Atomic Systems

Hi all,

At work today, we wre examing the working timetables for the West London Line and discovered the following train - we don't know what it is, but the best guess is a railtour of sorts.

It leaves Victoria at 8:45 for Chesterfield, then is scheduled to return at about 18:30. It only runs on Wednesdays, but has a path every Wednesday. It's scheduled motive power was described as "90-47 774(pi)" - this means that it is a 47 and permitted to do 90mph, but nobody could figure out the pi sign. (Is the 47 pushing something else? - just a thought).

Anyway, I'd be interested if anyone knows what this is. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Nick

Dont think it runs every wednesday

Probably not, but it has the path booked every Wednesday (and it's not described as 'conditional' - which would mean that it is not a regular service).

Looking in Freightmaster it doesn't appear to be a regular freight working. (What would one be doing at Victoria anyway?)

Perhaps a London Spotter could shed some light?

What is the Reporting Code?

No, it's in the passenger timetable (1E02 - I think, or at least it is coming up by Acton and Willesden). I'm really puzzled by this - and why it contains pi in it's code is beyond me (it wasn't listed as a symbol in the guide to the timetable!). It also confused one of the best timetable planners in the country, so I know it's quite a difficult one! Perhaps someone has seen it though.

Nick

It would most likely be for the Blue Pullman (top and tailed 47s) or something similar. The VSOE, for example, has a booked timetable for every Wednesday down my line but it doesn't run every week however if a VSOE is going to Southampton or the West Country then it will use that particular path.

Try looking for it on the German timetable site.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

It used to give the Royal Scotsman timings including it's twice a year trip to Paddington.