Miller's alive!

Good news from Neville Hill for fans of both Valentas and clag!

41001's engine was successfully started just after 18:00 last night.

Congratulations to all involved at Project Miller.
 

Sedgefield MP exposes massive cuts to IEP

Oh dear!

It looks like the IEP project has been reduced to plumping the cushions and painting the buffers of the HST fleet.

This from Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson yesterday:

I also wish to discuss Hitachi, which I always mention when I can because it provides a massive boost to the north-east economy; it is providing the biggest private sector investment in the north-east since Nissan. Hitachi is going to build a £90 million factory—a train-building facility—in my constituency at Newton Aycliffe. 

The company is going to refurbish the rolling stock for the east coast main line and for the great western line into Wales. Hitachi is going to create 500 jobs, with thousands in the supply chain. 

Either a little knowledge is a dangerous thing or Marsham Street is to be saluted for its frugal perspicacity. 

UPDATE: This from The Cynic, who has discovered even greater savings... 

Well, it won't take them very long to paint the 'buffers of the HST fleet'

The remaining power cars have has just 16 buffers fitted between them!

FGW mark HM Queen's Diamond Jubilee

This from First Great Western...

Good effort.

Old Lady lifts skirts to break record

Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
A First Great Western HST broke speed record from Plymouth yesterday afternoon with record time of 2 hr 43 minutes.

Not bad for a 35-year-old dowager.

FGW will be hoping that Messrs Osborne and Cable have noted in advance of next week's spending review...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

Not sure that a dowager would strip down to five cars and go like smoke.

Perhaps we should refer to 'train of a certain age'.

Certainly IC125 is more Anne Bancroft than Margaret Rutherford.

Here's to you Mrs Robinson

UPDATE: This from The Skip...

84139 PLYMOUTH 12:50 12:49A 1 EARLY
73000 PADDINGTN 15:31 15:33A 2 LATE

Sadly booked for 2h41, did it in 2h44, saeth TRUST!

UPDATE: This from a Mr Tony Miles...

TRUST is a rounder-up of figures..

I was at the table in front of official timer John Heaton - he is rather more accurate than TRUST!
(and I was wearing a radio controlled watch - as supplied to many TOCs)

By my watch:

Train departed Plymouth at 12:49 & 55 seconds

Came to a halt at Paddington at 15:33 & 18 seconds

So - 2h 43m 23 seconds

TRUST lies - Mr Heaton told FGW "2:43 and a few seconds, I'm just checking the stopwatch" at which point FGW announced "2:43", so TRUST should probably say 2:43.

AND as a couple of bits of rather poor regulation cost 3.5 minutes - according to Mr Heaton - the official time could have been under 2:40 if only those errant signallers had done as well as the rest of their colleagues along the route!

I no longer trust TRUST...

UPDATE: This from a Mr Bruce, who claims he knows what he is talking about...

Why does Mr Miles no longer trust TRUST?

The results are exactly as expected. TRUST works in hh:mm and truncates the seconds.

"Train departed Plymouth at 12:49 & 55 seconds" will be captured by SMART to the second and stored in TRUST as 12:49 - 1m early.

"Came to a halt at Paddington at 15:33 & 18 seconds" will also be captured by SMART to the second and stored in TRUST as 15:33 - 2m late.

Now you may say that we should be working to seconds in TRUST - but aside from the cost of altering the software, what is the point when the contractually timetable is published to the nearest half-minute?

And what does departure mean if you start working to the nearest second? When the doors close? When the wheels turn? When the platform is vacant for its next use?

UPDATE: This from The Sleeper...

Noting Tony Miles comments on TRUST...which is older, an HST or the TRUST system?

UPDATE: This from the aforementioned Mr Bruce...

And in answer to the question, "which is older, an HST or the TRUST system?", it must be the HST because TRUST started its implementation in 1985, if I remember correctly, just a year before I started work on it. This was on the LMR, plugging into the LM's ATR system.

It didn't capture class 2 and 5 units across the entire network until the beginning of Railtrack days and contractual regimes.

And I have a vague recollection that it didn't do automatic data collection on the Western until early Railtrack days when it plugged into various bits of Western signalling.

UPDATE: This further update from Mr Miles...

The point I was making about TRUST is that it is irrelevant when determining a speed record... (especially when it rounds by removing the seconds in the way it does.. according to TRUST the train started moving 55 seconds before it actually did... remind me to pass that really useful information to the organisers of the 2012 Olympics - it will make the race timings so much easier...)

100m - 1 minute
200m - 1 minute
400m - 1 minute
800m - 2 minutes
1500m - 4 minutes

Need I go on?

UPDATE: It would appear so. More from Mr Miles...

And might I just add that for the purposes of setting a time record it is from the moment the train starts to move until the moment it stops... (As has this thread. Ed)

IEP in perspective

40 years ago this month...

Chief Engineer Terry Miller made the formal submission to the British Railways Board to develop the new 125 mile/h InterCity diesel train - offering a prototype with six coaches and two power cars ready to run 22 months after the funding was authorised.

And not a consultant in sight...

1955 and all that

This just in from Captain Deltic...

"Rollout of the prototype Deltic - then the most powerful single unit locomotive in the world - was not the only noteworthy event of 1955.

"The Boeing B52 also entered service with Strategic air command.

"Today, the Deltic is in the National Railway Museum, but the United States Airforce is reinstating a fourth squadron of B52, known to airmen as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat er... Feller).

"By comparison with the BUFF, our IC125 is a mere strippling at 30 years old.

It will easily maintain the highest standards of service until the MML and GWML are electrified."

Thinks, wasn't the Zombie train originally called HST2? Another reason for binning this expensive farrago.

HST versus Meridian

This from Matthew Parris in yesterday's Times...

"I'm missing the big, wide carriages with generous tables, high ceilings for luggage space, and ample gangways. The new trains are claustrophobic, with a padded cabin feeling, less headroom and narrow seats. They feel like aeroplanes. The old HSTs felt like ships."

The Fact Compiler bets he didn't his file copy from aboard the nasty mobile signal leeching crates.