Are the three or four sections where TGVs were permitted 180 or 200km/h no more then?
Just to clarify, we lost no time through Stafford due to any ESR's. We went through at the posted limits. I compared the data alongside some service runs and there was no time lost.
No 200km/h sections exist between Paris and Lyon. There are four sections of 180 to 200km/h between Valance and Marseille.
Geography didn't help. It was the decision to use a high-power consist on a more direct route with steep gradients that would soar over the burgundy hills - taking advantage of of the trains kinetic energy on the downgrades like a roller coaster.
No wonder the train wouldn't do 130mph!! Lol
Most unfortunate, I know 90 secs has been toted about as the cost of the 50 TSR - does the extended 50mph running equate to a 90 second delay against the schedule or worse? Would be interesting to compare.
Was the TSR accounted for at all though? I don't recall any allowances in the schedule though granted I was looking on RTT where {} doesn't show. You would normally show it as box time.
It's worth emphasising this point. The spur to action was the need for more capacity on the PLM main line and the French had the debate over how this was to be done, the question being whether to get it by quadrupling the existing route over Blaisy Bas or whether to take advantage of the technology by then available and get the capacity by building a completely new line, taking advantage of modern electric traction to use gradients impossible for the mid-C19 engineers to allow the much shorter direct alignment without having to go in for mad amounts of tunnelling and viaduct. They chose the modern technology solution, and the outcome is history.
Presumably the Crewe stop being dropped, any news on the 9S/9MXX’s running to Glasgow?
Looks like they're being cut short to Blackpool again, not only that but it looks like the fast Blackpools are running too! Talk about a generous service for Blackpool North
When I look at RTT I see a Blackpool and a Glasgow via Birmingham departing at the same time, and with identical times to Preston. They aren't running splitting Voyagers to Preston to cover both services with a single path to Preston?Looks like they're being cut short to Blackpool again, not only that but it looks like the fast Blackpools are running too! Talk about a generous service for Blackpool North
Because of a quirk of Avanti's reservation system, splitting voyagers are shown as a duplicate path where the portions run in multiple. There is (or at least used to be) a shadow 1Zxx Euston-Chester on top of the 1Dxx Euston-Holyhead, for example.
Agreed, or somebody's forgotten to cancel out one of them.
Actually, long ago it was much the same. At electrification in 1974 the base Glasgow-Euston service was every 2 hours. But these were supplemented by scheduled "reliefs" operating on various busy days, especially Friday/Saturday in summer/Christmas, just 10 minutes or so later. You'll find this detail in 1970s timetables. And separate services were provided for the stations between Crewe and Carlisle. So the same overall service as now, in fact more, as each provided more standard class seating than you get in a 9-car Pendolino, and more in tune with the daily demand. And the best services were still taking just 5 hours.
In the opposite direction though only the Blackpool-Bham-Euston service appears to be running.
I hadn't noticed that I admit. Presumably the railway will decide what they are doing soon enough on that score
There's also a piece in the Railway Magazine, including a full timing log.
Difficult to report on a run watching it on RTT, but there we go! It's an amazing feat to have clocked up that sort of time without exceeding 125mph and running within the normal passenger train speed limits - and at the same time slightly gutting - knowing that the APT time could have been beaten with one or two operational tweaks.
