Hi need some help been using Todays Railways UK mag to keep my stock changes up to date for the past year. Now yesterday wile sat on Bristol Station I got a copy of Rail Express mag and noticed that there giving deferent stock changes to Todays railway so whos telling the truth as my last year keeping my changes up to date been all for nothing
As the compiler of some of the Stock Changes in Rail Express, I am probably the person best qualified to answer this! RE uses official Rolling Stock Library pool codes and these reflect the official position on the railway's computer systems such as TOPS etc. Platform 5 on the other hand ignores these for units and coaching stock and uses a series of its own made up codes reflecting the owner/operator, which it also uses in all of its pocket books and combined volume.
As an example, one of the Class 150s which recently moved from FGW to ATW is listed in the next Rail Express as follows:
150230 EX-CF HKCSHLVS 11.12.06
(full list of pool codes can be found at
http://www.abrail.co.uk/pool_codes.htm)
On the other hand, TR will probably give this as:
150230 EX-CF FG-AW
(FG and AW being the codes P5 use for First Great Western and Arriva Trains Wales)
Also, there will be alterations in RE which are not reflected in the P5 changes for example, FGW has, in the past month, introduced new pools for virtually all its fleet. One such change is that the remaining FGW Class 150s all moved from the HKCS pool to a new EFSP pool in December. As P5 only record the operator and this remains the same, nothing would appear in their listing, whereas in RE all the pool changes affecting the FGW fleet will appear.
Another change you may find is that RE publishes official condemnation dates which in some instances can be several months after removal from service, or even months after it has been physically disposed of!
Hope this all makes sense.