The Mayflower - 6/09/25

What do you mean by the Network Rail pilot?

 

A Network Rail person is required to clip points at Paignton, appears they were delayed by an hour delaying access to the Kingswear branch.
Local paper had great fun.. 'broken down steam loco blocks level crossing for an hour, causing traffic chaos'.

 

Thank you.

Seems like an awful lot of hassle, I always thought it was a case of the points were changed by Exeter Box and the train just went from NR metals to the PDSR and vice-versa on the return. Thank you for informing me.

 

That will be a MOM ( Mobile Operations Manager) then. In the past we have even needed one to unlock a padlock to allow a tanker access at a water stop. Something more pressing at the same time, or road traffic delays means you wait.

 

Bluebell have an arrangement with Oxted Box where the BB track points signals etc are released by Oxted box and both BB @ Network rail accept a train on or off BB by an interlocked ground frame etc etc. This is a 24 hour arrangement 7 days a week. It may be a point clip is cheaper than a similar arrangement such as BB for PDSR.

 

I believe there are several reasons why MOM's are needed to secure rarely used crossing points, if they are not fitted with locks themselves, normally when used by passenger trains. IIRC this arose in the events leading up to the Stonehaven accident albeit to emphasise I don't recall it having any direct effect I just recall reading about the process in the description of events leading up to the accident.