Has The Queen Ever Ridden In a Battery-Powered Train?
Countryfile this evening had a special program about the Queen’s Scottish house and estate at Balmoral.
One archive film, showed her arriving at Ballater station in a train hauled by a locomotive with a number that looked slightly familiar. Looking it up, it was a B1 Class locomotive, which I must have seen regularly, when I went train-spotting on the West Anglia Main Line in the 1950s.
So I looked up Ballater station in Wikipedia.
The station, which was on the 43 mile long Deeside Railway from Aberdeen, is now closed but there was this paragraph on Wikipedia under Services.
When the battery multiple unit was introduced, services were doubled to six trains a day from 21 April 1958, and Sunday service reinstated. The line was chosen for testing the unit because the stations were well spaced and the 1 in 70 ruling gradients would require substantial discharge rates.
As someone very interested in railways at the time, I’d never heard of British Rail’s use of battery trains.
Remarkably, the battery electric multiple train, is still in existence and is being preserved at the Royal Deeside Railway, not far from Balmoral.
It looks to me. that a lot of engineers at Derby, made sure that this train survived.
So what was it like?
- It was based on the Derby Lightweight diesel multiple unit.
- The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board initiated the design and was a joint sponsor.
- The train had an operating speed of 60 mph.
- The train was powered by two 100 kW traction motors.
- Power was provided by 416 lead-acid cells, giving a total of 440 V and 1070 A hour capacity.
- The batteries weighed nine tonnes.
- There were seats for twelve First Class passengers and a hundred and five in Second Class.
It couldn’t been that bad a train, as it ran between Aberdeen and Ballater station from 1958 to 1962.
There’s more about the train here.
Conclusion
But I can’t help wondering, if the Queen ever used the train!
These Dreaded Glasses Are Starting To Appear In Hotels
In my hotel in Novara, I didn’t get a proper glass or even a hard plastic one, like those I use at home.
I got one of these design crimes!
Consider.
- They are single-use plastic of the worst kind.
- They are difficult to open with my gammy hand.
- When I opened one in Germany I destroyed the glass.
But the worst thing, is that they are unstable and one tipped over in Novara and ruined my paper, in which I was doing the sudoku.
Ban them!
Are The UK’s Train Troubles Caused By A Perfect Storm?
I have wondered, why this year we have had such troubles over the May timetable change.
Let’s consider various factors.
The Average Train Driver
I would suspect that the demographics of the average train driver are very much like the average working person, who earns about the same salary.
They would be quite likely to be married or living with a partner and to have 2.4 children, some of whom could still be at school.
Like many of us, they probably enjoy a responsible drink, supporting and watching sport, especially football, and having the occasional holiday in the sun.
Some train drivers have had a more stressful winter than many, due to the Beast From The East and other bad weather.
Remember too, that not all drivers work in warm, air-conditioned trains.
So I suspect that like most of us, many were or still are looking for a holiday to blow away the winter.
The Late May Bank Holiday On May 28th
Next year it’s the 27th and in 2020 it’s the 25th.
Is this too close to the timetable change?
The Massive Timetable Change On May 20th
Normally, the May timetable change is much smaller and I can’t remember one that has caused so much disruption.
But this year, there was completely knew services for three major pieces of new infrastructure; Blackpool |Electrification, Thameslink and the Ordsall Chord.
Living in London, I don’t have day-to-day observations on the Northern services, but Thameslink has meant changes to many other services in the South East. Some of these new services seem to have a very high incidence of cancellation, which have been put down to driver shortage.
It also appears that here in the South East, the second week of the new timetable, could have been worse than the first week.
Surely, things should get better, with each week!
The Late Publishing Of The May 20th Timetable
This surely didn’t help and until we get a definitive view as to why Network Rail were so late with publishing it, I will not speculate.
The Beast From The East
This obviously had various effects on the railway industry.
As I said earlier, it probably contributed to the need for drivers to have a week off.
But did it also interrupt the training of drivers for the new routes?
Non-Delivery Of New Trains
The North was also due to get some extra trains.
Some Class 170 trains were supposed to be cascaded from ScotRail, but due to non-delivery of their replacements, they didn’t arrive.
Some Class 769 trains were supposed to be in service in December 2017, but they have not arrived.
The World Cup In Russia
This stretches from the 14th of June to the 15th of July.
This is the same length as 2014 in Brazil, but does the late May Bank Holiday put pressure on where working people can take a much needed holiday?
Conclusion
This year all these factors came together and the result was chaos!
I suspect, that a lot of drivers and other staff took a much-needed and well-deserved holiday after the May Bank Holiday!
Perhaps, it would be better to have the timetable change in June?
The Anonymous Widower 