Standard Wagon and the SDT

Heywood is a small town within the Greater Manchester region, and according to most recorded sources was home to railway wagon building since 1863, which is curious, since Companies House only have a record of the company’s formation in 1933. It may be that this was due to a simple change in the company’s status to become a ‘limited’ company, but if anyone out there can offer some additional advice I would be grateful.

Back in 1988 – yes, 30 years ago, the then Standard Railway Wagon Co., built and delivered an innovative Self Discharging Train (SDT), for transporting and delivering aggregates from quarries to lineside locations. The company remained successful in the 1980s, and the following year, it’s share capital had been increased and stood at £1,402 million, so despite the lack of investment in rail, for these wagon builders their approach looked confident.

The driver for this particular wagon design, and maybe the company’s confidence, was the Department of Transport’s identified need to build 650 new by-passes under its road building programme, which of course attracted the attention of aggregate suppliers.

Carrying bulk aggregates over long distance by road to a target site would obviously be expensive, both financially and environmentally, so why not bulk haulage to a nearby railhead? At the time, aggregates would typically be discharged from conventional hopper wagons into stockpiles, like a merry-go-round coal train – by way of undertrack structures, from which the aggregate would then be loaded onto lorries. Clearly, with the government’s road building plans going ahead, construction of several hundred temporary discharge points for stockpiles at the railheads was out of the question.

The answer, so far as Standard Wagon was concerned, and in partnership with Redland Aggregates, was of course the self-discharge train. The idea was a train of hopper wagons, using a built-in conveyor built to discharge the stone. Simple enough you might think. The wagons were grouped in sets of 5 or 10, with the conveyor belt running underneath and between all wagons, and at the end of each group, the system allowed the transfer of stone to another group of wagons, or onto a transfer / unloading wagon. The fixed section of wagons were connected to one another using British Rail’s standard Freightliner coupling gear, whilst the hopper wagons, designated type PHA were mounted on GFA pedestal axles, built by Gloucester Carriage & Wagon. The unloading wagon was fitted with a boom, mounted on a turntable, which could be rotated to discharge the stone to either side of the wagon, either onto a lineside stockpile, or even into a lorry.

Standard Wagon received an initial order for four 10-wagon sets, each having 8 wagons sandwiched between the two boom transfer wagons, one of which carried a 65hp diesel engine, and the other a belt tensioning device. The boom transfer cars were fitted with an adjustable swinging arm boom and conveyor, and stated to be capable of delivering 1,500 tonnes of aggregate from Redland’s quarry at Mountsorrel. When travelling to or from a site – quarry or lineside location – this rotating boom was supported on a steel frame on the outer wagons, and locked in position.

Initially they were formed into trains of 20 hoppers, and first entered service in April 1988. In the same year, a second order for five SDT trains, but connected as 8 wagon sets, and these went into service in 1989. Standard Wagon claimed that trains of almost any length could be formed with this system, given the modular nature of the design and build.

The idea had been developed in the USA, but on shorter trains than normally used in the UK. An early prototype was built at Heywood in 1982, to develop the concept using a standard ‘PGA’ hopper wagon, with a conveyor belt fitted beneath its twin hoppers, and discharge its contents over and above the solebars to either side of the vehicle. Sadly it was not a great success, but further work was carried out, and the SDT train was born six years later using and developing this principle.

At the time of its introduction, the SDT was claimed to be achieving all it was designed for, after loading at conventional batch loading points, the 1,500 tonnes payload could be deposited at the trackside. The company also suggested the load could be delivered over a hedge into a field – certainly avoiding the need for costly offload site preparation or planning permission. The booms at either end allowed material to be offloaded, according to the manufacturer at a rate of 1,000 tonnes per hour, but it was this ‘rotating boom’ that was at the centre of one of the most serious accidents in which the SDT was involved.

In February 2016, an accident occurred at Barrow-upon-Soar, when an East Midlands Train – the 10:20 Leicester to York service – a Class 222 set, number 222005 collided with the discharge boom of the SDT, which was stationary in a siding next to the main line. A fault caused the boom to be rotated out over the main line, and it struck two cars of the train, which was travelling 102 mph (163 km/h), but thankfully it was not derailed. Sadly a fitter who had been working on the boom wagon was badly injured, although no one on the passing train was injured.

The RAIB (Rail Accident Investigation Board) made a number of recommendations, including for improvements needed to the SDT’s owners, operators and maintainers methods of assessing risks and hazards. The maintenance company, Wabtec, were required to improve their management processes, and the then owners, Tarmac, were required to improve processes for determining when to instigate interim safety measures, as wagon conditions deteriorated.

An SDT had suffered another accident some 9 years before, in June 2007, when the type PHA hopper wagons used in the SDT were involved in a serious derailment at Ely, in Cambridgeshire. This train was en route from Mountsorrel to Chelmsford, and consisted of three ten-wagon sets and one five-wagon set  but derailed causing substantial damage to a bridge over the River Ouse. Thankfully no injuries resulted from the derailment, but both the section of line and part of the River Ouse were closed for 6 months.

Standard Wagon of Heywood was registered in November 1933, and 70 years later, following acquisition and integration with Cardiff based Powell Duffryn in 1989, the company had effectively ceased trading. Powell Duffryn itself, a general engineering business and ports operator, was sold to a venture capitalist in 2000. Currently, it is listed as a non-trading company, based in Bracknell, Berkshire, but classed as a builder of locomotives and rail vehicles.

Once acquired by Powell Duffryn, they continued in the manufacture and repair of goods wagons, and bogies, but barely 2 years later in 1991/92, things had started to deteriorate, with orders drying up, and as Standard Wagon, the company made a loss of almost £1 ¼ million in 1992. The company still had its innovative wagon design, and was clearly hoping to sell the product to a wider customer base, than just Redland Aggregates, but the losses continued and all wagon-building operations ceased in 1993/94.

Today, as part of French construction materials company Lafarge, three SDT trains are still in use in the UK, each of course based at the Mountsorrel Quarry. A fascinating experiment with innovative ideas for the loading and unloading of aggregates in bulk, but one which, despite massive investment in road building in the UK has not been an outstanding success. At least the engineers, designers and wagon builders at Standard Wagon in Heywood can take some comfort for the fact that their innovation is still in operation today.

Further reading:

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The Race for a Free Seat

According to a report in the “I” newspaper at the beginning of November, and several others, the London North Eastern Railway has fitted free seat sensors in its entire rolling stock fleet. The entry in the paper stated:

“Sensors which detect whether a seat is free have been rolled out ….”

Back in August, the Daily Telegraph carried this exciting headline:

“Seat sensors on trains will end scramble for spare places, railway firm announces”

Hmmm – the August announcement was for a trial -this trial was apparently a success, so all the stock has now been kitted out.

Why, and how will that help if there is still 50% of the seating free because it’s in first class, and few people choose to pay the extra for a first class seat?

With the system passengers – or intending passengers – will of course need access to a smartphone or tablet, to connect to the on-board Wi-Fi network to see where the seats are located. This will show as a location map on their devices.

But of course seats that have been reserved, have always been shown on Virgin Pendolinos – the LNER system differs only in that you have to have a smart device, and then wait 5 minutes on board, before interrogating the system to see if there is a seat available. It’s even more useful than that, seats shown in amber (aka a traffic light system), have only been reserved for part of the journey. This means that you will be able to sit for some of the time, and then stand for the rest …. unless of course someone else on the train has nabbed the seat before you.

It’s the genuinely ‘free’ seats I think are a potential launchpad for conflict. Let’s say two passengers – neither having a seat reservation – find the same free seat, would it then be a foot race to see who gets there first. Then, once at the seat, how do you decide who should then occupy this seat, so that the on-board system can update itself, as it scans the physical space to see if someone has sat down, and updates its database before the next station stop.

Picture if you will the scene on a station platform as the train rolls in – the passengers with reservations are OK – but then there are the last minute passengers, who just buy a ticket to travel. People now have their phones at the ready waiting to board, and impatient to access the on-board Wi-Fi to access the ‘free seats’ map, and the scramble for best position begins near the door. The complex mess of passengers trying to get off, with others trying to board, and access the Wi-Fi, or just clogging up the vestibules at the coach ends, along with copious amounts of luggage.

It was announced back in August 2018 as a trial, but I’m sure it will all go swimmingly, now that they’ve rolled it out fully, and the need for passenger angst, or guards on trains will be diminished still further. Falling back on technology just because you can develop an app may not be the best way, but still, at least nobody will actually need to speak to a fellow traveller at all.

Here are a couple of interesting links.

Originally announced in August as a trial:
- https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/lner-trials-sensor-system-to-indicate-seat-occupation
- http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Comment/lner-business-as-usual

LNER – The-east-coast-experience
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=47&v=B6Ag5beeFv0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=71&v=FQWa95NhwV4

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Metrolink adding 27 light rail vehicles to its fleet

Metrolink – the UK’s first light rail network of the modern era was designed and built by the GMA Group (a consortium of AMEC, GM Buses, John Mowlem & Company, and GEC) at a cost of £145 million. So, at least one local business (GEC) was heavily involved. This was a time though when light rail, and rapid transit was in its infancy in the UK, and the first units were built by Ansaldo-Breda, with Bombardier Transportation and Vossloh Kiepe.

Kiepe are still with us today, in this latest expansion.

As the original UK metro, it did not adopt the now universal low-floor vehicle design, but required elevated platforms at the various stops.

Metrolink’s first services began operating on 6^th April 1992, when the Bury line opened to Victoria Station, following the line of the former BR rail link, with the first street-level trams began running 3 weeks later on 27 April. The Altrincham line opened on 15 June, and the branch to Piccadilly station on 20 July, with Metrolink officially opened by The Queen on 17 July 1992.

But it has been a great success, and today, “Kiepe Electric”, have been awarded an order to supply another 27 Metrolink vehicles – now described as “high-floor” – in partnership with Bomardier Transportation UK. Kiepe Electric is a subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse, renowned around the world for braking technology and solutions in particular.

Here’s what they had to say about the latest order:

“We’re fully focused on the mobility of the future,” says Dr. Jürgen Wilder, Member of the Executive Board of Knorr-Bremse AG responsible for the Rail Vehicle Systems division.

“Through our solutions for buses and rail vehicles we are driving forward the almost full electrification of the mass transit sector: This latest order from Manchester provides further evidence of the technological class and economic efficiency of our products and systems.”

Kiepe Electric is to build the high-floor vehicles in conjunction with consortium partner Bombardier Transportation UK. The systems specialist from the Knorr-Bremse Group is to supply the entire drivetrain and control technology. The Knorr-Bremse contribution will also include the on-board power converters, HVAC system, air-conditioned driver’s cab, CCTV system and outside cameras, as well as the diagnostics system. Bombardier will be responsible for building the vehicles.

“The new vehicles will be equipped with an even more powerful and reliable on- board and drivetrain converter concept,” explains Dr. Peter Radina, Member of the Manage- ment Board of Knorr-Bremse Rail Vehicle Systems and responsible for Kiepe Electric.

“In this respect, this project documents our successful approach to the subject of obsolescence within a series of vehicles: Our systems are downward compatible, which means that the new trams can be coupled to existing vehicles with no problems.”

Today, Metrolink is the largest light rail network in the UK, carrying some 42 million passengers a year, and this will bring the fleet total up to 147 trams on the TfGM (Transport for Greater Manchester) owned network.

The new vehicles, scheduled for delivery between spring 2020 and summer 2021, can each carry 206 passengers, and the latest order provides a substantial expansion of what is already a large fleet. This additional capacity will enable the network to increase the number of double units on the busiest routes.

Good to see this latest expansion of the pioneering light rail/rapid transit going from strength to strength.

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Useful Links:

The Post Office Tube Railway

Another English Electric FIRST……

The world’s first fully automatic electric railway was opened in 1924, beneath the streets of London. The civil engineering work for the Post Office tube, including the running tunnels and tracks, were laid down before the 1914-18 war, although it was not until 1924 that electrification work was begun, following the acceptance of the English Electric Co.’s proposals. English Electric’s contract with the Post Office included the provision of rolling stock, substation equipment, automatic control systems, signalling and cabling.

The route covered in the project was 6 ½ miles long, with tracks laid to 2ft 0ins gauge, and power supplied at 440V d.c., and fed to the conductor rails from three substations. The original plan was to carry the mails between main line termini in London to the Post Office’s major sorting offices at the Western and Eastern ends of the city, to avoid the intense congestion in London’s streets.

From Paddington to Liverpool Street, the deep level tube was constructed to link the principal GPO sorting offices. This included the Paddington District Post Office and the Eastern District Post Office in Whitechapel Road with the most important station at Mount Pleasant, about half way along the line, which also provided the maintenance and repair shops. A pair of running tracks was laid in 9ft diameter tunnels, which reduced to 7ft at station approaches. At each station, an island type platform arrangement was adopted, with passing loops for non-stop trains, and the railway operated 22 hours a day for most of its life.

Actual vehicle speeds were set at 32 mph in the tunnels, slowing to 8 mph at the station platform roads. The rolling stock order consisted originally of 90 two axle trucks, though these were replaced in the 1930s by 50 wagons on “maximum traction trucks”. These were fitted with a pair of 22hp d.c. traction motors, reverser, and electrically operated brake gear.

This photo shows the driver’s controller, with the words ‘English Electric’ at the top (obscured by driver’s handle), and stating ‘Dick Kerr System’ nearest the camera. Preston heritage. Photo: Matt Brown, under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

New Stock & Early Upgrades

The 1924 stock was put to work when the system opened in 1927, but it was quickly discovered that they were not sufficiently reliable, and were prone to derailment. In addition, the increase in mail traffic growth demonstrated that the railway required new vehicles with greater capacity to cope with the traffic growth.

So, in 1930 50 new vehicles were ordered from English Electric, and used in articulated train formations, but within a few years, as traffic continued to grow another 10 units were ordered and delivered in 1936.

However, the newer vehicles re-used some of the equipment from the early stock, and the new stock proved much reliable and lasted into the 1980s, supplemented by a new design developed again from an English Electric prototype.

One loco – No. 809 – from the 1930 vehicles has been preserved and is stored at the National Railway Museum.

English Electric were justifiably proud of this narrow gauge railway, and in a review of progress published by the company in 1951, considered it to be unique in the whole railway world. The Post Office Tube did have some human intervention, at a distance, as the operation of a switch was necessary to start a train on its way, and control of the points on the track was exercised remotely, guiding the vehicles on their way.

On the tracks at Mount Pleasant station. Photo: Matt Brown, under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Later Changes

The railway was still carrying considerable traffic in the 1960s, and in 1962, The Post Office ordered a pair of prototype units, which were intended to provide the base of a new design, some features of which were included the 1980 stock. Whilst English Electric built the prototypes, Hunslet built the new rolling stock, although they too were not the first choice, and the order was passed from Greenbat, who had gone bust. The vehicles were completed by 1982, and remained in operation until the system was closed in 2003.

Some of the earlier stock was retained, and renumbered after 1984, from the 1930 and 1936 batches, although none of the original 1924 order was around, the electrical equipment did continue in use in the 1930s stock.

Of the two English Electric prototypes from 1962, No.1 was withdrawn and scrapped in 1967, whilst No.2 remained in service until 1980, and was repaired using parts from No.1, and renumbered 66, lasting until the railway’s closure in 2003.

Although Greenbat managed to build three of the new 1980 sets, developed from the English Electric prototypes, before going into administration, the remainder were built at neighbouring Hunslet, who supplied sets 504 to 534. The intention was to replace the almost 50 yerars old English Electric stock from the 1930s, but as noted in the table, 17 of the units built in 1930 and 1936 were kept going.

In 1984, all of the stock was renumbered, with the most recent Hunslet units carrying numbers 1 to 34, and the retained 1930s stock renumbered from 35 to 51. They did manage to survive another 19 years until the system was finally closed in 2003.

Closure, Preservation & Re-opening

The English Electric innovation may not have been the first such plan to support the Post Office, but was certainly a pioneer in the field of automation on a railway. From the first order in 1924, the system and stock lasted some 76 years, and has now been given a new lease of life as a tourist attraction.

When the railway closed in 2003 it remained out of use. However thanks to years of fundraising it was up and running again in September 2017 – at least a short section – for tourists to travel on, using new rolling stock supplied by Severn Lamb of Stratford-upon-Avon. As part of the New Postal Museum, this is likely to be a star attraction, and has already received royal patronage, with a visit from HRH Princess Anne.

A number of the tractor units and trailers have been rescued, including No. 809 at the NRM – however, on their page Post Office Railway, underground train, No. 809 it shows incorrect information. But the Post Office Museum has a great deal of additional information about the railway and its operations: Mail Rail Exhibition

Others were rescued and can be found at:

760 (later 37) – Beeches Light Railway
No 761 – Launceston Steam Railway – Now incorporated in a railcar built for passenger carrying.
No 806 – Launceston Steam Railway – Now incorporated in a railcar built for passenger carrying.
No 803 – Buckinghamshire Railway Centre
No 807 – The British Postal Museum & Archive’s Museum Store (previously in the Science Museum, London)
No 808 – Amberley Working Museum

A fascinating piece of railway and engineering history, with its success assured as much by the innovative ideas from English Electric in Preston, as the foresight of the General Post Office. Today, mails are carried almost exclusively by road – both in and across London, and around the rest of the UK.

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Class 210 – New Generation DMU – Doomed to Fail?

Back in 1978, British Rail’s fleet of 1950s design diesel multiple units was ageing rapidly, and alongside a refurbishment programme, BR was designing and building its second-generation dmus – the Class 210.

Unit 210 001 on a test run near Sonning Cutting on the WR main line on 29th December 1982. Photo Courtesy: Stephen Dance

Its design was almost literally built on existing components and architecture, using mechanical parts developed for other passenger rolling stock, with bodywork matched to the then ‘new’ Mark III Inter-City passenger coach. They were of course built by BR’s manufacturing arm “British Rail Engineering Ltd.”, which at its 12 and more workshops employed almost 40,000 people.

Extract courtesy of the Railway Industry Association (RIA); “Railpower” June 1978

First mention of the plans for the new DMU design appeared in the Railway Industry Association’s “Railpower” magazine in June 1978. This new development took place at the time British Rail was also busy refurbishing the first generation multiple units, and saw the likes of the old Metropolitan-Cammell built units repainted in “Rail Grey” with a “Rail Blue” band at waist height. It may have looked a bit odd at the time, but was soon outdone by the garish colours of Network Southeast livery when BR went through its “Sectorisation” phase.

What made the new design different was the use of a diesel engine above the vehicle floor. From the 1950s the dieselisation programme used multiple units with underfloor engines and transmissions, whilst the Class 210 was unconventional. But, it was not without precedent on BR, since the Southern Region had already deployed similar train sets, known as “Hampshire” Line sets,

British Rail Class 210 diesel-electric multiple unit at Reading station on 30 May 1982 for the type’s first passenger service. Photo (c): RCawsey

There were two ‘prototype’ units – a 4-car set and a 3-car set – powered by different engines and electrical equipment. The 4-car set (210 001) was powered by a 1,125hp Paxman engine, and paired with Brush electrical equipment, whilst the 3-car set (210 002) was fitted with a 1,140hp MTU engine and GEC electrical equipment.

Class 210 set numbers
Intended for providing a high-power dmu on the Western Region around the London area, and beyond, including a route from Reading to Taunton. They were tested at various locations around the country, and even appeared at ‘open days’, such as Carlisle Kingmoor in September 1982. In October 1983 the 4-car set was tested in Scotland on services between from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Dundee, Fort William and Inverness, but by mid November was returned to the Western Region.

They were described as having ‘excellent performance’, but were definitely not efficient in terms of the use of space in what was essentially a Mark III coach body.

All were withdrawn from service as DMUs by the end of 1986, although the trailer vehicles found their way into the development of the “Networker” series of trains adopted successfully by BR’s “Network Southeast Sector”.

In essence the pilot of the Class 210 design was sadly a bit of a failure, as the BREL York built Class 150 “Sprinter” series were a much better solution operationally.

Useful links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_210
http://www.traintesting.com/class_210_demu.htm
Train Testing
http://www.scot-rail.co.uk/page/Class+210
http://www.emus.co.uk/457.htm

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Electro-Diesels are Back

No – I know this is not the same! But any opportunity to highlight the centenary of the formation of the UK’s own English Electric Co. seems OK.

The new Hitachi built Bi-Mode trains for Trans Pennine Express are a lot more sophisticated than the English Electric built electro-diesels for BR’s Southern Region in the 1960s, but the principle is the same – isn’t it? Taking power from an external electrified contact system and having on-board diesel engines when on non-electrified lines.

Here’s what we had in BR days:

In November 1964, an item appeared in the “Locomotive Journal” from ASLE&F, and in describing the Bournemouth Electrification project, this little snippet appeared:

Preston’s English Electric Co. had received an order for 43 of these locomotives, which was in essence part of the plan to elimiate steam traction, as well as following the Bournemouth electrification scheme.

They were numbered E6007-49 by BR, and designated Type JB to distinguish them from the six prototype Type JA locomotives, Nos. E600l-6, which later became class 71. The new English Electric/Vulcan Foundry built locos became classes 73/1 and 73/2. English Electric had supplied the power equipment for the six Type JA, BR built locos, which were constructed at Eastleigh Works, and entered service between February and December 1962.

The next batch, Type JB, were built at English Electric Co’s works at Newton-Le-Willows – originally the Vulcan Foundry – and delivered between October 1965 and January 1967. The diesel engines were also manufactured at Vulcan Foundry, with the electrical equipment produced at the Preston works.

Class 73/2 No. E6021, and one of the few that never carried a name, on a typical transfer freight duty. Photo: RPB Collection

Here’s what Hitachi have delivered:

The first of the “Nova 1” (class 802) trains arrived at Southampton on the 11th June 2018, and was successfully tested between Darlington and Doncaster in a 5-car set this month (July). Further testing is planned for the TPE route in the North of England and Scotland over the coming months. Also appearing in July 2018 are the new Hitachi Class 385 trains for the Glasgow Queen Street-Edinburgh Waverley route via Falkirk High. More class 385 trains will be phased in over the coming months, before being extended to other routes across the Central Belt.

The new Class 802s for TPE are essentially closely similar to the same type delivered by Hitachi to Great Western, and for TPE are fitted with MTU/Rolls-Royce Series 1600 MTU PowerPacks. The core of the PowerPack is the MTU 12V 1600 R80L, a 12-cylinder diesel engine, with low consumption/emissions, and meets the EU Stage IIIB emission legislation.

The trains, ordered as 19 x 5-car sets will be able to run in either five or ten carriage formation, capable of speeds of up to 140mph in electric mode and 125 mph using diesel engines.

Hitachi Class 802 for Transpennine Express at Hitachi’s Doncaster depot.

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Tilting at Windmills

An account of rail travel in the 21^st Century

Just for Fun!

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, travelling by train was a real adventure – for adults and children alike – then the march of progress delivered us the excitement of motorway travel, speed, convenience and personal choice. Today we have anti-social trains, with connections between travellers limited to a few seats in each open carriage or coach, with vast majority of travellers – especially over medium and longer distances facing an immovable plastic wall, commonly known as the back of the seat in front. This wall, rarely more than a few centimetres in front of the face becomes your friend and companion for hours – yes there are windows – but there are also some of these aircraft style seats which are located next to a blank wall.

All of this high speed technology helps us get from A to B so much quicker – and we only occasionally have to speak to our fellow travellers.

We also have the added benefit of the ‘voice from hell’ announcing our welcome to this service, to… – well the gaps in the language and spoken word just remind me of the film 1984. But I was forgetting, we have passed that date and are now much more advanced!

Where does that leave us in our comparative rail tour – is it just nostalgia that demands that we look for more spacious accommodation, and conformable seats, a corridor that allows us to choose whether or not to join conversation with our fellow internees.

Seat reservations are the most joyous sight – or not if you travel by tilting train – where there is no accommodation for luggage – some of the backpacks or rucksacks as we used to call them are the size of mount Everest. Our poor unfortunates then look for somewhere to stow these monstrous items – alas no, they are left near the ends of the coach, or crammed into a feeble couple of shelves mid way down the coach. Amazing that there are not more injuries from people falling over, into or across this baggage.

On longer distance trains there is food and hot beverages available. These are served from a counter in what we used to call a buffet, in those ‘Tommy Tippee’ cups with their little plastic lids and spout so preferred by the chain store drinking dens. To cap it all, there are a bewildering array of coffees, from the double mocha skinny latte, in regular – whatever size that may be! – to the just plain enormous. They are usually then carefully inserted in those brown paper bags – with handles – my daughter would have loved to play with these in her ‘toy shop’ as a child.

The correct etiquette for requesting this refreshment is to enquire… “Can I get?”. Woe betide you if you say “May I have”, or “Can I have” – clearly that requires a phrasebook and translation into modern awesome English.

Travelling by train in the 21^st century is no longer an experience that may be enjoyed, with some knowledge that you may at least find a comfortable and spacious compartment with room to breathe, exchange thoughts and opinions with others, or simply rest. Now everyone has the mandatory headphones, laptop, or iPlayer, and connecting with their legions of followers on Facebook, or Twitter. The more the technology advances, the less the people communicate!

But I digress, we are almost at our destination. That hellish voice sounds again to advise us that we will “Shortly be arriving into….”

We leave our seat, struggle over the undulating terrain of rucksacks, trolleys and suitcases on wheels – after having apologised to a fellow traveller for a minor infringement of his/her space, and the necessity to relocate his/her laptop! – and finally make our way to the vestibule.

Please don’t be alarmed, I chose the word ‘vestibule’ out of ignorance – I didn’t read the safety instructions, or the on board magazine. (I do confess to having flipped through the odd page or two, whereupon the utter banality of it drove me to the refreshment area!).

So, our train arrives, finally at the train station on this train line – I understand the use of the word railway has now all but disappeared, and comprehending the distinction between the function of the railway and the train has gone the way of our good friend the Dodo.

The train stops – don’t forget you are not permitted to leave the train whilst it is still barely moving – the door’s locked anyway! We are enjoined by a shrill beeping noise and illuminated button, embossed with iconic hieroglyphics to open the door and alight from the train, which we do, stepping down to the platform and the free world once again.

Railway Matters

On Track

Rolling Stock

Standard Wagon and the SDT

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The Race for a Free Seat

“Sensors which detect whether a seat is free have been rolled out ….”

“Seat sensors on trains will end scramble for spare places, railway firm announces”

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Metrolink adding 27 light rail vehicles to its fleet

Read more …