The Steam Ban around York

No we don't ban electrics, however whoever is responsible for the dewirement pays the full costs of any delays incurred.

PS I'm not necessarily endorsing Standard 4MT's view - just stating a fact. One has to understand the position of the other stakeholders involved and then find a way of working with them to find a solution. I suspect that isn't what has been happening here..

 

Hard to create a level playing-field for a franchised , often-subsidised , cap-and-collar - protected TOC with that of an independent railtour operator. I'm sure some TOC's would like freight gone as well ....

For some taxpayers railtours are the only time they use the railways they help pay for, and so the TOC's would be wise to consider who they would like to be driven off the network

Jon

 

I'm sure they would. Locally GNER would have liked Welwyn North closed as it's a bit of a bottle neck but FCC saw things differently of course as it was one of their stations.

 

I do not think so.

 

You are surely ignoring the fact that the delays caused by steam must be absolutely infinitesimal when compared with the ever-more frequent dewirements,freight train failures, and (very sadly)suicides, which we hear about on an almost daily basis. Secondly,how can you possibly compare a TOC like say,Virgin,running hundreds of trains a day with WCRC running,at most, a handful of steam charters each week,in terms of their liability to pay delay penalties.

NR are given a multi-billion pound subsidy by the UK taxpayer to run the network and,inconvenient though it may be,that includes "open access" for steam charters.

 

Very interesting indeed. Having spoken to my dear acquaintance Bob Cottrell of DBS who fires and drives on mainline steam tours (Hi Bob, saw you at Kensington Olympia on Braunton today), said that before DBS lost the Steam Dreams work, it was all coming too much with many more steam duties than he had in the last couple of years of his BR days out of Didcot in those dreaded diesel hydraulic days. Even Mrs C was giving him a bit of hard time. So much for retirement, I think she said. But I trust the paypacket at the end of the month made it all worthwhile.

 

Standard 4MT - what a dozy kind of statement is that? Steam has a right to run on all UK routes. This whole shambolic episode is down to ONE , yes ONE lineside fire with the Hall. What has happened since in beyond belief. I think and hope that at the end of this long and painful episode, many heads will roll at Network Rail York including the NR man at the top, and rightly so.

 

Does that apply to the NYMR also in your philosophy ?
Whitby is part if the Eastern Region.

 

Seems that Standard 4MT has his wires crossed with that statement, he claims to volunteer for NYMR yet seemingly be against steam on the mainline yet his heritage railway runs steam to Whitby which is mainline.

 

I wonder if the Robert Goodwill, MP for Scarborough and Whitby, who's also parliamentary under-secretary of state for transport, and who owns a steam wagon and a ploughing engine, might be interested?

 

Well, yes and no. Steam has the same rights as other 'open access' operators, and look what happened to Wrexham and Shropshire. Looking in the abstract, one could almost say that a similar thing happened to them in that they were chased from the very routes they operated.

At the end of the day, both sides probably leave something to be desired in this episode; I have also been led to believe that there MAY be a meeting between the parties this week, so we'll have to wait and see if heads bang together rather than roll. This is not Premier League football we are talking about, but the future of something we all love! However, with the Scottish Lowlander and the ACE safely under their belt, at least WCRC can go into any discussions from a position of strength.

 

You mean Electrics dont have a Diesel or a coach full of batteries in the train for these eventualities.... why not ?

 

Well new electrics probably will !

 

Would be interesting to read (though not to compile) statistically which restored locomotives have the best ' reliability' figures per...

 

I would think Clan Line would be at the top?

 

Closely followed by some engines based at Bury possibly.

 

Last week I emailed RTC and asked "How far in advance of 25/10 will you make the decision to cancel the train if this is necessary?"

Today I received the following reply: "We are hoping that the problem will be resolved and the trip will run as
planned. However, if this is not the case the trip could be cancelled as late as the week of the tour. This would obviously be as a last resort and one which we hope will not be necessary."

That is not helpful from the point of view of planning an alternative trip by service train as cheap advance tickets are out of the question. Thankfully the Mid Hants Gala is on that day

 

Clan Line has failed in service but I don't think 5043 has

Don

 

5043 suffered a motion failure IIRC not long after she returned to the ML. I remember watching a video of her sounding a bit sick departing Oxford being posted on YouTube. Other than this her record has been immaculate.

Edit: she suffered a bent radius rod.

 

From recollection she hobbled from Banbury to Didcot was taken off train which continued to destination diesel hauled.

In meantime I think a replacement was dispatched from Tyseley to Didcot and maybe even fitted so in theory she could have been put back on train to take back to Tyseley, however they were not allowed to for some reason.

This is all off the top of my head so I may have imagined some of it.

See Steam. Failing 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe races …: