RYTC - The Cheshireman 21/03/20

Afternoon all,

Surprised to find timings already visible for this tour - early start for all!

ECS
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P90157/2020-03-21/detailed

Euston to Chester https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U54923/2020-03-21/detailed

Chester to Euston
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U54924/2020-03-21/detailed

Several other movements also in the system around Chester.

Not seeing a LE movement back to Southall so looks to have a dastardly diesel all day.

 

Looks like these will be the times - providing it runs of course...

 

If these had been ‘normal’ times l would have posted my report of this trip by now, but it was not to be. One thing that l can add is that there was a chance that the diesel would have been left behind at Euston (like the Cumbrian Mountain Expresses) because – and RTT does not show these – there were a couple of propelling movements shown (between Chester North and South Junctions and then between Chester East Junction and Platform 4). In fact the times went ‘live ‘ on February 1st, which is uncommonly early.

Should this tour run again (the one with Tornado in late June?) l have put together a couple of templates (one for each direction) with my stab at the mileage. These are attached as files ‘1 London Euston to Chester No Times.pdf’ and ‘2 Chester to London Euston No Times.pdf’ that may be of use.

The above files were essentially created a few weeks ago, but what l have done this past week is answer a question: is it possible to create a bespoke gradient profile? Well, the answer is ‘yes’, but it is somewhat fiddly! Using information from the Railway Data Centre (supplied by Network Rail), l have put together the attached document (‘London Euston to Chester Gradient Profile.pdf’). The first few miles are shown in detail on the first page, with the whole length on the second. There are two profile lines. The lower grey line, which is a plot of the ‘raw’ data, with a marker shown at each given gradient change. The black line is my interpretation (simplification) where l have chosen a number of these gradient change points and have calculated the gradients in between (shown). Stations and tunnels have also been added for good measure. I believe l have entered the values correctly as each section required the preceding section to be correct.

Hope this all is of interest!

-SC-

 

Great work. Compressing the gradient profile onto a single screen makes the WCML look more hilly than it really is. More like the LSWR west of Salisbury!