Railfans

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Those Silver fern railcars should be put to better use, running in competition with those Inter city buses, rather than being used on the odd occasion out of Dunedin?

[Orion]

"A steam train has reached 100mph on Britain's mainline rail network for the first time in 50 years..."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york ... e-39581712

[Simon Culling]

Hello Orion - isn't this great news.

The Flying Scotsman now makes regular trips on the manliness although these are pleasure rides rather than regular services - and rather expensive to boot. Would it not be fantastic if a regular commuter service could revert to steam?

The Tornado has its own website:

https://www.a1steam.com/

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I was in Chertsey today at the bookshop in the old PGG shed, and noticed the Silver Fern railcar go past, heading north.
I thought, at last, Kiwi Rail are running passenger services between ChCh and Dunedin again but it was probably a charter from the Dunedin Railway/Taieri Gorge thing running north or over to the West Coast.
What a shame No wonder the railways are so downgraded in this country
Why don't they use these railcars in opposition to the Inter City buses which go along the same route and create revenue for the passenger group whilst the north line to Picton is out?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

On the TV One news the other night they mentioned about broken down diesels being used on the NIMT between Palmerston North and Hamilton to replace the electric locomotives.
I think they , the media, got it the wrong way around. According to what I read in railway magazines, it was the electric locomotives were the ones having problems??
I dunno???

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Here is wee picture of puff-puff train taken at the "Point" today.

[wembley]

I read that CTC signalling had been installed from Dunedin to Wingatui in 2015. Has it been installed into Mosgiel as well?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I read that CTC signalling had been installed from Dunedin to Wingatui in 2015. Has it been installed into Mosgiel as well?

Dunno.
I never worked in Dunedin but I believe it was double tracked out to Mosgiel many years ago.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Dunedin Railways should get into the act of using their Silver Fern Railcars between ChCh and Dunedin, possibly Invercargill.

[wembley]

Will any DLs come to the South Island? They would be good on the Midland Line coal trains I'd imagine.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Probably not with the north line cut.

[Orion]

Restoring a service between Christchurch and Dunedin/Invercargill is being considered:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/9400529 ... in-service

"The focus will be on the high-end visitor market..."

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Derelict steam locomotives hauling the train could lead to tourist benefits?
Mainline Steam @ Sockburn has a few locomotives which they can't use as there aren't any qualified driver to drive them, sadly .

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I see on the news that the Main North line has been restored today.

[Orion]

I see on the news that the Main North line has been restored today.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11900431

Great work!

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I see on the radio, well heard, that they want to run an "Orient Express" type of train around NZ.
Interesting to see what lcomotives will haul it.
I can't see it being steam as the Greenies will oppose this and also there are no more mainline steam lcocmotive drivers these days.
Probably the usual boring diesels.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

DSC02430.JPG

Went on the TGR last week.

[Orion]

I took that trip last year - great experience, glad I went.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Interesting to hear about the governments intention to use the Hokitika and Westport lines for tourism by extending the Trans Alpine train service.
Labour tends to favour rail as opposed to National, so when we return to National government at the next election, any improvement to rail services will be scrapped as what has happened in the past.
The Hokitika line would be useful route to relocate the Kingston Flyer, instead of being mothballed in Kingston. They could lease out the KF locos and run a service like they did between Picton and Blenheim last summer. ....but then

Still disappointed the Silver Fern railcar dosen't run between ChCh and Dunedin in competition with the Inter City buses.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Ab 699 was officially returned to service today after a lengthy overhaul at Pleasant Point.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Ja 1260

[Simon Culling]

I was out walking in 'Denny Lodge' in the New Forest yesterday (Sunday 27th Jan 2019) afternoon on what was a cold and breezy day (max 7*C) and managed to catch a few photos of one of the passenger services running from Southampton to Bournemouth from a small bridge. I think this is a FGW Class 158 train where the FGW stands for First Great Western , the operator of this particular service. This is what we term a 'local service' as opposed to the faster (and larger) trains that run inter-city. They also run on this line with services from London all the way to Weymouth.

As it was travelling at about 50mph, all the closer pictures were rather blurred!

[Orion]

A 1 min. video that came up as a link in one of the eclectic websites I follow:



https://www.watercressline.co.uk/produc ... steam-gala

[Orion]

A couple of livestreams of rail crossings with fairly frequent trains and twelve hours of the feed saved -

one in the USA where interesting freight has included military trucks and tanks, and huge blades for wind-turbines:



and one in Canada, in which I saw a bear walking by recently, not unusual apparently; and I imagine the weather in winter will be interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEfNcfkfobA

Each location has more than one camera view.

[edited to fix second link, which had changed]

[edited again to fix second link: a commenter on YT posted "FYI - in past outages YouTube would assign a new page once the livecam returns to service, so make sure to search "Revelstoke Railcam" to find the new YouTube page (the old link will show [a] blacked out message ... making people think it's still down - but it's not) ]

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Here is a picture that today's protesters on climate change, especially older ones would have 2nd thoughts about the love of steam locomotives.
KB 968 locomotive climbing the Cass Bank with a train load of coal