Fire Risk

I can’t imagine anybody of sound mind expecting steam to run right now.

 

Apologies I no longer have the information available as I did last year for a more broad outlook, but the information I have suggests at least the NW and Central area is Black until at least 25th July.

 

BBC News - UK weather: no widespread rain in forecast as heatwave continues - BBC Weather
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cvge2zq0zg3o

 

Which inaccuracies? It's written by Daniel (dormant NatPres member and former editor of the mainline section in Steam Railway) who is usually pretty clued up on these things.

 

All in all I’d say what a load of b**locks that article is!

“The engine, Black Five No.44871, was being towed by a diesel locomotive – meaning its boiler did not need to be fired up for the 70-mile journey” - Well that’s incorrect. It needed to be in steam for lubrication purposes, otherwise it would have needed rods removing, etc.


“Yet a video posted online by a train enthusiast showed smoke belching from its chimney” - So some coal has been put on, to keep a small fire going to keep steam for lubrication. Can’t really avoid that.


“Last Friday’s fire led to the West Coast Main Line being closed” - Funny because 44871 was still in the Highlands on Friday.


“Network Rail is investigating whether the Black Five, which is understood to have operated an excursion to Holyhead the day after the fire, was responsible for the fire.” - Well firstly it didn’t operate to Holyhead the day after, the tour was diesel. And secondly the article claims the cause was certainly 44871, but also quotes Network Rail as investigating the cause.

 

Clearly they are not that clued up

 

Nice to see the quality of reporting doesn't seem to improve even on leaving SR, albeit looking on the bright side with it being in the Telegraph I'm surprised blame wasn't laid at the door of asylum seekers or Keir Starmer....

 

However, back to the situation, I can't see any relief for a long time yet. Speaking as an amateur weather watcher it seems that we are more and more often experiencing long, warm, dry spells, even in early spring when they are less obvious. We have the added drying from a strong easterly wind in the south at the moment. Our climate, especially the summer, is taking on all the characteristics of a Mediterranean regime. I imagine that will continue and intensify year-on-year as weather patterns continue to shift. The much-hyped 'super El Nino' developing in the Pacific at the moment may have a temporary wetter knock-on impact next summer but that is very uncertain. Very simply, much of Britain away from the Highlands is becoming drier in summer. The impact of this drying goes beyond simple fire risk, as earthworks and structures are becomng more stressed by ground drying and movement.

The impact for steam is obvious - a greater incidence of high fire risk. I think tour operators are going to have to look seriously at their summer plans, and introduce sensible fall-back options onto non-steam haulage without severe penalties for them - i.e. warning potential passengers very prominently of the increasing risk of steam being banned on any particular day and that bookings are at bookers' risk of being non-steam on the day. This may well reduce demand, but that is the reality of the situation.

 

I refer the honourable member to the issue of oil-firing a Merchant Navy pacific I made a few posts ago.

Bryan

 

It comes across a bit sloppy to me.

For example (and ignoring the points raised by others):

An insider suggested that the cost of the delays would be almost £300,000, with the taxpayer picking up the vast majority of that.
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OK, fair enough. But then the next paragraph says:

Charter train companies including WCR typically pay £60.68 per minute of delays caused by their trains, suggesting that the 4,805 delay minutes incurred over the weekend could lead to a bill of £291,567.40.
​

So on the one hand we are told there is a £300k bill that will largely fall on the taxpayer, but in the very next paragraph it suggests that it will be WCR who pay.

Which is it? In the old days, newspapers had sub-editors that would have picked up on inconsistencies like that, and got the journalist to either clarify, or rewrite if it was still unclear. But here you just get both versions presented in the same article.

With such obvious mistakes, it's hard to hold much credence with the rest of the article.

Tom

 

IIRC charter operators have the bill capped at a certain level - so both comments are correct, as the train operator will be liable up to that cap, with the taxpayer picking up the rest.

 

That's not how it reads - the second paragraph says "charter operators pay ..." with no further qualification.

Tom

 

The precise quote is “charter operators typically pay…” - which is true but over-simplistic. I suspect that either the original report is poor, and/or the editing has ripped out words without paying attention to context. As it’s the Telegraph in what are now not glory days, I suspect the latter

 

I was just providing an answer to your query where the article doesn't!
When the 'journalist' can't even get the day of the incident correct then I wouldn't give much time to the rest. As someone delayed by several hours on the VT Liverpool trip and not getting home until 4am Sunday morning I definitely know when the fire took place!
Not that I would pay much attention to anything in The Telegraph tbh, which gave up on serious journalism for propaganda many years ago.

 

Quite a good topic for Green Signals during the silly season if Nigel ever reads this. How does delay attribution work and who pays it? I suspect it's not just charters but also focs and possibly even open access operators who are capped. So the money goround is almost entirely public money sloshing around between pots. I may be wrong.....

 

Simple, first bit gets the perpetually outraged angry and then they don't bother reading the rest, Telegraphs job done!

 

Pretty clueless you mean surely?! The article has no clue at all.

 

Indeed - I was talking only about current and likely near-ish future steam capabilities. Given the costs I imagine a main line oil-fired class 7 or 8 must be several years away.