Not All Important Projects Are Visible
I have recently come down the East Coast Main Line from Edinburgh to London. Starting at 05:40 in the morning there are up to 23 trains on that route during a typical day.
That is a lot of trains, carriages and seats and it only needs something small to go wrong for all the services to be delayed and even cancelled.
One of the biggest problems is that the line is crossed by other important routes, where say a freight train has to cross from east to west. So a slight problem can have a tremendous knock-on effect.
Last year, one of these crossings was eased by the opening of the Hitchin flyover, where Cambridge trains join and leave the main line.
Now another of these crossings has been eliminated with the opening of the North Doncaster Chord, which now takes heavy coal trains over the main line. A level crossing was also eliminated.
This is a quote from the linked article in Modern Railways.
The movement of coal to generate electricity is vital in keeping the UK’s lights switched on. Over 35 per cent of UK-consumed electricity is generated by coal moved by rail
I didn’t think that coal was still used to generate that amount of electricity.
Both the Hitchin and North Doncaster projects cost a few tens of million pounds and will help the East Coast Main Line to be more punctual.
But I have not seen either of them in mainstream media.
We need to find a way to tell the frustrated passenger on the train, that things will be getting better and that the engineers are doing their utmost.
One of the good things about the troubles in Dawlish, was all the high profile media attention that the project received.
It’s Only A Toilet For A Train
Some of the designs that impress me are ones where something is properly redesigned for the twenty-first or even the twenty-second century, often re-using the current outdated infrastructure.
That is why I like some of the architecture in the UK like the British Museum, the Tate Modern and Kings Cross Station have been extended in a modern style.
The UK Rail Industry has several stations on my list of good improvements, but it is also good at updating rolling stock. The stopgap High Speed Trains are still thundering to the extremes of the UK and who would predict, when the last one is retired from active service? If I live to a hundred, I suspect that some of these trains will outlive me! After all they would become a marketing man’s dream on a long tourist route like down to Cornwall, up to the North of Scotland or perhaps across Australia or Argentina, offering unprecedented comfort in a vintage train. We’ve also got the example of the HST’s humble cousins, the Class 455, which scrubbed up so well, some passengers thought they were new trains.
The UK Rail Industry has an expensive road block coming up in 2020, with the Persons of Reduced Mobility (PRM) legislation coming into force. Many older trains like the Class 156 would have to be scrapped and replaced if they couldn’t be updated to meet the new regulations.
But never underestimate the power of good design and engineering and one of the biggest problems of the refurbishment of the Class 156 described here, namely a fully-accessible toilet has been solved.
The new toilet has been designed and built by PCC.eu and they call it a Comfort Zone. I first saw it described in this month’s Modern Railways.
As I travel occasionally on some of the Greater Anglia trains, that have now been updated, I shall be interested to see how it works in practice.
As the floorspace needed is smaller than the traditional PRM toilet and providing decent on-train facilities is not just a UK problem, it looks to me that this is a classic where-there’s-muck-there’s-money design.
It also shows that one of the best ways to make money is to design or invent something.
The Other Side Of The New Bus For London
My Internet trawl picked up this story from the BBC in Northern Ireland, which talks about the jobs being created by Wrightbus in Ballymena. This is second paragraph.
The company is making a total investment of £14m – more than £10m of which will be for research and development projects.
So will the rest of the world be seeing their own New Buses?
All of this shows the value of good design and engineering.
Incidentally, now that the route 38 is now mainly New Buses for London, everybody seems to be very pleased and talks about it on the buses.
So good design and more space puts a smile on peoples’ faces too!
Most of our trains, even the older refurbished ones, are some of the best in the world for passenger comfort, so why shouldn’t we have similar standards on buses everywhere?
What The Heck Is This?
I like properly engineered or crafted products.
What The Heck Is This?
As a clue, it is cast in solid brass!
Can anybody tell me, what to use it for?
Jack Kinzler
Read his obituary in the Washington Post. This is the introductory paragraph.
As chief of the all-purpose machine and tool shop at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Mr. Kinzler specialized in down-to-earth solutions for beyond-the-stratosphere problems.
They don’t make them like him any more!
We’ve Now Got Some Information On The Sewer!
I went to the View Tube on Monday and saw this sign outside.
We’ve Now got Some Information On The Sewer!
It’s only one sign, but I suppose it’s a start.
But we need more boards like this on all big buildings, projects, stations and bridges to inspire the next generation.
Using The Power Of Water
We’ve seen enough rain this winter and it has caused a lot of damage at places like Dawlish. This story from the BBC, shows how to make working safe at Dawlish, the Devon Fire Brigade is using water to bring down an unsafe landslip. Here’s the first bit.
Fire crews are pumping sea water on to the cliff at Dawlish to bring down 350,000 tonnes of potentially unstable rock and soil in a controlled landslip.
Network Rail called in firefighters to prevent a “catastrophic” collapse that could have posed a risk to workers repairing the main Devon railway line.
What I find interesting, is that lots of people are against hydraulic fracking or fracking, which on a grand and more open scale, Network Rail are doing at Dawlish.
Is This Sense For Somerset?
It would appear that the report commissioned by the government is going to recommend a barrage of the River Parrett downstream from Bridgwater, according to reports like this one on the BBC.
Over forty years ago, my modelling software Speed was used by the now-superseded Water Resources Board to model water flows in river basins. I’m sure that these days, scientists and engineers could do much better, but then a scientifically correct solution often ignores powerful interests like farmers, the RSPB and politicians, who know a cause to get themselves re-elected.
The only thing I will predict with certainly, is that there will be a large argument over what is to be done.
They should do what Network Rail seem to doing at Dawlish. And that appears to be getting the job done as quick as possible using every possible method. The BBC is now stating that the line will open on April the 4th. So it would appear that the engineers are winning!
My one time neighbour in Suffolk, a past Colonel in an Engineering Regiment in the British Army, said that in case of war, you burn all Rule Books. He did say, that you keep the Instruction Manuals.
It’s certainly a war our there against the floods!
Rebuilding For The Future
In Modern Railways this month, there are a series of articles about how old engines and trains are being rebuilt or used to make up for a shortage of new motive power.
Class 73
The refurbishment and the fitting of new modern diesel engines to some of the 1960s-built Class 73 locomotives is described. One aim is to give them another 10-20 years of life.
Class 37
The Class 37 is a few years older than the Class 73 and also may be getting new engines to prolong their lives.
Class 365
There is also a report on the refurbishment of the Class 365 electric multiple units. Wikipedia says this.
Starting from January 2014, the first trains in the fleet will undergo a refurbishment by Bombardier Transportation at their Ilford site, some of which will be completed on a two-part basis with a second stage starting from the summer of 2014. The first unit to be put back into service is 365 517, which began operations on the 16th of January 2014.[8] The initial refurbishment comprises new seat upholstery, new flooring, interior and exterior repaint and an engineering overhaul to maintain reliability. The second stage of upgrades will bring the units in line with the latest disability regulations by installing two wheelchair bays, new external door buttons and vestibule grab handles, a new wheelchair-accessible toilet, a new fully automated passenger information system with audio and visual announcements, and a call-for-aid in the wheelchair and toilet areas. This will be retrofitted to units that have already undergone refurbishment prior to the start of works.
That looks pretty comprehensive.
Class 20 And Western Champion
This is probably the strangest use of old locomotives and describes how the 1950s-designed Class 20 and the Class 52 called Western Champion.
The Class 20 probably took part in the most outrageous train movement, ever done in or from the United Kingdom. Three Class 20s took a train of a eight thousand tonnes of aid to Pristina in Kosovo. It’s described in detail here.
Old Trains As New
This article describes how the Class 321 electric multiple units are being as the article says re-imagined. A demonstrator has been built.
All of this emphasises that rebuilding trains is something that we’re good at.
The Connection Between The First Tanks And The Classic Routemaster Bus
At first glance, it would appear that there would be little connection between Little Willie, which was one of the prototypes leading to the first tanks of the Great War and the classic Routemaster bus of the 1950s.
But I’ve just read this article on the BBC’s web site about how the tanks were developed in Lincoln. The article talks about the two designers.
The work needed more than technical experience, it needed two very particular men – William Tritton and Lieutenant Walter Wilson.
“Tritton was a brilliant engineer,” says Mr Pullen. “And he was a brilliant leader. He got things done.
“He turned Foster’s around with new ideas and new markets.
“Couple him with Walter Wilson, who was also a good engineer but a genius with things like gearboxes, and they made a brilliant partnership.”
It goes on to describe how they locked themselves in a hotel room and scribbled designs on envelopes and fag packets.
And the rest as they say is history!
Walter Wilson went on to form a company called Self-Changing Gears, that developed pre-selector gearboxes. I never drove a vehicle with one of these gearboxes, but I’ve sat just behind the driver on many a London Transport RT-bus and watched the driver select the gear and then hit the gear change pedal to engage it. The use of this type of transmission, was to make the effort of the constant stopping and starting easier on the driver.
Routemasters , it would appear had a fully-automatic version of the transmission, linking them back to the original tanks.
The Anonymous Widower 