longer trains, with more direct journeys.

That could of course be achieved without breaking the Takt. For CrossCountry, for instance (ignoring the Class 170 services which really should go to other TOCs as they're a poor fit and badly run), you've basically got a big X shape, with Manchester and Newcastle to the north and Reading and the Westcountry to the south (plus the random extensions, but that's the core). Assuming you wanted to avoid portion working as a good cause of severe punctuality issues, you could run one long train every two hours down each pair of routes (and add in a few more hourly short workings where demand is high, e.g. Manchester to Birmingham or Coventry). Clockface and fully direct. Even better, the two could meet either side of an island platform at New St each hour for say ten minutes and allow bidirectional interchange too, though obviously it would require quite a few other timetables adjusting to allow this to be pathed.

This sort of approach is widely used in Switzerland. To use a UK example, you could run an hourly train from Manchester Airport to Lancaster each hour, going to Barrow and Windermere alternating every two hours, but with a connecting train sat there waiting for the other one in each hour too. It's sort of like that for Barrow but it's not very consistent, and sometimes nothing from the south connects to the Windermere shuttle in the non-through hour nearest the through hour so it's a bit useless.

 

[Wolfie]

At some point in the future, the practice of leaning out of windows on the mainline will be tolerated once again, perhaps just restricted to railtours. When in the future? Who knows.

More likely that there will be no opening windows.

 

[Bletchleyite]

More likely that there will be no opening windows.

Or no or next to no heritage mainline operations. ETCS is a massive challenge for it if nothing else.

Heritage railways can mitigate for window leaning by ensuring there's nothing within reach to bang your head on, that's not practical for the mainline. Though I do think at some point the Ffestiniog will have to lock the droplight windows because that isn't feasible with their incredibly tight loading gauge.

 

[WAB]

Heritage railways can mitigate for window leaning by ensuring there's nothing within reach to bang your head on, that's not practical for the mainline. Though I do think at some point the Ffestiniog will have to lock the droplight windows because that isn't feasible with their incredibly tight loading gauge.

So central door locking on the modern stock, installation of internal door handles, and withdrawal of the vintage fleet from passenger service?

 

[LUYMun]

Heritage railways can mitigate for window leaning by ensuring there's nothing within reach to bang your head on, that's not practical for the mainline.

Unless the mainline network goes through heavy reconfiguration to adopt wider, continental Europe style loading gauges. Or if personal responsibility becomes important in health and safety. Or if the ORR researches on reasons mainline railtours decreases in popularity over time. I’ll leave it at that, as I don’t want to open another can of worms!

 

[Bletchleyite]

So central door locking on the modern stock, installation of internal door handles, and withdrawal of the vintage fleet from passenger service?

Potentially yes. I think it'd only take one person knocking their head off for that to happen.

The vintage stock could potentially be used for short shuttles, e.g. I don't think there's much to clout your head on between Porthmadog and Boston Lodge. (Not presently a station but they could open one with a single short platform for only that purpose).

 

[WAB]

Potentially yes. I think it'd only take one person knocking their head off for that to happen.

The vintage stock could potentially be used for short shuttles, e.g. I don't think there's much to clout your head on between Porthmadog and Boston Lodge. (Not presently a station but they could open one with a single short platform for only that purpose).

That's around 26 carriages which would never see proper passenger service again, despite the considerable amount of lottery money and private donations spent on the vintage fleet in the last 50 years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's around 26 carriages which would never see proper passenger service again, despite the considerable amount of lottery money and private donations spent on the vintage fleet in the last 50 years.

It'd be a shame, but I don't think the average passenger cares as long as it looks old and has a "steam engine" at the front.

Other option would be to fit limiters to the windows so they don't open fully and require people to wait for the staff to let them out from the outside. (FfR have some sort of dispensation allowing them to lock people in due to the risk posed by the limited clearance, something banned on the rest of the railway since Quintinshill if I recall).

 

[Irascible]

Mainline steam locomotives trundling around at 20 mph on preserved lines look absolutely tragic and a museum would be better.

A GWS-type "working" museum is a nice halfway house, that way you get a all the smell & sound of a living machine and a proper impression of it in a natural environment. I honestly do tend to agree with you, small branches are not their natural environment. OFC now there's an argument about what a main line locomotive is.

--

Britain is possibly the world leader in nostalgia, which isn't a good thing. I suspect Japan has us beat for rail enthusiasts in general.

--

Beeching the best BR railway leader? vs say, Robert Reid? someone certainly needed to clear up the mess of the 50s but then someone else needed to clear up the legacy of the 60s. It's fairly arguable that the entire nation is still suffering aftershocks of the wreck of both ( in a broader sense than just the railways ) but that's a much wider argument.

 

[WAB]

Other option would be to fit limiters to the windows so they don't open fully and require people to wait for the staff to let them out from the outside. (FfR have some sort of dispensation allowing them to lock people in due to the risk posed by the limited clearance, something banned on the rest of the railway since Quintinshill if I recall).

They tried to restore the original window bars on the compartment stock but the Railway Inspectorate considers the windows to be emergency escape routes IIRC

 

[70014IronDuke]

I've largely ignored this thread as inviting silly nonsense, but then... here we go:

India has more railway enthusiasts per cycle rickshaw driver than any other country in the world.

EMR should apply for permission from DfT to restore one train (HST or modern equivalent) per day each way between St Pancras and Glasgow and Edinburgh, named, respectively, The Thames-Clyde Express and The Waverley. (The latter, of course, would have to run via Carstairs, but would also include a return trip on the re-opened bit of the Waverley on SuO.)

EMR could argue that they've researched the markets (primarily on RailUK forums) and therefore have solid evidence of their commercial passenger potential.

The Settle and Carlisle should be four-tracked where reasonaly possible, brought up to a line speed of 90 mph and tunnels rebuilt as necessary to be cleared to take the largest containers.

Richard Beeching faked his university degree.

He also regularly bunked Thornaby and Newport depots when employed by ICI on Teeside, and thereby cleared his J27s and Q6s. He was very proud of that, but kept it secret when at 222 Marylebone Rd.

Croatia has the least number of railway enthusiasts in the world relative to the length of its coastline.

New loops should be installed on the Heart of Wales line at Pantyfynnon and Llanbister Rd stations to allow for an improved service and give the timetable more resilience.

The SAR Class 25NC 4-8-4 at the Bucks Rail Centre (or wherever it may be now) should be regauged to 4' 8 1/2" and cleared to run on a section of the former GC railway (which was built to Berne gauge in any case to allow through travel to the Continent).

A new service of 1Tp2hr should be introduced from Carmarthen to Birmingham via the Swansea District and Worcester Shrub Hill.

New threads on restoring the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen and Dumfries to Stranraer lines may only be published if the OP pays £500 to subsidise the next five RailUK meet-ups.

However, the branch line from Penrith to Keswick should be reopened as there is huge demand for this in the three summer months.

I actually believe in one of the statements above. Maybe two. Hmmm, maybe even three.