The Steam Ban around York

What's going on? I think it is obvious; rather like the rules for car drivers under the totting up procedure one TOC has been suspended the other TOCs have not hit the tot-up trigger point and can still operate hence Nunney's run through the area. I don't know whether the rules allegedly infringed were correctly issued, the exact nature of the alleged transgressions (although from the foregoing thread it appears to have involved Olton Hall's run) or whether the ban has been issued under a valid reason. As the resolution procedure behind the scenes is also apparently running isn't it time we accept that and just await the long-term outcome?

 

According to Mr Riley on his Forum, the ban is lifted and the Tin Bath will run as originally planned.

 

Hypothetically, if any ruling comes in favour of WCRC and a scenario similar to the above happens, would WCRC have a case to sue for loss of earnings ?.

 

There is no information yet as to why the ban has been lifted. Speaking to someone involved in NR briefly about this at the weekend, the reasoning behind the NR ban was that they were wanting assurances from WCRC on their operations due to fires being started by the tours they run. Network Rail are in line to pay delay compensation past £5,000 and if a tour sets fire to trackside that figure will soon be reached. The Ban is as much cash saving for a cash strapped Network Rail NE section, and maintaining performance figures around York which is a bottle neck as it is about any perceived Fire Risk.

It would be interesting to find out any such resolution, but I would think that really there are equally faults on both sides as to how this was handled.

 

It always cracks me up to see freight using the station roads at York, and I am just waiting for the day that a drunkard steps onto an intermodal wagon for a trip to Doncaster. It seems that freights traversing the entire avoiding line are a rarity these days. Although not necessarily a big deal in the broader scheme of things, it would probably free-up paths into the station, although admittedly, its moving the bottleneck to Holgate and Skelton Junctions. However, York does seem to have more than its fair share of track circuit problems. Either way, you'd expect somewhere like Clapham Junction to be more of a bottleneck, not so much York.

 

I think what is meant is that the open access TOC liability is capped at £5k so after a Sir Lamiel type event NR has to make up the enormous difference to East Coast and the other franchisees in the delay minutes system. This is real serious money.

I can imagine this is in the background but I can't really see how it can be the main story. Either the slots are there to operate the SSE and Waverley out of/through York or they are not there. Indeed do operations like that have some kind of grandfather rights? If the slot is there and the TOC is complying with the rules there's no question. The primary issue must be whether WCR followed the LNE zone rules on the fateful day and if not whether the LNE response was proportionate.Anyway, assuming the ban really has been lifted they must have settled their differences privately. That's the main thing, if so the Jubilee Requiem can run, the Tin Bath can run and the Christmas trains to Lincoln and York can run.

 

Doubt it's £5000 they're worried about as AFAIK, that's WCRC's exposure to risk as delay payments are capped at that amount. It's the umpteen grand above that cap that NR cop for and I suspect is NR's gripe.

 

It appears that DBS may well be over their problems and offering a decent service to steam operators next year. Let's hope so.

 

Any competition in the market place has to be a good thing. Those of us wanting to experience steam haulage in the areas affected by the ban imposed on WCRC would welcome any TOC who could facilitate tours on those routes at present.

 

Just look at the Reading/Paddington service the other day when someone decided to cut into a 650v signal cable, also in the West Country after a HST got stuck.
How late was the sleeper that day?
All swept under the carpet because steam was not involved. Are HST's going to be banned? I think not.

 

The competency of DBS crews has never been in question, it's more the DBS management under suspicion, in any case DBS are only capable of winning so much work while they persist with restrictions on Vac Braking, which routes they are willing to operate (Is it right they won't take steam into Cornwall currently ?), double heading etc, by imposing this they are already ruling themselves out of work from people who wish to do any of the above.

DBS can live without charter work (and are not adverse to displaying this attitude), but WCRC live or die by it.

 

See my post above #411 above.

 

They may well not be dropping charters at the drop of a hat currently, but I've read nothing about the dropping of the restrictions I posted, which has been in place since around 2006 ish, which is around the time WCRC started gaining more work, I'll believe the situation is different when they operate a vac brake train on a line a bit busier than the Kyle, remember Vintage Trains for one loco operator refuses to put air brakes on it's own locomotives so is likely to remain a WCRC operation for that reason, not to mention the Mk2's in the TY01 set are vac only.

 

little bit more than that sleeper..
just about everything in and out of Paddington to Reading was canceled.

 

RTC did switch from WCRC to EWS (as it then was) in 2008: I noticed the change of TOC when the Duke did a Manchester - Newcastle and return on 2 February that year. I asked the ubiquitous Les what lay behind the move: he referred to poor quality stock and other operational difficulties. It didn't last long: RTC were back to West Coast after only a few months.

Peter on a wet Manchester evening
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