December 24th Santa Special

Actually this is an instance of the classic "travelling salesman" problem, which gets impossible beyond a small number of calling points, and in this case complicated by the limited choices of available routes.

 

Pre Beeching routes are still available in the sky. 9 reindeer and a 9F over the S&D - dream on.

 

What! Father Christmas eaten too many mince pies?

 

Apparently Rudolf has been disabled from the footplate via the TPWS !

 

That's the thing with the internet, also sorts of false rumours get a life of their own with little confirmatory evidence. The version I heard, Santa was due to stop and pick up Rudolf, but failed to react in time to his red nose and overshot by 700 yards, coming to rest across Lapland Junction...

Tom

 

Oh dear, not another case of TPWS interference.........

Cheers,

Alan

 

It never reins-deer but it pours!

 

Sometime in the early 2000's a spoof train crew diagram was issued which as far as I can remember looked like this -
9X00 2359 North Pole Depot to North Pole Depot
Duty NP001 25 Dec
Sign on : 2320 24 Dec
Duty Length: 4h00m
Mileage: N/A
Traction type Reindeer. (MU control in use)
Route pilot driver provided by Saltley
N POLE D 23.59
N POLE JN 00/01
WAO
N POLE JN 02.58 02OP59
N POLE D 03.00
Work as Ordered under control arrangements.
Special Red uniform to be worn.
Food Supplied during duty (Mince pies)
Drugs and Alcohol regulations suspended for this duty only.

Unfortunately it went beyond internal circulation around train planning and spread far and wide across the railway.
The best reply was an e-mail from Southern Freight control asking for the load limits for a VSTP special from North Pole D to Sheerness (I think) for removal of many tons of reindeer poo!

Anyway, Happy Christmas to all forum members and contributors and the occasional lurking former special traffic clerk!

Cheers, Neil

 

Forget General Relativity, Father Christmas (never "Santa", if you don't mind!) uses a limited implementation of the Infinite Improbability Drive for this job. Rather than passing through every point in the universe at the same time, he just needs to pass through those points where there's a station with a Red Nose Parcels office,as listed on that RTT timetable. I understand that he only took 8 reindeer this year, rather than the planned ten. Even with their hooves trimmed, NR objected that the middle pair of deer where likely to trip over check rails, risking derailing the sleigh.