CathEx to Holyhead - 20th April

With difficulty. Probably easier just to leave some sort of diesel loco on the back....

 

Given how long it appeared to take DBS to sort one to go fetch it, what makes you think their ability to find one to be tagged on the back all day would be any better ?, from what I heard a 57 was originally going to be used until it woulden't start at which point the 67 from Holyhead was summoned, interestingly enough both were Arriva/DRS liveried machines with no Red livery with either "EWS" or "DB Schenker" on the side anywhere to be seen, why wasn't a 66/67 immediately summoned off Warrington and sent via Frodsham ?.

 

Risking life & limb here, and not wanting to open this can of worms
but if there had been a box on the rear, would passengers be stuck at Crewe at 22:30/23:00 or nearing London?

Neil

 

The 600 odd passengers from the Charter are the least of the worries. The affects of todays failure are far and wide. Consider people heading for London stuck behind the charter, and the cancellations to other services on other lines due to lack of trains and crew.

 

I understand the option was considered but it seemed to be quicker to get the 67 there as driver was clearly available. Given where the train failed (or should I say air brakes) it was more or less in the middle of the two locations in question (Holyhead / Warrington). The priority at the time was to clear the track / get train moving asap regardless what liveried loco was going to rescue the train.

 

Worth noting that 67002 while blue is part of the DBS fleet leased to ATW and Arriva UK Trains (Including ATW) is owned by DB along with DBS. That said they are still - as far as paperwork is concerned - seperate companies and so have to stick within what is allowed by paperwork when working together.

 

As I said, never happened under the "umbrella" of BR. This country is run by paperwork & elf'n'safety these days, not like the old days where people just got on with the job.
Back to the train, If I am not mistaken isn't the WCRC stock used dual braked? If so couldn't they have changed modes to vacuum? Or is that far too simple??

 

Not all is... and to be fair how many Air Braked charter trains have had brake failures in the last X years. And if it had been a vac only train such as a vintage trains job that had failed 67002 would have been no use...

Oh and BR set the way for the contracts driven nature of privatisation with sectorisation. So latterly they would have had the same issues.

Its not elf and safety, its responsibility and certification. DBS are responsible for the train, so an ATW driver could not actually drive it (or even couple up to it) because in the event of an accident he would not be covered.

 

error

 

But doesn't tornado have 2 Air Compressors for exactly this reason?

 

"Answers".....nice one....

 

:frusty: Common sense is dead, RIP.
And it's my opinion that one of the reasons why common sense is dead is the compensation culture that now rules. "No can do if it's not in the book" What a load of ball cocks.

Quote:- 1. DRS 57302 is not allowed to rescue kettles blah blah blah safety case
2. ATW driver sourced for 67002 as 1Z99 from HHD.
3. Then 1Z99 to be cancelled as ATW don't have a safety case for their drivers to rescue kettle charters blah blah blah
4. 1Z99 re-instated when the DBS fireman on Tornado can handle 67s
5. ATW driver hands over 67002 to the DBS man to shunt & attach to train
6. Train to be caped at Crewe
7. ATW driver takes 67002 back to Holyhead

Ye gods, you couldn't make it up.

 

I am not sure why that chain of events is irritating people. DRS and ATW crews have no competancy in dealing with steam traction. ATW crews have no competancy in dealing with MkI Rolling stock.

In some ways it was lucky that this was a DB job with a DB fireman being a qualified driver able to relieve the ATW driver on DB traction reasonably close at hand and work the train forward. It is unlikely West Coast would have done any better as their nearest loco would have been Crewe if not Carnforth and their nearest driver... who knows!

 

Sorry to disappoint you sunshine but similar things happened in BR days. One trip I was on was delayed because driver did not have route knowledge beyond a certain point so we had to wait for a pilot to arrive to conduct hime over the route. On another we go delayed horribly as at one point the rostered loco didn't turn up for a loco change and later the rostered crew weren't there for a crew change. On that one we arrived back the next day! Different issues maybe to what affected Tornado's tour but railtours could still be something of a lottery back in the pre privatisation era.

 

Yesterday was one of those events that it's almost impossible to plan for, unless we resign ourselves to having a box on the back of every steam tour or at least have one following behind in close attendance "just in case". Something I'm sure none of us want to see.
I feel sorry for the train stewards who do the job because they enjoy doing it and for no remuneration. I've seen what they have to put up with from some stroppy passengers when things don't go to plan, they need the patience of saints when dealing with some.
I wonder what time those stewards got home after almost certainly being the last to get onward transport from Crewe.

 

Why would they need steam competency ?, they are just coupling up and driving the diesel, the steam crew already onboard would take care of the steam loco.

Seems like a "paperwork cop out" to me when in reality it could work easily enough with a short chat between crews.

 

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. It gets very messy when a driver signs the traction, but is driving a train being operated by another company. It brings in to question everything from who is responsible for what to who is being paid for what. The most the ATW 67 hauled service is loaded to is 6 MkIII's and a DVT so from a train handling point of view it would be quite different.

Funnily enough there has been some kind of inter-company operation recently when ATW and Chiltern shared the operation of a loco hauled set from Wrexham to Wembley. It was planned very quickly, but by that I mean 4 weeks rather than 3 hours.

 

I don't think in this case it was the availability of a rescue loco, one wasn't too far away. It was a case of who can do what? If you haven't signed a bit of bog paper, you can't do it & sod the consequences.

 

I thought that as well & was going to mention it.