Hapless Happenings at Honiton
Honiton Tunnel : Eastern Portal
fbb arrived at Axminster station at 0950 to collect No 3 son off the 1003 arrival from Waterloo. Son was visiting for the holiday weekend and dear papa was surprised to see a train in platform 1.
Trains in opposite directioins pas each other at Axminster just after each hour. They do notf normally park there!
What was slightly more discombobulating was that there was a train in platform 2 as well. Being bit dozy, fbb did not spot tha platform 2 train as it was hidden behind the above.
Back in 2022, Notwork Rail instituted a huge amount of work on the eastern portal of Hointon tunnel.
This is because of unstable land in the embankment to the right of the tunnel mouth.
So on Tuesday last (20th Aug) there was a landslip at Honiton tunnels.
The slide was temporarily supported by very large sandbags …
… and all was well until …
Except it wasn’t all well. South Western Railway’s service of dark green class 800 bi-moses (sic!!) was disrupted again from Thursday of last week. Or so one on-line news feed thought!
It was this disruption that greeted fbb yesterday.
This time it was more of a sludgelip than landslip.
The Notwork Rail team opined that the problem was less with land coming down from above, and more with water seeping up from below. So thevtrack had been excavated!
Either way, no trains could run between Axminster and Honiton.
No 3 son was on the 1003 arrival from Waterloo and the very nice man at the station informed fbb that it had left Crewkerne.
But with trains on both platforms at Axminster there was a bit of a snag.
So the 1003 arrival had to wait until the 1006 Departure had left from platform 2. Thus No 3 son was held at the end of the Crewkerne double track section until the departing 1006 could ease past.
Here comes No 3 son (and a few more) arriving wrong platform at 1025.
The dead train on platform 1 then sprang into life to form the 1106 to Waterloo.
Meanwhile, with a bevy of taxis …
… and an anonymous grey minibus …
… passengers were being conveyed westbound.
fbb thinks there was a train every two hours from Hointon to Exeter St Davids, the one unit having been trapped at Exeter.
Who would run a railway, eh?
Beastliness at Burton
For many a long year there has been a nearly non stop bus service between Derby and Burton upon Trent. For many a long year it has been “joint” between Trentbarton and Arriva, the latter as successors to Derby corporation.
fbb thinks (unreliable brain cuts in and quickly cuts out again!) the “joint”ness was a response to early post-deregulation competition. Again, fbb thinks (with no time to check in his Great Britain Bus Timetable collection) that the service used to run every 15 minutes with operators alternating.
Currently the service is every 20 minutes with an unfathomable 50:50 split between operators as shown on Trent’s web site.
Blog readers may be able to guess what the code “A” might mean.
Trent’s posh leaflets simply show an unallocated 20 min headway with no mention of the “other” operator.
The leaflets used to be very posh …
… but recent editions have beem more mundane.
Here is a Trentbarton bus for the X38.
And Arriva?
By comparison, Arriva’s leaflet is utterly stunning!
Yep, there isn’t one!
Arriva’s on-line timetable, as we might expect …
… doesn’t mention Trent journeys. Here we see old and newer Arriva livery.
And a response!
The boss of Trent has become almost apoplectic on line, because …
… as from August 31st Arriva has registered a 20 minute service on the X38. Arriva has, arbitrarily and one-sidedly, broken the joint agreement.
Horrid Arriva!
In response, Trent has registered a 15 minute service on its X38, at the same time extending it from Derby city centre to the bus station. The new times are on the Trentbarton web site butvwith no mention ofnthe bus station.
Has fbb got it wrong – again?
On Arriva’s web site we can see the new timetable …
… NOT. The only mention of Trent is in the blurb about tickets, which pre-dates the kerfuffle.
So from next weekend there will be five buses every hour running almost non-stop …
… Between Derby and Burton upon Trent. And there simply will not be enough passengers to make either of the services commercially viable.
Who will crack first?
fbb suspects Arriva will have withdrawn completely by Christmas. Surely the new investment bank owners will not tolerate such wasteful activity?
Watch this space!
Hello Doctor Yellow But Goodbye
Dr Yellow is the nickname of certain trains on various bits of the Japanese high speed network. There have been many Doctors Yellow over the years …
… the most recent looking like this.
These are standard very nigh speed trains carrying passengers, but they are fitted with a range of monitoring and recording technology to inspect the track and overhead catenary, but at the scheduled high lin speed.
In practice, these trains are simply substituted for a standard passenger train; slipped almost at random into the timetable.
Because of this unpredictability, they are seen by the Japanese populace as being harbingers of good luck. If you see a Dt Yellow, good fortune will fill your day.
fbb prefers the reliability of God for His more sustainable “good fortune”.
The latest units on these lines are N700S stock …
… and they are very snazzy indeed.
2+2 seating in these wide bodies trains is for “first class” passengers …
… with 2+3 for the “lower orders”. In a 2+3 coach, two sets of single seats are removed to make way for wheelchairs.
There is still room for the trolley!
These trains are as stunning as they look.
N gauge model company Kato has a set in its catalogue.
But the point of this excursion into the N700S trains is that a small extra fleet as been ordered, each unit to include an even more extensive collection of measuring and sensor stiff than on the Dr Yellow stock – which will then be retired.
It is not made clear whether the N700S technology trains will be panted yellow. If not, there may be a shortage of good luck on offer for the superstitious Japanese rail watchers.
Next Monorail blog : Monday 26th August
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