Memoirs of a Roadie

Time Flies By (When You're The Driver Of A Train)

Posted on 13th May 2011

In light of my recent posts, I received the following story from a friend.

Rules Is Rules...

Good news:
It was a normal day in Sharon Springs, Kansas, when a Union Pacific crew boarded a loaded coal train for the long trek to Salina.

Bad news:
Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing became overheated and melted, letting a metal support drop down and grind on the rail, creating white hot molten metal droppings spewing down to the rail.

Good news:
A very alert crew noticed smoke about halfway back in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules

Bad news:
The train stopped with the hot wheel over a wooden bridge with creosote ties and trusses.

The crew tried to explain this to Union Pacific higher-ups but were instructed not to move the train!

They were informed that Rules prohibited moving the train when a part was found to be defective!

'REMEMBER, RULES IS RULES!'

(Don't ever let common sense get in the way of a good Disaster!)

And just in case you thought that wasn't a true story, here it is with pictures!

Held Up Without A Gun

Posted on 29th June 2008

This weekend, DanDan and I went down to Bristol for an event, which I will cover later. On the way down, a friend of ours dropped us off in his recent purchased Bentley. It was certainly great driving down the M5 in style. Unfortunately the journey home wasn't anywhere near as enjoyable. In actual fact it felt felt like highway robbery.

Earlier last week I investigated getting DanDan and I return tickets to Bristol, Temple Meads from New Street, Birmingham. We were planning to get the bus in and out of town, as that just made things easier. It was quite a shock at the difference in prices. The best return I could find was £59.55, a "Saver" Return. However, the link at the bottom does helpfully suggest that you check two singles tickets as these can often be cheaper. They weren't kidding either. The Standard Advance Single was listed as £10.50 in each direction, that's £21.00 for a return for both DanDan and I. A difference of £38.55 ... nearly £40! So how exactly am I saving with a returning ticket?

Unfortunately, as I'd assumed that buying a ticket at the station on the day, seeing as we were getting a lift down to Bristol, might only be slightly more than the Standard Advanced Single, I decided not to buy one in advance. Alas I wasn't prepared for the shock I got when I was told by the ticket clerk, that it was £51.00 to get back to Birmingham. I was absolutely staggered. The ticket clerk did try hard to find if we could buy the ticket in alternative forms to try and reduce the cost, but to no avail. As it turned out he suggested that we buy a Family Rail Card, which although would end up reducing the cost of the ticket, both together would end up costing £52.90, the benefit being that we could actually use the Family Rail Card if we ever used the railways again over the next year. I should imagine we will, so hopefully we will get some benefit, but the cost of the fare has really disappointed me.

If I had chosen to drive my car down to Bristol, it would have cost about £20. The original idea to use the trains was partly to save some money, but also to just use public transport because for a change it was convenient. Doubt I'll do it again.

Once upon a time the cost of a return train ticket would be just less than a single, not nearly 3 times the price. And if you bought the ticket on the day of travel it might be a couple of pound more than in advance, but not 5 times the price! In fact it was rare to bother buying a ticket in advance, as it gave you more options to travel. When I've travelled in Europe by train, the prices have always seemed reasonable, here in the UK it is nothing short of daylight robbery. Anyone planning to travel the trains who arrives from abroad is going to get the shock of their life. I also have to travel down to London soon and I see the Standard Open Return has leapt up to £123.00. Even that used to be less than £20 just over 10 years ago.

National Rail in the UK is an absolute disgrace, not just in terms of the price, but also with timetables. The train back to Birmingham from Bristol got announced as being delayed several times and finally left the station over 40 minutes later than it should have done. Now we were lucky, I've know of other recent delays to be several hours later, or even cancelled.

The ONLY redeeming feature of the railway network these days is that much of the rolling stock is being replaced by trains that do have the passengers comfort and interest in mind. The newer carriages have much better seats, usually with a bit more space than I remember of old, they are much more appealing to be in, but most useful for me is that many carriages have sockets for mobile phones and laptops. I suspect some of the prices have been due to the upgrade of rolling stock, but with the amount of passengers that commute daily on the train, I can't help think that the rail companies are taking advantage of their customers.

However, the biggest culprit is still the lack of government investment. In other European countries it seems they take their railway infrastructure a bit more seriously. As a consequence there doesn't seem to be the same amount of traffic on the roads. At the moment with the rising cost of fuel, I can easily understand more people looking to the trains to reduce their travel costs, and then being amazed to discover that fuel costs would have to virtually triple before making it more cost effective. Madness.

As far as I can see the only means of public transport that actually has improved, both in rolling stock and price (especially price) are the buses. Maybe the bus companies ought to take over the rail companies and show them how it can be done.

Another Journey By Train

Posted on 26th August 2007

Day Four: Like my Dad, or more likely because of my Dad, I've liked steam trains from a young age. My grandparents had the Gwili Railway at the bottom of the garden from 198?, and as I was growing up from about the age of 8 I had watched them clear the old track, lay new ones and construct the station and line from Bronwydd Arms. I also got to ride on it while they were making it too. Since then, riding on steam trains has always been fun. In Torquay we had a choice. The Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway or The South Devon Railway (running steam trains from Totnes to Buckfastleigh). We opted for the latter.

I had mistakenly thought that there was a train connection between Paignton and Totnes and thought getting a train from Torquay would be a good idea. The train station was only a few minutes walk from the hotel, but after buying the tickets and looking at the map on the wall, I suddenly realised my mistake. In order to get to Totnes we had to go back up the line to Newton Abbot and then down again to Totnes. Had I realised this I would have driven there in about 20 minutes. As it was it took 2 hours with all the waiting and connections and delays. It was frustrating as I felt we had lost half a day, but as Nicole pointed out, the kids enjoyed it and Ethne did keep us entertained with her dancing and singing on the platform.

We just made it to the train for The South Devon Railway, otherwise we would have had to wait around 45 minutes for the next one. Although there were other things we could have done at the Totnes station, most of the things to see were at the Buckfastleigh station. The journey was lovely and once again the kids really enjoyed watching the scenery fly by. A brief stop at Staverton station was a good photo opportunity too.

Once we finally reach Buckfastleigh, we had a wander around part of the museum there. We then took an old double-decker red london bus to Buckfast Abbey. It's been a while since I was here last, and it's actually smaller than I remembered. Thankfully the sun was just right and I was really please with some of the pictures I got to take. We had a wander around the Abbey itself and the gardens, and had a lot of fun trying to pose DanDan and Ethne. It didn't always work, but it was great fun trying :)

We took the bus back again, this time through Buckfastleigh village, where we could eaisly reached out of the bus and touched the walls of the buildings. The last steam train for the day was just about to arrive, so while they took the time to change ends, we wander further around the site and got to look in the repair sheds. Unfortunately the minature railway wasn't working as I would have liked to have taken the kids on that. It was probably just as well as by the time we got back to the platform, the train was just about to leave. After reaching Totnes station we walked back to the mainline station. It was then that I'd noticed that there were sigs for the castle. We hadn't eaten and it was getting towards tea time, so it seemed a good idea to find a cafe somewhere. I managed to persuade Nicole that walking up the hill to the castle would be a good idea. Unfortunately when we got to the entrance, although we had an hour left to wander around, it was perhaps a little too expensive for just an hour, especially for 4 of us. We decided that it would be better to plan to come another time and take more time wandering around. In fact we'd missed a few things at each end of The South Devon Railway, so a return trip is definitely on the cards.

The return trip on the mainline was less eventful, but it was nice to just relax and let someone else take me where we were going :)

• Aug 1 - The South Devon Railway & Totnes
  

Back In The Village

Posted on 26th August 2007

Day Two: The following day we headed to Babbacombe and in particular The Model Village. I've always liked model villages, but Nicole has mostly tolerated them. We took the kids to see the one at Bekonscot last year (I'll have to get around to putting those pictures online too), and they seemed to enjoy it. Babbacombe seems to be bigger than Bekonscot, but that may just have been perception. There certainly seems to be a lot more going on, not just for the model village, but also the "behind the scenes" workshop, the model film sets, the model circus, trainset and the 4D cinema experience. Many of the models are moving models, from lorrys, trams and trains to fire breathing dragons, the Loch Ness monster and a wind farm. The 4D cinema had a 15 minute film showing, which in addition to the 3D presentation also had the physical experience of things like the chair shaking or fine water droplets sprayed at you. I thought it was well worth the £1 entrance fee, but DanDan was quite scared. He held my hand in a vice like grip on several occasions. I tried to make light of it for him, but he kept taking the 3D glasses off so he couldn't see the images so close to him.

After lunch we headed round the corner towards the local beach. To get there we had to ride on the Cliff Railway. Both DanDan and Ethne loved it, as they both got to sit at the front and watch the other carriage come up and pass us as we went down. Once off we got to spend our first day on the beach. Oddicombe Beach has more shale than sand, so it wasn't exactly sand castle material, but we did try. Ethne experience her first paddle in the sea and kept wanting to go back for more. It was a hard job persuading them to come out and dry off at the end of the afternoon. We managed it by tempting them with ice cream ;) In fact it was delicious ice cream, and I'm not really one for buying a cone. I prefer iced lollies. But the choices on offer were just too tempting.

We walked back to the Cliff Railway and rode back up to the top. There is a nice little cafe at the top, and being shattered we decided to have tea there. I'm glad we did as by the time we got back to the hotel, all I wanted to do was flake out. The weather reports promised much better weather for the rest of the week, so tomorrow was looking good.

• Jul 30 - Babbacombe Model Village, Cliff Railway & Oddicombe Beach