Trivia: Odd or Bizarre moments in the rail industry

[yorksrob]

A Deltic on a Cross Country passenger service to Margate !

 

[Spartacus]

A steam loco & support coach from the NYMR being pressed into service for Northern between Grosmont & Middlesbrough due to a possession overrun.

 

[Trackman]

How about when SNCF ordered 2,000 new trains to only find out they were too wide for the platforms.

 

[johntea]

Class 144e

They had a decent go but at the end of the day you can't polish a turd!

 

[Bertie the bus]

HST power cars trundling around with railvacs and the like.

Some rich bloke running pseudo-service trains either for a bit of a laugh or to make a point - 2022's Euston - Manchester InterCity services.
Shortly after Network Rail and a TOC having to rely on said rich block, and another slightly less rich bloke, to run real service trains because the TOC was incapable of doing so - Queen's funeral.

 

[PTR 444]

• Building the Ordsall Chord
• Scrapping electrification to Oxford and Bristol
• Building EWR without electrification
• NXEA rebranding as ‘One’
• SWR Class 707s being replaced by 701s shortly after launch
• GWR Class 769s failing to enter service

 

[Efini92]

Building the feeder station at Stalybridge then deciding to only wire as far as Manchester Victoria. Thus needing to bury a 25kv cable from the feeder station to Victoria.

 

[A S Leib]

• Building the Ordsall Chord

Building it at all, building it without things like two more through platforms at Piccadilly, or building it instead of something like a new line from Stockport to Rochdale?

• Building EWR without electrification

I think the Northumberland line should have been built with electrification as well; Newcastle already has some electrification and it would have been good for the 'levelling up' agenda (unless, as would likely have happened, Northern were to end up with no or too few EMUs / EMU drivers in the north east, resulting in more diesel trains under wires). Speaking of which,

• Diesel trains running between Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry, an electrified route.

 

[75A]

Bullieds 'Leader' class

 

[D1537]

The utterly bizarre 47216 / 47299 renumbering. And what (tragically) happened next ...

 

[dk1]

A Deltic on a Cross Country passenger service to Margate !

On it!!

Also Anglia Railways using a Deltic on several occasions.

 

[yorksrob]

On it!!

Not as a parcel movement

 

[Ken H]

The double decker trains on the southern. The movies I have seen they look really claustrophobic
Operating Cl 37 + coaches on the cumbrian coast line
Laying CWR on lines like the Whitby branch.
Seeing a driver of a Cl 47 on TV wearing a large plastic bag over his legs because the cab was so draughty
Old mechanical signal boxes, albeit converted to colour lights, on the electrified west coast at Atherstone, Polesworth, Stafford, Crewe and Stockport. Some still there.
Booking offices making a single by cutting the corner off a ticket with scissors. As at Leeds with the old NCR ticket machines.
Classic DMU's with paraffin tail lamps.
And this:-

 

[Mag_seven]

Has anyone mentioned the German ICE or the SNCF "La Poste" TGV at St Pancras yet - or the French electric locos at Dollands Moor.

Also ex BR Class 86 and Class 87s in use in Hungary / Bulgaria.

London Underground Tube stock on the Forth Bridge

 

[Peter0124]

HSTs also get used in Australia.
The New South Wales XPT train is based on the British HST.

 

[yorksrob]

Mk2's in New Zealand !

 

[dk1]

Not as a parcel movement

That’s gone right over my head

 

[yorksrob]

That’s gone right over my head

I thought you were doing a pun about the Deltic being "on" the train !

 

[MotCO]

Being on slam door stock in the bad winter of 1987(?) at Kent House, and being told that some of us would have to get off because the train had insufficient grip. Also similar stock being towed by a loco (presumably diesel) on an adjacent platform.

 

[GordonT]

BR saddling itself with diverse classes of "Modernisation Plan" diesel locomotives some of which proved to be complete squibs;
BR for far too long indulging its Western Region in the latter's desire to continue as if the nationalisation of the GWR hadn't actually happened.

 

[MotCO]

South Eastern being stripped of its franchise after committing a circa £25m fraud.

Edit: Sorry 'accounting error' not fraud, and it actually went up to £51m

 

[PTR 444]

Another one: Allowing DB to run diesel freight trains fully under the wires

 

[6Gman]

The grounding of an entire fleet of brand new intercity trains and the stock transfers to cope with it was a fairly gobsmacking episode.

Except that grounding a new fleet and having to fill in is by no means unusual.

 

[dk1]

I thought you were doing a pun about the Deltic being "on" the train !

I wish I was that quick witted

 

[pokemonsuper9]

175s leaving TfW and with seemingly no future plans, without enough 197s/MK4s running.
Northern 319s leaving before enough 323s arrive from the West Midlands (now some diagrams have gone from 4 car 319 to 2 car 15x)

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Transport for West Midlands building a station at Coventry Arena to serve Coventry City's football ground. Then, just before it was opened, it was announced that trains wouldn't stop there on matchdays as there would be too many football fans wanting to use it, way more than could be carried on the single 153 units that ran on the line!

 

[johnnychips]

That horse boarding a train at Wrexham



(Image shows horse trying to get on a train. Photo from The Guardian)

 

[yorksrob]

I wish I was that quick witted

I think it's more due to my twisted mind !

 

[d9009alycidon]

Class 90s, mk3s and DVTs being used on the North Berwick Branch.
Millerhill Fuelling point being fully wired, never used until closure

 

[norbitonflyer]

Except that grounding a new fleet and having to fill in is by no means unusual.

Remember the exploding "Blue Trains" in Glasgow!