THE KENTISH BELLE ARMISTICE DAY (Tangmere now via Bromley)

Looking at the second video she appears to be going well with some slipping but is ok, then the train stops quite quickly. Did they run out of sand perhaps? How long does it last?

Wonderful piece of driving to get going again.

Stephen

 

You have to wonder if sanding played a part in this, it seems a lot may have been used during the trip.

In eastern Europe they have been known to improvise by using tightly packed bunches of small tree branches fastened down in front of the driving wheels to clear surface mulch from the rail.

Can't vouch how effective it is, but I've seen it more than once in several places

 

As someone who was lucky to miss the ECML delays in September when trying to travel home from work, I'm starting to despair. I think that all elements of the railway are at fault here. There was a forseeable risk that this engine would have problems on that line at that time which would impact the rest of the service. Between them, the TOC, promoter, loco owner & Network Rail could and should have identified that this was a high risk working, and put mitigation in place. This may have been pathing, it may have been attaching a diesel on the rear, it may have been paying for an extra RHTT train. They didn't, and the result was chaos. Thank goodness it was East Kent & not somewhere higher profile.

If my journey on the railway my taxes helps pay for is wrecked by a special, then I blame the special, and become less likely to travel. If that's the reaction of a railway enthusiast who likes steam, how do you think Joe Public feels? You very quickly get the knee jerk reaction we've seen on the ECML.

The saying is that 'God helps those that help themselves'. The steam movement needs to reflect on that; it doesn't need to give its enemies the chance they want. The pre-1968 railway was different in so many ways; we can't assume that because something was possible then, it should be possible now.

 

Once fallen leaves have been crushed onto the railhead you have something which I can only liken to a "Teflon" surface. Add heavy mist/light rain and you might as well be adding oil to the non-stick frying pan!
The deposition of "Sandite" (paste and grit mix) should cut through this layer with the passage of following trains.
Water jetting trains, however, are intended to blast all contamination off the railhead and during my time on the ECML I think I preferred the latter to the former [except when temperatures went below freezing of course].
Bunches of small twigs might sweep newly fallen leaves from railheads, to stop them being crushed, but would have thought they'd have no effect upon previously crushed leaves.

 

Well, WHO decided that we had to stop at Deal? Notwork Rail or RTC? I only ask because we had a green light on our arrival. Numerous tips of the hat to the crew who eventually managed to restart us!

 

On a day that a modern traction unit hauling a freight train in Kent also slipped to a standstill due to leaf fall, causing a great deal of chaos, it does seem a little unfair to me for anyone, joe public or professional railwaymen to single out that steam loco special for particular criticism.

The steam special train problem could have been, and no doubt will be mitigated with a diesel on the back in the future in such conditions. But as for the modern traction hauled freight trains in Kent..................

The root cause of the problem has to be addressed. (Sorry, pun was intended).

 

Spot on Bryan. Get rid of the leaves and get rid of much of the problem. In my neck of the woods FCC is saying that it is working with NR to clear the lineside to reduce/eliminate the leaf fall problem. Can't say I've seen much evidence of this so far but at least they are acknowledging what needs to be done.

 

Then knock down their houses and plant trees in their place. Simples.

 

Superb driving - well done crew! To be down to less than 1 mph for the distance shown and still maintain that forward movement took a masterful hand on the regulator.

I've looked at the videos on YouTube and I've spotted a moron on the p. way at 10 mins. in on the video taken from the train (look closely at the right hand side of the track, almost in the trees). Can anyone identify him and 'shop' the idiot?

Ten coaches is a moderate load for a Bulleid, but, in mist/drizzle on 1 in 70 with tall trees on both sides, and from a standing start at Deal, this was surely always going to be 'interesting' at the very least, given their well-known propensity to slip. In steam days, of course, the line-sides (and therefore the rails) were kept far clearer than they are today, both by routine lineside fires started by locos and by manual maintenance. Any comparison with the modern railway is therefore pointless. I would suggest that, either the diesel should have been retained for the whole journey and/or the Deal stop should not have been permitted.

Incidentally, given that the loco and train did not actually fail, all being in full working order throughout the stall(s), what of NR's duty to ensure the railway was in a suitable condition for the train it approved - i.e. running a RHTT ahead/at start of traffic, which would have assisted service workings as well? If I were the operator I would seriously question this aspect of the incident.

 

That's pretty much impossible to achieve. You can get poor railhead adhesion at any time of year, not just autumn. NR can't be expected to go out and scrub the railhead on a drizzly day because a Bulleid pacific might be running about.

It's been mentioned elsewhere that a RHTT had been through that day.

 

Neil -

I agree that NR cannot prepare specifically for an individual train, but my point was that, as service trains were reported to have had problems as well, running an RHTT would have benefited them. I had thought, judging by what I read here, that the RHTT had only run in the other direction. Lovely Flickr stream, by the way.

Mine is : http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepgreen2009/

 

That's a fair point, it's been hard to ascertain whether or not a RHTT had run over the route - I'd have to interrogate TRUST to find out before the data gets lost.

Thank you for your comments regarding my photography - I see from your stream that you're enjoying the fine autumn weather, the units stand out well in the soft sunshine.

 

A post by 'Dragging Brakes' (now removed) indicated that the RHTT ran 30 minutes ahead of the train hauled by Tangmere. Assuming that is correct (usually pretty good) then I don't see what more could have been done frankly.

 

Not just reported to have problems. It actually happened: ie. the freight train that slipped to a standstill a few miles from here on the Maidstone East to London line that morning. Causing at least equal disruption. Not sure what else happened locally here. Maybe not much!

I'm not sure what the tree/leaf fall situation is on the climbs out of Maidstone towards London is this week. My large Oak tree still has 90% of it's leaves on it. I may divert my daily training walk to one of the notorious spots from my commuting days. And see how well cut back the vegetation is these days in the Modern 21st Century Railway. Or not as the case may be!

And also see if any loco hauled trains are still using the route after last week.

Oh. Keeping Tangy in the thread! LOL!

 

Cracking light Brian. Is it near the top of Sole Street bank?

 

Can anyone on here actually say what the chain of events is from first having the idea for a tour to it actually running.
Especially regarding the motive power side of things. It does seem to me that West Coast have more than enough experience in running Tangmere around Kent etc, yet they don't seem to have requested assisting power (one of their diesels on the back). Tangmere's tours for the Sussex Belle all seemed to have assisting motive power, just in case, yet come very wet & greasy conditions, the timing show the diesel to be left behind. Could costs be a governing factor here?
Here's a still I took at Bickley.

 

How do you Ric, Dic Pull and Kick on a Vacuum braked train ???

 

Fantastic shot, i would guess that was January the 24th 2009, Tangmere's last trip down the Folkestone Harbour Branch, i got a shot about 4 minutes earlier of Tangmere leaving Canterbury West.



Two shots of Tangmere on Armistice Day can be found at the top of this collection http://www.flickr.com/photos/40657924@N04/sets/72157621684090281/

 

Who said that that I was refering to brake release on a vac train, eh? never assume!

If you read the posts and follow the thread, you'll see that I had responded to MTU's comments re: the poster "dragging brakes".

It is called humour?