Steam Dreams 2023

It is indeed very good customer care and recovery on a par with legacy airline carriers, although even with them you would have not got the consequential loss of the rail tickets refunded.
All the more interesting as many on other forums from with in the industry seem to object to any form of "aviationisation" of the rail industry.

 

It is the on board service that gives LSL an edge over their competitors. People moan sometimes that they're a bit more pricey but, as anyone who travels with them regularly will tell you, the service every passenger receives on board is absolutely first rate. I've not travelled on the Northern Belle or British Pullman, but I can't imagine how they could offer service that is better than LSL's. Just look at their various Trip Advisor pages. Loads and loads of 5 star reviews and all of them due to the on board service. The team are not unpaid volunteers, they are all paid staff with backgrounds in hospitality, and it shows. I wasn't on board the SSE but, by the sound of it, what could have been a huge PR disaster was handled as well as it could have been.

 

The cylinder end must have received a good wallop, I hope one end wasn't shattered. I was present when one silly fool tried to move a engine in steam with the right hand con rod off. There was a loud bang as the piston head hit the front end of the cylinder. Luckily the only damage was black paint being knocked off. I can claim all innocence ,I was only 15 at the time, only been at work a few weeks.

 

I wonder if the service would have been quite as good if JH had not been on board. It may well have been - I'm not casting any aspersions, but his presence must have helped by having a decision-maker on site.

 

Wow, you were keen! Well caught.

 

The initial service before we learnt Mr H was on was just as good. But then as you say the staff would have known he was on anyway. But I certainly wouldn’t have thought it would have been much different.

 

Does help when you finish work only half an hour before she came back in, talk from colleagues she was due to be held in the sidings at Guildford after a few shunt moves had taken place.

All the best
Matt

 

few photos added or said motion while at Guildford

all the best
Matt

 

Well, that's just cheating!

 

My clip from Worplesdon.

 

Happened with a Brit at Settle in the past didn't it?

 

70052

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settle_rail_crash

 

Interesting that the return crank and eccentric rod are in place. Put back after removal of the connecting rod?

 

Probably easier to reconnect them on the crank than remove to the expansion link. I'd have to find the photos from the 1991 big end failure on the test run but I think they did exactly the same thing after removing the con rod.

Presumably another diesel loco was required to drag the train back to Southall as Britannia would have been on the rear when it got back to Victoria in the small hours. Hopefully it won't be long before a replacement crosshead can be manufactured and fitted.

Regards,

Dan

 

Quite rightly, I suspect that the main priority for NR was preventing contagion to other services, and having one line blocked would be better than having up to three unexpected sections of train to berth somewhere (47, Main train, Support coach+70000). Having one disrupted location is by far the preferable situation to creating two or three locations spread several miles apart.

I can't find full details of platform lengths at Guildford, but a train of that length (47+12+Loco) could not easily be berthed everywhere. Additionally, leaving the stock at Guildford for an unpredictable length of time with no ETS from the 47 (assuming that is the means of supply through the train) might leave the passengers in a less favourable environment that they already had. On top of that would be the challenge to LSL of trying to manage 3 sites with the available staff.

Finally, on the modern railway that is geared up for multiple unit trains, and where there are not signalling and shunting staff sitting around waiting for the odd steam special to need assistance(!), just marshalling the necessary staff from NR to manage splitting, moving, protecting, returning, ensuring safety to move, coupling, moving, reforming and then moving again would just have lead to distraction for those rectifying the fault sufficiently to clear 70000 and even more delay over that which seems to have been minimised with the approach that was taken. Much simpler (and probably actually quicker) to have the far more simple process of blocking the line adjacent line, making the failed loco safe to move and removing the train as one unit.

 

All very good points, but I was assuming the support coach would stay with 70000 at Chilworth while the passengers were taken to Guildford, making an 11-coach rake with 47 only to be moved and berthed at Guildford (i.e,. fitting in a 12 car platform). Yes, though, perhaps containing the incident to one location was preferable. Given the location, time and severity of the incident I have to say on reflection it seems to have been handled as well as it could have been. Fortunate to have happened off the juice, too.

 

Return crank and eccentric rod refitted to drive the lubricator off the end of expansion link.

 

If it is on time I suspect it will be a serious dawdle, given the SWML timings!