'The Bath and Bristol Christmas Markets'. Thurs. 28 Nov

I presume the powers that be would no longer countenance the use of an unattached banker where the diesel could shove the load up the bank and then just ease off and coast to the next signal, which would seemingly have killed every bird with a single stone?

 

Re use of an unattached banker:

It happened with The Midlander railtour on 11/12/1999 with a Stanier Class 5 at the front and a Standard Class 4 tank up the Lickey. At the top the banker just dropped away behind us. Maybe the fact that such had been an everyday practice in steam days helped to justify it.

 

Isn't the simple fact here someone ahead of time did a risk assessment of grade - loco - train weight - other factors and the answer came out on the ok side of the cut off point. We know there is a load book, it's been mentioned before. Clearly therefore there was a factor in that calculation that has now been proven to have been the wrong input value or the formula is wrong. Find it, correct it, move on thus avoiding a repeat.

I have my own opinion of whether it was a sensible load plan as have many other people, the fact is the official view before the train left Poole was it was an ok lading. Given this wasn't a mechanical failure, but an adhesion issue and not for the first time at this location, what needs tweaking is that calculation process now proven twice in roughly 12 months to have a flaw in it with regard to Parkestone bank.

 

My trips by steam to Pool were in the 60s. What struck me from the video is that this was not the lineside I recall. Look at any photos pre 1970 and there simply are not any trees on railway land. There was little grass either because of controlled burning. Having been on an EMU which slipped to a stand is it not time NR went back to razed earth on its property - the protesters can say what they like - there is a railway to run

 

Re NR and shrub clearance they should but it costs money which is why they stopped and now have such a massive backlog to clear. However judging by the number of people I've been passing recently on my daily commute in orange jackets manning a scrub chipper the tide of opinion has turned. The consensus of opinion recently in published articles following the chicken curve land slip on the GWR also seems to be that removal of the small trees and shrubs protects embankments and cutting sides from collapse.

 

It's not only steam charters that have problems with slippery rails. A freight train has come to a halt at Hemerdon this evening.
See the messages below thanks to a poster at SWRG and also the news from National Rail. <BJ>

''MOM (?) en route to apply sand to get 6C53 into Hemerdon Loop. 2E46 has returned to Plymouth and will attach to 2E88. 1A94 held Plymouth''.

''Poor rail conditions near Plymouth are causing delays of up to 60 minutes to trains between Plymouth and Newton Abbot''.

 

Sorry if it's bringing up a died down thread, but only just found out about this. A quick glance at the back of footplate over the mendips gives the maximum loadings from Corfe Mullen to Bournemouth West for a black five as 380 tons, the same as a West Country.

Ultimately as mentioned it looks like adhesion was the failing of this run, not the substitution of locomotives.

 

The loading in the train description on RTT was 420 tons therefore either engine class was marginally under powered for the load using the old BR load limit if 420 was the correct train weight on the day. Hindsight is wonderful but someone decided the modern limit could be higher, the adhesion factor on the day proved that insufficient margin for error had been allowed and the train stalled.

Modern traction freight load limits have also been proven wrong on Parkstone and other banks too. The underlying issue seems to be that modern planning, irrespective of traction type, seems to factor in an insufficient margin for times when required power output to the railhead isn't achievable (commercial pressures?) and we've seen several spectacular steam failures to make the grades over the years from the Exeter double header fiascos onwards and the recent freight stallings too As freight trains are also stalling, even if less often due to the nature of diesel traction, clearly the problem isn't steam it is a flawed model that appears to have the go/no go level set with too high an assumption of good rail conditions and 100% loco performance.

 

A trailing load of 420t sounds a bit high to me. Mk 1s are usually about 33t and 38 t for catering vehicles. 11 bogies at 33t is 363t. Add another 20t for the heavier vehicles and we get 383t. Anyone have any idea where the extra 40t comes from.

 

Don't forget to make an allowance for the weight of the passengers, it can add quite a substantial amount to the train weight.

 

Re the missing 4ot. As well as the pax does the tender count as part of the trailing load with a steam loco as defined by RTT? Obviously it is essential to have coal and water so a Black 5 has to have a tender with it but technically it is hauled dead weight behind the primary traction unit when considering the total, hauled, train weight.