Atomic Systems

Just seen a report on TV about Railtrack threatening to virtually close down the Boston to Skegness line to save having to spend £24M on track maintenance.

This would leave a max of 30 trains a year able to use the line!

dkightley wrote:Just seen a report on TV about Railtrack threatening to virtually close down the Boston to Skegness line to save having to spend £24M on track maintenance.

This would leave a max of 30 trains a year able to use the line!

I doubt that they would keep it open for only 30 trains a year

Didn't the limit on the number of trains only apply to loco hauled services? In which case, Central's "service" of DMUs wouldn't be any more affected than it usually is .

There's been a fair bit in the railway press about this; as I understand it, it's a limit on loco-hauled trains. The route is maintained to a standard that is just about good enough for DMUs, but no more than 30 loco hauled specials a year would be permitted.

FM Rail took a couple of locos down there on a top'n'tail trial run, and apparently the Permanent Way people had kittens when they saw all the damaged fishplates.

It'll still be a disaster for Skeggy and for all of those around the north east Midlands area who worship the fresh air there!

There'll be many a shuffling in graves over this!........

Storm in a teacup! It's just limiting or banning loco hauled services, and the line isn't exactly loco central at the moment is it?

Besides who are Railtrack? Or perhaps it's BR's idea or GN's?

It's had a surprisingly large effect so far - a number of charter trains have already been affected, being diverted to alternative destinations such as Cleethorpes. While this fine example of a delightful seaside resort ( ) benefits greatly from this, the people and businesses of Skegness are less than happy at the loss of trade...

As mentioned above - this is not news. Big deal if Charters can't access Skegness, what Skeggy needs is effective normal trains. And those will continue to run, unless NR East Mids want to get an earful from Central over breach of Access Conditions - and the ORR will be on CT's side.

What benefit does running a few loco-hauled trains really bring? As compared to running a sufficient number of sufficiently long DMUs? Don't forget, the DMUs have SDO allowing them to serve forgotten little places like Hubbards Bridge and Wainfleet - try doing that with 31s and Mk2s, and not hurting someone (or, more likely, incurring the wrath of HMRI). The real threat to the Skeggy line is the off-season, with only limited numbers of users outside peak hours. Getting that side of the operation right is the essential factor - if the losses can be reduced, then maybe in a few years time they can look at renewals to support loco-haulage.

With the possible exception of the 170s, I didn't think the units serving the line were SDO fitted? I was under the impression that those services calling at the smaller stations had to be formed of trains short enough to fit inside the platform, leaving the longer formations to work the semi-fast services?

Anyway, the problem is shortage of units - Central still struggles to provide anywhere near enough capacity at busy times...and the loco-hauled services would either run as an 'additional' service to supplement the timetabled units, or run in a semi-fast path, freeing that unit to strengthen another service - don't see how that affects the ability of the few services that calls at the likes of Thorpe Culvert and Hubberts Bridge. Incidentally, Wainfleet's platform isn't particularly short - I'm certain it can hold at least a 4-car set (and probably longer) with no problem. Not too sure how keen HMRI are for charter trains originating in Skegness to call there though - from past experience, 13 coaches definitely don't fit in the platform .

As far as I know, aren't 158s SDO fitted? Not sure if they operate to Skeggy regularly, but the ones Central used on the Cambrian Coast were, purely as some "platforms" were big enough for one 158 door only.

The answer would be to have more units. The problem with Skeggy is the Saturdays - for Monday-Friday, the units could be used on other services where large commuter flows exist. And a couple of dozen are coming available starting next year. Saturday is when everything changes over at Skeggy, notably Butlins, and there's lots of flows.

158s are fitted with SDO - that's why they can call at Dilton Marsh.

Ahh right, fair enough - I thought the procedure in these cases was to release the local door only...not exactly what I'd call SDO, but it does the job, I suppose . Anyway, maybe more units would help the problem (and, as you say, they could be used in the week on commuter services) - it still seems more effective to run a couple of loco-hauled services each day though, calling at the major stations only, rather than using 3 or 4 units that could still be used elsewhere!