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Rich Tea G - what is the answer to your photo quiz?

Okay, managed to get a little while on a computer with an Internet connection to be able to tell you that the answer was Twyford, correctly guessed / worked out by Tubeguru (no, the supermarket wasn't near the station - in fact, the supermarket I went to wasn't in the same town IIRC...). Getting off in the wrong century were Going Underground (Bishops Lydeard - a good guess as this is the current southern/eastern terminus of the heritage West Somerset Railway, although if I was at Bishops Lydeard, I would have expected to see a steam train and therefore it wouldn't be an accidental photograph!) and Starkey (Cholsey).

To explain the clue which was probably more of a hindrance than a help - I work in Tiverton (which some of you may or may not have known) which in days gone by was also known as Twyford (from the town of 'Two Fords', in Tiverton's case the Exe and the Lowman, in Twyford's case perhaps somebody else can fill me in as this connection isn't brilliant...) - not sure when the Devon 'Twyford' became 'Tiverton', but at some point it did, recognised only (I think) in the name of a (not very good) pub named 'The Twyford Inn'.

I shall try and go simpler in the future - if I do manage to get a connection up on my computer (it's not working at the moment as the nearby Vodafone transmitter has broken and so instead of a full 3G signal I've got an exceptionally weak 2G one that isn't even working my phone properly...) I've a couple there that I could submit - but don't hold your breath!

It wasn't that much of a guess really. We have a Swansea job that stops at Twyford on its way to Cheltenham. I was covering that job to Swindon the other day and stopped my train right in the middle of this picture.

Can anyone work out why a Swansea driver would be doing a Cheltenham train from Paddington?

tubeguru wrote:Can anyone work out why a Swansea driver would be doing a Cheltenham train from Paddington?

He got lost.

jamesthegill wrote:

tubeguru wrote:Can anyone work out why a Swansea driver would be doing a Cheltenham train from Paddington?

He got lost.

No, it's a rostered Swansea turn. He travels passenger from Swansea to Paddington (ouch), drives this train to Cheltenham, and then turns it round in the Alstone siding and drives it ECS back to Swansea via Charfield and the Lydney line.

The reason a Swansea driver does it is because the train arrives back at Swansea near midnight, and if any other depot did this job we would have to either get a very long taxi ride back home or be put up overnight, which is something the company ceased long ago.

Okay, its back to me now. On my regular weekend bus/rail adventures, I boarded a train at this station. Can you work out where it is?

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr25 ... lgreek.jpg

I will give you a week to answer, so thats Sunday 1st August @ 20:00.

Just a thought Tubeguru, but do you think that a Train Company shouldn't run so many Empty Coaching Stock services, apart from directly into a depot? Surely making them a passenger service as far as possible would simply increase revenue.

tangy wrote:Okay, its back to me now. On my regular weekend bus/rail adventures, I boarded a train at this station. Can you work out where it is?

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr25 ... lgreek.jpg

I will give you a week to answer, so thats Sunday 1st August @ 20:00.

I KNOW THIS ONE!!!!

Starkey7 wrote:Just a thought Tubeguru, but do you think that a Train Company shouldn't run so many Empty Coaching Stock services, apart from directly into a depot? Surely making them a passenger service as far as possible would simply increase revenue.

I would guess its because:

- A train with passengers needs a guard (or equivalent) on board at all times, where as an empty train doesn't
- Most ECS moves are early morning or late night, leading to potential problems about station opening hours and also sadly anti-social behaviour
- There are also regular problems with engineering works at these times, and if they were normally in passenger service then you would have to put a bus on to replace them when they couldn't do what they normally do. This combined with the extra staffing cost in point one would probably eliminate any extra revenue.

There are a few of these seemingly quite long ECS movements around. EMT run a train empty from Nottingham to Liverpool every morning, for instance.

al wrote:

Starkey7 wrote:Just a thought Tubeguru, but do you think that a Train Company shouldn't run so many Empty Coaching Stock services, apart from directly into a depot? Surely making them a passenger service as far as possible would simply increase revenue.

I would guess its because:


- Most ECS moves are early morning or late night, leading to potential problems about station opening hours and also sadly anti-social behaviour
- There are also regular problems with engineering works at these times, and if they were normally in passenger service then you would have to put a bus on to replace them when they couldn't do what they normally do. This combined with the extra staffing cost in point one would probably eliminate any extra revenue.

There are a few of these seemingly quite long ECS movements around. EMT run a train empty from Nottingham to Liverpool every morning, for instance.

- A train with passengers needs a guard (or equivalent) on board at all times, where as an empty train doesn't

An exception to this rule is trains which are driver only operated as an ECS isn't much different to a passenger service... HOWEVER, if it is put in as a passenger service, it then has to run to timetable whereas it can run late/early without penalty if it is a ECS.

al wrote:

Starkey7 wrote:I would guess its because:

- A train with passengers needs a guard (or equivalent) on board at all times, where as an empty train doesn't
- Most ECS moves are early morning or late night, leading to potential problems about station opening hours and also sadly anti-social behaviour
- There are also regular problems with engineering works at these times, and if they were normally in passenger service then you would have to put a bus on to replace them when they couldn't do what they normally do. This combined with the extra staffing cost in point one would probably eliminate any extra revenue.

There are a few of these seemingly quite long ECS movements around. EMT run a train empty from Nottingham to Liverpool every morning, for instance.

I believe it costs more money to run a train iun passenger service than ECS too.

Al's first point is the most usual one. It's all very well running a train in service, but you'd need a train manager and catering staff on board, all of whom would either then need a taxi home or be paid a full day's work to travel to the train's origin to work it back.

In this specific case, the other point is that FGW do not have any paths to run Cheltenham to Swansea services.

To be honest, we don't run all that many ECS movements long distances. Sometimes a set will be in the wrong place because of disruption and will run ECS from Bristol to London for example, just to get it into the right place.

tangy wrote:Okay, its back to me now. On my regular weekend bus/rail adventures, I boarded a train at this station. Can you work out where it is?

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr25 ... lgreek.jpg

I will give you a week to answer, so thats Sunday 1st August @ 20:00.

Okay, time to close this quiz down, nearly a week later than intended!

This is the frontage of Canterbury West station, which at the time oof filming was undergoing a refurbishment.

Two of our Kent based members had no trouble is recognising it so well done to:
--dudey
--jamesthegill

and a worthy mention to Starkey, who said Littlehampton but at least had an attempt.

I had a feeling it was a Southeastern station, but couldnt put my finger on it. Saying that, I never used this station and only once decided to be nosey and walk to it and look round