9F Locomotives - Restrictions on Network Rail

I appreciate that 40kph is the "boundary" but to me it seems to have been brought forward through successive legislation right back to the Light Railways Act of 1896 rather than be established by modern risk assessment methods. On a railway with a good alignment and no level crossings it would seem rather hard to show that operation would be unsafe above that limit.

 

If anyone wants to go ahead with this, post #148 by Jon Pegler sounds like a good starting point.

Regarding dreaming, I once had a pet idea of reinstating Garsdale water troughs, but this one will be doing well if it gets onto a new thread.

 

You may not entirely agree and it is a fact that a heritage railway can put in place the necessary requirements to run at more than 25 mph. However, the reasons for not doing so are not in the LRO or T&WO but in ROGS and, more importantly, in the Railway Safety Regulations 1999. Yes, there is a power of exemption and there are plenty of examples of exemptions from Reg 4 & Reg 5 (with conditions) but none from Reg 3 and I have my doubts that the ORR would be inclined to grant such. The NYMR certainly couldn't get this for its operation to Whitby at a mere 30 mph. This means that ALL locos operating on the line would have to have TPWS.

 

AFAIK, there is nothing in the Light Railways Act 1896 that limits the speed to 25 mph. The speed limit has always been in the power of the Board of Trade/HMRI to agree with the Railway Company. A 'modern risk assessment' base has been used by governmentORR in drafting present day legislation, which defines a 40 kph boundary.

 

The ORR 'Guidance on Minor Railways' says:
"While bound by current railway legislation, in the spirit of the 1896 Act, government regulation is less stringent for minor railways running at a maximum speed of 25 mph than it is for the commercial operators that run at up to five times that speed. A minor railway will not normally be permitted to operate above the traditional speed limit. Any intention to operate above 25 mph should be discussed with HMRI as soon as possible."

So they're not ruling it out entirely but it doesn't look like they'd agree it easily.

 

Quite so, nor should they.

It would also be up to the hypothetical railway proposing a speed increase to justify it in risk management terms, as well as demonstrating their competence to do what they say they will do; the HMRI are not going to prescribe a solution, only accept or reject whatever is proposed. TPWS has been mentioned, for example, but is only one of many collision risk mitigation systems available, even in the UK; there are passenger railways running in the UK today which exceed 25mph but don't have TPWS, although of course they do have other things instead (e.g. London Underground trainstops).

The Whitby scenario (sharing the line with a main line TOC) is a little different from a wholly self-contained railway, anyway. And the GCR (with double track and hence half the potential closing collision speed if things go wrong) is arguably quite different from, say, the Mid-Hants. None of this justifies anything, it just changes the risk model somewhat. Each would have to be looked at on its own merits.

 

Unless I've completely misunderstood what you are saying, my mathematics says that having double track gives twice the potential closing speed in the event of an incident!

 

Think what Mr Pmh is saying its that on a double track system a moving train should only ever collide with a stationary one, as opposed to a single track where a train could potentially /is more likely to collide with a train moving in the other direction.
Because the GCR is a mixture of Single and double there is , as you allude to, the potential for a train to be switched wrong line / same block .
Then there is the derailing at speed and immediately in collision with a moving train on the other line scenario.
It is to the Credit of the Heritage rail sector as a whole that such accidents are unheard of and most incidents seem to centre around running round/ shunting

 

There is also an issue of course over all personnel - not that I am in any way questioning their competence who are not full time railway persons (of gender) suddenly finding themselves operating trains significantly faster than before with no prior experience of operating at these speeds..................

 

I now see where he is coming from but the rules and regulations in place mean that a high speed collision on a single track line is very unlikely whereas on a double track line a high speed collision due to derailment is possible and cannot be guarded against if you have trains passing each other. Hopefully, neither scenario will happen.

 

At the risk of taking this further away from 9Fs, what exactly is the point of running at more than 25mph on most heritage lines?

Seems to me it is a route to adding expense, operational and legal complexity while at the same time reducing the attractiveness to passengers by shortening the ride. I'm sure on one or two lines someone could point to improved operational flexibility by maybe a modest speed increase on a long section to help for timetabling purposes, but for most lines, we are offering a day out as a leisure experience, not a daily commute. If you cut the journey time by running faster, isn't there a risk that people will perceive the ride as having lower value for money at the same time that it becomes more expensive to deliver?

Tom

 

Back to the 9F issue and probably further into the improbable - what about rebuilding as a 4-8-0.

 

Given 8Fs are allowed on the mainline, I would imagine that is certainly a possible solution. Thing is its not a 9F then as to make it work the leading set of driving wheels would have to be removed and a 4 wheel boogie setup added.

If you are going to do something to a 9F then rebuilding it into a riddles 2-8-0 (which he drew up detailed plans for) might be better option.

 

A 2-8-2 was planned. Since this was based on the Britannia boiler, what you end up with is neither one thing nor the other. I have doubts that the trailing end would have sufficient space available to accommodate a trailing truck without compromising the ashpan since new pivot stretchers would be needed. This was not a particularly successful part of the 9F to start with, the ashpan being to small due to the restricted space and with insufficient slope to allow proper cleaning.

Again, when does a 9F stop being a 9F?

 

Try telling that to the Lößnitzgrundbahn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedewald_train_collision

 

It rather depends on whether you are selling the ride itself, or the interesting things to do at each destination. Not all of us are blessed with a wonderful fleet of Victorian carriages, you know! ;-)

 

What was the cause?

 

Well, fair enough. But (a) what is the current end-to-end journey time on the GCR, stops included and (b) by how much do you think you could reduce that if you were allowed a speed increase to (insert realistic figure of your choice), allowing reasonable time for acceleration and deceleration.

I suspect that, if you went to, say, 45mph, you would be unlikely to save more than a few minutes on the one-way journey, which hardly seems worth it.

Tom

 

Presumably the attraction of higher speed is the adrenalin rush it gives the passengers - but how much faster do you have to go to achieve it? Would 45mph do the trick? I rather doubt that anything less than 60mph would be greeted with a yawn by the modern generation, and you would barely be able to reach that, let alone sustain it, on most lines. This is where lines like the NYMR have a definite advantage - they can go slowly and still provide a rousing run, and have fantastic scenery that is worth admiring at a low speed!