What's the purpose of this visit? Publicity or seriously testing it out for future mail services?
Thats convenient, I'm going to Derby for a meeting tomorrow so will have a gander at St Pancras in the morning before suffering the Voyager north...
Is there any other news on this? I do my best to follow what's going on with the Channel Tunnel but this is a new one on me.It's a test to see how unloading would work on the station with a view to future postal trains.
I'm going after I finish nights to grab a few images.
Any idea if it'll go the whole way under its own power? And has a TGV Sud-Est (which the postal units basically are) ever been through the tunnel before?
Would it not be easier to run to Willesden mail terminal? or is the loading gauge a problem?
and the UK signalling at St Pancras, would not be compatible with a standard TGV?
Then there's the fire and recovery regulations in the tunnel.
thats amzaing, I hope somebody will post some pics!![]()
Fairly sure that the signalling at St Pancras International is in fact French so no problem there and I thought that those ridiculously strict fire regulations only applied to passenger trains?
That would need to pass through the tunnels at South Hampstead and Kensal Green and under 1960s-height OHLE.
I take it there are no actual goods facilities at STP ? This just being a PR stunt to say "hey look we can get this train here" ?
Fairly sure that the signalling at St Pancras International is in fact French so no problem there ...
The signalling boundary is apparently at the tunnel portals - from there to the platforms is UK style - basically to deal with the various non-CTRL/HS1 junctions with the ECML and the NLL.
Trains that go direct from HS1 to the NLL will switch from TVM430 to AWS/TPWS but there are no trains that I know of that do it.
That would presumably mean vehicle access to one of the platforms, not sure how that would work with international security etc.It depends what you mean by 'goods'. There's no cattle dock but parcels and suchlike could be catered for overnight. I'll learn more tomorrow.
The signalling boundary is apparently at the tunnel portals - from there to the platforms is UK style - basically to deal with the various non-CTRL/HS1 junctions with the ECML and the NLL.
Presumably that's what the South Eastern high speed trains do at Ashford ?
On leaving the London Tunnels, the cab signalling system TVM 430 switches over to conventional UK lineside colour light signalling with the KVB intermittent ATP system.
Colour light signalling is necessary in this last kilometre due to the Network Rail interfaces, the need for routing information and because short block sections are required to meet the specified operational headway/journey time (which cannot be achieved within the low speed codes available to the TVM system due to the speed profile of the layout).
No pictures yet?
What is this? The dark ages?
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The colour light signals are of the British design but the system of which the trains communicate with the signals is KVB.Does that not count as 'UK signalling' then?