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Bozza posted: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. Are these loops the big yellow things between the rails that you can see as you're leaving Paddington? They are long yellow rectangles covered in muddy bootprints with DO NOT STEP etched into them. (basically I was wondering what they were and now seems a good time to ask)
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Oct 3, 2012 12:49
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Bozza posted: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. I knew about the not necessarily preventing a SPAD part hence why I said "safe distance" but I didn't realise that on retrofit it was basically aimed at mitigation rather than prevention. Interesting. Cool table too! e: I've just remembered that the first time I understood what you meant about Christian Woolmar being good on the historic but bad on the modern was when he argued for getting rid of signal overlaps "because we have TPWS now to avoid the need for that." Hmm. Jonnty fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Oct 3, 2012 |
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Oct 3, 2012 12:54
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Are these loops the big yellow things between the rails that you can see as you're leaving Paddington? They are long yellow rectangles covered in muddy bootprints with DO NOT STEP etched into them. Here's some pictures of AWS magnets along with more information about it than you'd ever possibly want to know: http://www.railsigns.co.uk/info/aws1/aws1.html As Bozza said, you'll see them at some point shortly before a signal. And here's some pictures of TPWS loops for completeness: http://www.railsigns.co.uk/info/tpws1/tpws1.html
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Oct 3, 2012 12:57
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Are these loops the big yellow things between the rails that you can see as you're leaving Paddington? They are long yellow rectangles covered in muddy bootprints with DO NOT STEP etched into them. Nope, those are (yet another) safety system, Automatic Train Protection, which is only used on the Great Western Main Line and the Chiltern Lines. Unlike TPWS, which is essentially a passive system (you go over too quick, train jams in the emergency brake), ATP actively monitors the drivers speed and makes sure they maintain it under a braking curve on the approach to signals relative to a target speed, or it kicks in and brakes for them. It was going to be rolled out nationwide (this was before TPWS was even on the drawing board, C1992/3ish) but the Tories didn't want to shell out a load of money to pay for it as they were more concentrated at the time on privatising BR. These days its all hosed and hard to get replacement parts for (it was only intended as a trial) so we're currently trying to string it out long enough until we can fit ETCS down the GWML. edit: Just as an aside, in railway parlance, TPWS grids are called 'toast racks' 
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Oct 3, 2012 13:00
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Here's one I took earlier (well, I say took, those are my boots in the top right)
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Oct 3, 2012 13:05
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Bozza posted:Here's one I took earlier (well, I say took, those are my boots in the top right) Are these bootmarks all over the "Do not step"? Why is it a "do not step" anyway?
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Oct 3, 2012 13:14
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Munin posted:Are these bootmarks all over the "Do not step"? Yes, yes they are. We've got it on our 'Wall of World Class' in the office. You can also note in this picture that when they poured the slab track for the rails they forgot to take into account any signalling equipment in the 4 foot, so someone has taken a jackhammer to the concrete to fit the beacon at the correct height relative to the running rails. As for the do not step, no idea. All that's under there is a coil of wire between the two end pieces and some air. The Belgian system it is based on doesn't have it.
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Oct 3, 2012 13:24
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Got a laugh out of this: http://newsthump.com/2012/10/04/exclusive-firstgroup-west-coast-tender-leaked/
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Oct 4, 2012 13:46
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Efficiency news from the RMT http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=164320quote:Evidence unearthed by rail union RMT has revealed that all of the rail franchises currently eligible for receiving taxpayer financial support under loaded contract rules are now claiming it with the exception of Northern Rail and London Midland who could move onto the same special measures shortly. Virgin West Coast are getting more taxpayer subsidies because their projections were wrong? Well better let them carry on with the franchise then clearly they're the most trustworthy and best at running the serv  In conclusion, 
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Oct 5, 2012 10:49
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Whenever Southerners complain about overcrowding on their 12-car trains, I love to point out that one of the busiest routes out of Leeds (Leeds-Harrogate) is still operated by 2-car Pacers. Even in rush hour (though a couple of trains will get an extra car added on). Given the poo poo contract terms they were handed, Northern have actually done pretty well in comparison to other franchises. They wouldn't get subsidy anyway, seeing as the bulk of it goes to London routes...
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Oct 5, 2012 15:40
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I don't really have any major show-stopping complaints about Northern. That may just be Stockholm Syndrome.
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Oct 5, 2012 15:49
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I think Northern has the potential to be a really good TOC, it's just a shame about their rolling stock
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Oct 5, 2012 16:49
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Hezzy posted:I think Northern has the potential to be a really good TOC, it's just a shame about their rolling stock Northern's franchising agreement prevents them from suitably investing in the railway because the DfT didn't see rail in the North as that important. For the poo poo hand they've been given, Northern have done pretty loving well for themselves. Hopefully, given that rail travel in the North has grown immensely, DfT won't stipulate another no-growth agreement.
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Oct 5, 2012 17:50
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South West Trains are poo poo because they charge far too much for what should be well-travelled, densely-used and therefore profitable routes. They're also poo poo because they're trying to abolish buying tickets on trains, forcing you into the colossal queue at Paddington if you made the stupid mistake of not being psychic enough to realise you'd need to travel at short notice. They're poo poo because their revenue protection people basically demand money with menaces. They're poo poo because in the second decade of the 21st century their trains still lack wifi. They play adverts in the trains encouraging everyone to follow them on Twitter just to really drive the point home. Also the seats on their commuter trains were designed by supercomputers to be as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
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Oct 5, 2012 18:32
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Bozza posted:
I always believed that the rigorous fencing was due to the MP William Huskisson being too eager to lick the arse of the Prime Minister. Either way it doesn't upset my world view too much.
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Oct 5, 2012 22:03
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Zephro posted:South West Trains are poo poo because they charge far too much for what should be well-travelled, densely-used and therefore profitable routes. They're also poo poo because they're trying to abolish buying tickets on trains, forcing you into the colossal queue at Paddington if you made the stupid mistake of not being psychic enough to realise you'd need to travel at short notice. They're poo poo because their revenue protection people basically demand money with menaces. They're poo poo because in the second decade of the 21st century their trains still lack wifi. They play adverts in the trains encouraging everyone to follow them on Twitter just to really drive the point home.
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Oct 5, 2012 22:12
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As much as First are a shower of arseholes I've always been happy with Scotrail  That being said I do most of my travelling on the suburban network in and around Glasgow so it could well be the case that the rest of the country just shares one grimy train
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Oct 6, 2012 18:53
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Scotrail are ludicrously overpriced if nothing else.
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Oct 6, 2012 18:57
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There is that, although it's a criticism that can be levelled against the entire rail network really. I was weighing up how much it'd cost to get to this year's ATP festival in East Sussex by various ways and a return rail ticket would cost a full £140, whereas the same journey with a flight from Glasgow to London comes to slightly over half that. It's one of the daftest things ever that flying manages to be cheaper than rail.
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Oct 6, 2012 20:06
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John Charity Spring posted:Scotrail are ludicrously overpriced if nothing else. If you stay within the SPT area it's not too bad. Go outwith that and Scotrail will try to crucify you.
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Oct 7, 2012 09:30
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Even in the SPT area it's a pisstake. I've literally bought private transport because fuel, insurance, MOT etc. works out cheaper than Scotrail returns. And the season ticket saves gently caress-all.
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Oct 7, 2012 10:58
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Wootcannon posted:Even in the SPT area it's a pisstake. I've literally bought private transport because fuel, insurance, MOT etc. works out cheaper than Scotrail returns. And the season ticket saves gently caress-all. I guess it depends on where you live. I get unlimited travel in Glasgow for a month for £81 which suits me fine. In comparison, a month's travel card in Paris, to cover about the same geographical area, would cost £80.45.
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Oct 7, 2012 11:57
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dadrips posted:There is that, although it's a criticism that can be levelled against the entire rail network really. I was weighing up how much it'd cost to get to this year's ATP festival in East Sussex by various ways and a return rail ticket would cost a full £140, whereas the same journey with a flight from Glasgow to London comes to slightly over half that. It's one of the daftest things ever that flying manages to be cheaper than rail. Clearly you're just not being flexible enough in which oddly timed trains you were willing / able to book.
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Oct 7, 2012 12:10
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Iohannes posted:I guess it depends on where you live. I get unlimited travel in Glasgow for a month for £81 which suits me fine. Yeah, I mean I'm only in the southside but they are a bit silly with the price rises as a percentage for that bit of Glasgow. £5-7 of fuel sorts me for a week of travel to work, but that'll just stretch to two returns.
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Oct 7, 2012 13:18
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Wootcannon posted:Yeah, I mean I'm only in the southside but they are a bit silly with the price rises as a percentage for that bit of Glasgow. £5-7 of fuel sorts me for a week of travel to work, but that'll just stretch to two returns. How much does it cost per week if you factor in insurance and tax?
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Oct 7, 2012 13:25
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I just spent the night in Leeds station after a gig, and let me just say - whoever designed benches with armrests so you couldn't lie down on them needs to go to jail for a very long time. And yeah I know why they did it, and that's still my view. Also First Great Western can't afford coaches with automatic doors, it's like travelling in the 1950s, but more expensive and less on time.
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Oct 7, 2012 13:35
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Jonnty posted:How much does it cost per week if you factor in insurance and tax? £16.
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Oct 7, 2012 16:31
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mrpwase posted:I just spent the night in Leeds station after a gig, and let me just say - whoever designed benches with armrests so you couldn't lie down on them needs to go to jail for a very long time. And yeah I know why they did it, and that's still my view. They were built in the 1970s and I believe are the oldest mainline express trains in use in western Europe. The Free Market, everyone.
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Oct 7, 2012 17:34
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Each time I travel on FCC either to my dads in St Neots or down to Gatwick to see the girlfriend in  I take great delight in tweeting all the faults of the train to the FCC twitter account.Last trip I took each and every carriage stank of piss and the doors nearest me would smash open two inches from the air pressure of a passing high speed train.
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Oct 7, 2012 19:51
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Blacknose posted:They were built in the 1970s and I believe are the oldest mainline express trains in use in western Europe. The Free Market, everyone. And yet they've been re-engined at least once and refurbished multiple times so that's pretty much irrelevant. While new trains are nice, particularly when the old ones have major problems (see Pacers), you've sometimes got to think of them like houses. If there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them, they can go on for ages, though you might need to replace the boiler, put in insulation or give the place a lick of paint from time to time. HSTs are certainly better than a lot of the modern trains - for example, they don't constantly smell of sewage or have annoying noise and vibration from under-floor engines. What you really ought to be complaining about is FGW's new high-density seating layouts which, I gather, are awful. If you look at East Coast's HSTs, they're pretty nice in both first and standard class because they were refurbished well. In the next few years there's plans to add automatic doors and make the trains disability legislation compliant so they can stay in traffic till after 2020. And I hope they do, because modern long-distance diesel stock is generally pretty crap.
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Oct 7, 2012 19:59
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It's depressing to know that we'll still be using diesel for long distance trains instead of electric after 2020.
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Oct 7, 2012 20:03
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If they put in automatic doors and FGW hadn't completely ruined their sets they wouldn't be terrible. I hadn't actually thought of them like that before, as merely a structure/shell rather than a train as a whole. I guess it makes sense, when put that way.
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Oct 7, 2012 20:04
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Cerv posted:It's depressing to know that we'll still be using diesel for long distance trains instead of electric after 2020. This is of course the main difference with Europe. Though our electric stock isn't too nice either - I've never been in one but I gather the seating layout in Pendolinos are pretty bad for views out of their tiny windows.
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Oct 7, 2012 20:17
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Speaking of the 2020s, Johnson's election pledge to introduce "driverless" tube trains has been forced back to at least then by minor technical issues such as 'reality'. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-underground-scrap-plans-for-driverless-trains-after-safety-concerns-8201540.html
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Oct 8, 2012 10:23
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It's the 60th anniversary of the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash today, go read about what led to AWS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_and_Wealdstone_rail_crash 
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Oct 8, 2012 10:29
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Cerv posted:Speaking of the 2020s, Johnson's election pledge to introduce "driverless" tube trains has been forced back to at least then by minor technical issues such as 'reality'. And yet Paris already has two such lines, one of which is the oldest Metro line in Paris, retrofitted with platform edge doors and shiny new cabless trains.
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Oct 8, 2012 10:58
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PkerUNO posted:And yet Paris already has two such lines, one of which is the oldest Metro line in Paris, retrofitted with platform edge doors and shiny new cabless trains. Before you go any further, please go and research the history of the underground, taking particular note that at its most basic level it is a networked clusterfuck of different lines built at different times by different companies, all with their own differences in terms of loading gauge, height, etc.
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Oct 8, 2012 11:16
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Cerv posted:Speaking of the 2020s, Johnson's election pledge to introduce "driverless" tube trains has been forced back to at least then by minor technical issues such as 'reality'. We already have that in Denmark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkdQSHV3oQU
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Oct 8, 2012 11:21
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Zero Gravitas posted:Before you go any further, please go and research the history of the underground, taking particular note that at its most basic level it is a networked clusterfuck of different lines built at different times by different companies, all with their own differences in terms of loading gauge, height, etc. I'm not saying it's easy, just that it isn't in the realms of fantasy. I know the Tube is a mess and it wasn't built with the future in mind, but the Victoria and Jubilee Lines are obvious candidates. Agree it's best not to think of the Circle/Metropolitan/Hammersmith/District. On the other hand, the Jubilee Line automation project didn't inspire much confidence, I'll give you that.
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Oct 8, 2012 11:58
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PkerUNO posted:And yet Paris already has two such lines, one of which is the oldest Metro line in Paris, retrofitted with platform edge doors and shiny new cabless trains. I posted the article to highlight that Johnson's election pledge had no plan to back it up. The significant engineering challenges will not be overcome with hot air, but here he is just playing politics with vital national infrastructure. In short: he's a Tory. Cerv fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 21:01
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