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Also regarding stuff on the tracks, there's a national police service dedicated to the railway and they will always attempt to prosecute trespassers.
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Sep 5, 2012 20:25
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Bozza posted:It was a retrofit but was done incredibly rapidly (plus was cheaper than rolling out ATP everywhere) because it's just cut into the existing safety systems and just dumps the brake pipe. The UK also has a system called AWS which has been manditory since the 1950s I think on stock. Ah that's interesting then, sounds like there's also been a lot of time to put it into effect, as well as a previous system that managed some of the same stuff to "hook into" as it were.. Bozza posted:As for the stuff on the tracks argument, this is an interesting point about UK vs US railways, in that ours are totally surrounded by a boundary fence (which you can report if it's damaged and someone will be out to fix it pretty sharpish). Oddly, they were mandated not to keep people off the tracks, but to keep railway workers ON the tracks, and therefore not in the 5th Duke of Devonshires back garden. But a boundary fence doesn't stop people from doing stupid thing at level crossings, like have a car or truck break down and abandon it, or deliberate suicide attempts, or just "I can totally get across here before the train does". And that's the most common collision type. Stuff like this happens a decent amount http://www.kget.com/mostpopular/story/Amtrak-sues-trucker-for-train-accident-two-years/hQrh8UpLikiPeI3rdnMi4Q.cspx Hezzy posted:Also regarding stuff on the tracks, there's a national police service dedicated to the railway and they will always attempt to prosecute trespassers. Well it's also very very illegal here and the government passenger transit agencies all have their own police to patrol. But, again, it doesn't stop people from doing stupid stuff at or right near level crossings, or just attempting to cross on foot. Though that latter doesn't tend to do much damage to the trains. Here's an example of a place where people have been killed or nearly killed crossing around commuter trains doing 80-100 mph and Acela trains doing 135 mph, even though it's got fairly difficult barriers to go around http://goo.gl/maps/bkMGB
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Sep 5, 2012 21:22
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Hezzy posted:Also regarding stuff on the tracks, there's a national police service dedicated to the railway and they will always attempt to prosecute trespassers. In the US the rail companies actually have a private police force that seems to be unique in that they have the same powers as government employed police (right of arrest, etc).
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Sep 6, 2012 07:28
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nm posted:In the US the rail companies actually have a private police force that seems to be unique in that they have the same powers as government employed police (right of arrest, etc). I remember watching an ooooold episode of Cops where some local law enforcment was working with Conrail PD to bust people hijacking electronics trucks, pretty interesting stuff. Having a "private" police force sounds scary but I don't think it's a problem. I think it comes down to jurisdiction, is that no local force is going to care specifically about the railroad, so they need their own force. Many transit systems in the US have their own force as well because of issues of jurisdiction and local PD just not giving a crap about the transit issues. E: sorry for making GBS threads on your tea and crumpets British train chat with my fried cheeseburger and big gulp American train chat. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Sep 6, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 07:41
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nm posted:In the US the rail companies actually have a private police force that seems to be unique in that they have the same powers as government employed police (right of arrest, etc). As far as I know the British Transport Police are state "owned" for want of a better word, but funded by the train companies.
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Sep 6, 2012 09:29
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Jonnty posted:As far as I know the British Transport Police are state "owned" for want of a better word, but funded by the train companies. Yes, they are one of two "special" police forces along with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. They're held accountable by "stakeholders". They have a police authority (one of the many boards the police in the UK are held accountable to) consisting of representatives from each Train Operating Company. I think something like 95% of the funding comes from the TOCs, so BTP is quite a wealthy force and has all the best equipment.
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Sep 6, 2012 12:35
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Hezzy posted:so BTP is quite a wealthy force and has all the best equipment. Not quite as well-equipped as the CNC who are armed to the loving teeth.
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Sep 6, 2012 13:27
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FISHMANPET posted:E: sorry for making GBS threads on your tea and crumpets British train chat with my fried cheeseburger and big gulp American train chat. Nah, we very much appreciate the occasional American cheeseburger.
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Sep 6, 2012 14:18
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Bozza did you ever write that massive post on level crossings?
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Sep 6, 2012 14:27
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Started it, but didn't quite finish it off. This would actually a good point for it so will try and get part 1 out tonight! edit: Today I had great fun sighting a new signal.... right here! 
Bozza fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Sep 6, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 14:33
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Whitefish posted:It appeared to me that the station was understaffed, but it may have been that this was just a one-off and generally staffing levels are okay. I would imagine that this is more of a franchise based problem rather than a blanket across the network problem. That said I do wonder quite how a small operation like C2C can afford to keep someone in the ticket office till 20:00 on a weekday and someone like Greater Anglia can't.
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Sep 6, 2012 17:02
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Venmoch posted:That said I do wonder quite how a small operation like C2C can afford to keep someone in the ticket office till 20:00 on a weekday and someone like Greater Anglia can't. Because Greater Anglia are stingy as gently caress? Earlier this summer, I was splattered with puke while trying to get on a train in the morning. 3 days later, the remains of the vibrantly-coloured stomach sauce was still clearly visible on the platform.
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Sep 7, 2012 00:37
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West Coast rail franchise to be nationalised posted:The British government is preparing to nationalise Virgin Trains' West Coast railway train operating franchise following its attempts to delay the handover of the network to rival operator First Group which won the franchise renewal bid, the Sunday Times newspaper said.  Anyone intelligent know what this means?
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Sep 9, 2012 14:48
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It means the government will be responsible for running both the East and the West Coast Mainlines. Now if they'd only do the same with all the other railways we'd be on to a winner.
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Sep 9, 2012 14:57
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mrpwase posted:
And all the staff will get two sets of TUPE paperwork. A bit like the East Coast Mainline which is currently run by Directly Operated Railways. It's part of the efficiency the private sector involvement brings to the table. First can't take over WMCL until the courts are done with Virgin's complaint. But the government aren't going to let Virgin just keep making money off it in the meantime.
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Sep 9, 2012 14:58
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mrpwase posted:
They're punishing Virgin for being uppity by taking away the profit they'll make between now and December.
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Sep 9, 2012 15:09
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For a brief moment I thought that they were actually going to be nationalised. I don't know why I thought that was plausible!
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Sep 9, 2012 15:10
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Noreaus posted:For a brief moment I thought that they were actually going to be nationalised. I don't know why I thought that was plausible! See a doctor. Now.
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Sep 9, 2012 17:37
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Hezzy posted:They're punishing Virgin for being uppity by taking away the profit they'll make between now and December. I think they're actually contingency planning for if the court battle runs past the December handover date - if it does, I think the plan would be that Virgin hands over to DOR and then DOR hands over to whoever wins (probably still First.) I wonder if First is allowed to sue Virgin for lost earnings if this happens? Probably not.
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Sep 9, 2012 17:56
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Good doc on BBC Four about the HST programme, it seems so far the conclusion is, Bloody Thatcher 
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Sep 13, 2012 21:43
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Good doc on BBC Four about the HST programme, it seems so far the conclusion is, Bloody Thatcher Strange, at the end of the programme there was a very strong  Thatcher vibe, which even the interviewee noted was an unpopular opinion
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Sep 13, 2012 22:24
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Tincans posted:Strange, at the end of the programme there was a very strong Still, Thatcher
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Sep 13, 2012 22:34
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mrpwase posted:
It means the loving tories of all people are renationalizing the railways I wonder when they're going to reopen the mines?
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Sep 13, 2012 22:39
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StarkingBarfish posted:It means the loving tories of all people are renationalizing the railways I'm sure they'll find some way of making massive public payments to private companies for lost earnings or somesuch due to this.
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Sep 14, 2012 00:29
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Actually they're seizing it from Virgin so Virgin doesn't get any money from it while they appeal the decision to hand over the franchise to First. As soon as the legal bollocks is cleared up it's going right back in private hands again. ~markets~
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Sep 14, 2012 03:31
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And don't get some idea that a the state running a single franchise is better than a private company - the true benefits of nationalisation can only be realised if everything goes in, both with regards to efficiency and the welfare of passengers an staff.
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Sep 14, 2012 03:43
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Whitefish posted:I just had to queue for 40 minutes to buy a ticket at my local train station, and lots of people in the queue missed their trains or had to board without a ticket because they couldn't get one in time. I don't use the train regularly enough to know if this is a common occurrence or not. It appeared to me that the station was understaffed, but it may have been that this was just a one-off and generally staffing levels are okay. e: IIRC if you have the permit to travel it means you are entitled to pay up the difference on the train or at the end without having to worry about being fined. e2: And my god yes the train service in Essex is loving vile. The London line through Colchester/Chelmsford etc to Liverpool street is always wall to wall couldnt fit another body on at rush hour every loving day. Thank god I dont live there anymore. The price is insane as well. e3: Looked up the current cost of Witham to London return at rush hour (Witham is a little shithole halfway between Colchester and Chelmsford) and its £32.20. gently caress me are these guys taking the piss. Thats about 40 miles on a direct straight line. Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 10:02
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Bozza posted:Started it, but didn't quite finish it off. This would actually a good point for it so will try and get part 1 out tonight! *goes and check* Huh. I thought the old Colnbrook line was torn up all the way back up to the main line after the M25 cut it in half further down.
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Sep 14, 2012 10:37
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Seaside Loafer posted:You can always just get a permit to travel from the machine for a quid then you are covered. You could also do what I used to do, and get your season ticket/ off peak return/ etc in advance (for instance, on the way home the day before), thus dodging the hordes of dolts who can't plan past five minutes. Of course there are lots of situations you can't plan in advance for, but the majority of people in massive peak time queues are renewing season tickets or doing something else routinely. Not really a poke at the original comment but at the masses who complain about peak queues but are able to avoid them completely. EDIT: I also received a penalty notice of £0 once because I had a permit to travel from a station that had staff and I said that the queues were too long. Yes I was trying to dodge the full fare. Betjeman fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 10:40
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Itzena posted:Wait, a railway line runs through the middle of that multi-layered mess as well? Nope, I can assure you that the old Staines branch is still alive and kicking. In the multi million pound development of the signalling systems for Crossrail on the Great Western, it has been perhaps the biggest pain in the arse on the entire job. It is refered to in the design office as simply 'the C-Word'
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Sep 14, 2012 11:23
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Orange Devil posted:See a doctor. And hurry before they privatize that too!
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Sep 14, 2012 16:10
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211647/Moment-dozy-freight-train-driver-took-quick-snooze-wheel-caught-camera.html :dailymail:
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Oct 2, 2012 18:46
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Hezzy posted:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211647/Moment-dozy-freight-train-driver-took-quick-snooze-wheel-caught-camera.html I'm guessing freight trains have a similar sort of dead-man's switch that passenger trains have, right? I sometimes hear passengers - usually kids - asking about the 'ringing sound' when I'm sat at the front of the first carriage, but I'm too much of a miserable gently caress to bother explaining it.
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Oct 2, 2012 21:45
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kingturnip posted:I'm guessing freight trains have a similar sort of dead-man's switch that passenger trains have, right? I sometimes hear passengers - usually kids - asking about the 'ringing sound' when I'm sat at the front of the first carriage, but I'm too much of a miserable gently caress to bother explaining it. There's a dead man's pedal which must be depressed at all times, and must be reset every few minutes (I believe.) In addition to that, there's the Automatic Warning System (AWS). That's probably the beeping you hear - on approach to a signal, a beep (or sometimes a bell or buzzer) will sound - one for a green light and a different one for a yellow or red light. If the driver fails to acknowledge the alert for a yellow/red light within something like 8 seconds, the emergency brakes are automatically applied. And if all THAT wasn't enough, there's also the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) which will automatically bring a train to a halt in a safe distance if it passes or is travelling too fast towards a red light - though this is generally only used on new projects and at signals which it's particularly dangerous to pass at danger, like those protecting junctions. So yeah, all in all he probably wasn't going to cause any harm. Still not a great idea to fall asleep at the controls of a train though - although I imagine he was probably just blinking.
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Oct 2, 2012 23:18
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Wow, the government have just relented on their decision to award the WCML to First citing "significant mistakes in the way civil servants calculated the risks for each bid." This is pretty big - I wonder how deliberate the mistakes were. They'll now have to rerun the competition. One consequence of this is that it now looks certain that, come Decemeber, both west and east coast long-distance services will be under public ownership for the first time since 1997. Under a Tory government. Mental. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19809717
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Oct 3, 2012 00:47
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Jonnty posted:Wow, the government have just relented on their decision to award the WCML to First citing "significant mistakes in the way civil servants calculated the risks for each bid." This is pretty big - I wonder how deliberate the mistakes were. They'll now have to rerun the competition. What're the chances actual corruption will be uncovered when people start investigating this?
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Oct 3, 2012 06:27
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coffeetable posted:What're the chances actual corruption will be uncovered when people start investigating this? 0%
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Oct 3, 2012 07:21
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Seaside Loafer posted:You can always just get a permit to travel from the machine for a quid then you are covered.
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Oct 3, 2012 11:34
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Zephro posted:This is literally the first time I've heard of this. How do you persuade a machine to spit one of these out? As far as I know these are only dispensed from special machines which are unable to dispense proper tickets. The idea is you pay as much money as you can into the machine then swap it with the guard for a ticket on the train, with you paying/being refunded the difference if necessary. I think they date from before ticket machines existed, and were essentially a way of trying to avoid fare-dodging from unstaffed stations as more and more ticket offices closed. A similar trick kind of exists with ticket machines though - if you can't buy the type of ticket you want at the machine (usually a season ticket) you can buy a ticket along that route to a station which has an office and have the price of the ticket discounted from the total charge for your season ticket.
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Oct 3, 2012 11:58
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Jonnty posted:There's a dead man's pedal which must be depressed at all times, and must be reset every few minutes (I believe.) In addition to that, there's the Automatic Warning System (AWS). That's probably the beeping you hear - on approach to a signal, a beep (or sometimes a bell or buzzer) will sound - one for a green light and a different one for a yellow or red light. If the driver fails to acknowledge the alert for a yellow/red light within something like 8 seconds, the emergency brakes are automatically applied. And if all THAT wasn't enough, there's also the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) which will automatically bring a train to a halt in a safe distance if it passes or is travelling too fast towards a red light - though this is generally only used on new projects and at signals which it's particularly dangerous to pass at danger, like those protecting junctions. Dead Man's Pedal needs to be released and repressed about every 2 minutes if there's no other action taken (movement of the power/brake handle[s], AWS cancel usually) in that time. It generally makes a beeping sound. AWS gives a 'bell' ding sound when the aspect ahead is green and a 'horn' sound if it is yellow/double yellow/red. AWS magnets are placed 180m on the approach to a signal, are ancient technology that was designed to combat issues with signal sighting in smog. We still use them today though! Jonnty has fallen into the TPWS trap (don't worry, so does the loving Rule Book!) however. TPWS retrofit, which was done in a mad panic after Southall and Ladbrooke Grove, meant the grids were fitted to all high risk signals with the aim of reducing the outcome of a SPAD by restricting the potential collision speed. It does not stop trains from SPADing or indeed colliding. Modern TPWS design however, which needs to be compliant to something called Technical Instruction 21, which is about so-called 'robust train protection'. This is done by calculating the Safe Overrun Distance and bringing a train which SPADs to stand before it reaches the Conflict Point. This is done by pouring over the scheme design and plugging a load of numbers into a super high-tech, cutting edge tool (i.e. an Excel Spreadsheet someone knocked up in a few hours), to play with the overspeed loops. This is all done at the concept design stage, before the scheme is given formal approval and goes out to contract for detailed design and construction. It is the part of the process I do day to day in fact, so here is a TPWS table off of the scheme plan I am currently working on!
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Oct 3, 2012 12:42
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