Nice shots Brian, just gave me an idea you saying sherburn, might pop into my old stomping ground the bike cafe when it’s a bit warmer
Spent many a happy time at Squires Cafe (aka Milkbar). Set off numerous times from there on the Ironbutt challenge.
Riding 1000 miles non stop, except for fuel, within 24hrs raising money for the poppy appeal. Great times, great friends.
Wow good one,
I started going there when it was the old milkbar, the days of the fizzy
Didn’t have the same appeal once Harry n Sue sold it, but we still pop up in the car as no bike now
Last summer, same place. I like the Drax trains ;o)
Nice … what’s your role on the railways then? My eldest is a trackman with a degree in Computer Science but he’s loved the railway since he was tiny.
Now, this isn’t me being all “drone police” but actually wanting to know … what are the restrictions on flying over train tracks? I read a tweet a few weeks back to do with the Flying Scotsman and the idiots near the line… basically the tweet lambasted the idiots and then threw in for good measure “drones aren’t allowed near the tracks”. This was from the National Railway Museum.
Glad your asking that as i did wonder myself
Aaah, so it was you I was sent out by the central command centre to apprehend was it? It was reported by the signaller that there was a drone flying over the sidings, he thought it was illegal, but after appraising him and the command centre of the drone code no further action was needed. But I went out anyway in the hope of a chinwag with a fellow flyer.
Simple answer.
Drones are only restricted as per the ANO (air navigation order) and Drone code. IE. Not closer than 50m to a building or infrastructure not under your control. There were a few cases where drones were seen to be hovering in front off and following alongside certain trains, usually the Flying Scotsman because it is unarguably the most famous steam train in the world.
My job up until yesterday was to attend incidents (fatalities, crashes, bridge bashes, broken rails derailments, and anything that stopped or had the potential to stop trains). As a Rail Incident Officer I had
I’ll just fly over these then lol
Lot of respect for the job you did , in my old job i saw first hand the aftermath of what trains can do, having my PTS/ICI i understand where your coming from.
Good luck in your new role
Good to know “from the inside” so to speak. Thanks @Brian
Thank you. I was a brilliant job, but luckily I kept up my signalling qualifications and when I was offered the chance to go into York control centre, it was too good to miss.
So I’ve gone from pulling signal levers to the pushing a mouse in the most modern computerised system. From dealing with one train at a time to 25 at a time.
Is it true what Tom Shapre said in Vintage Stuff, that with only a few point changes you could bring the whole network to grinding halt?
Not really.
We have workarounds that allow us to keep the network running. If we have, say a points failure, then before our engineers can fix them, part of my job was to go out and operate them from the ground to the position that the signaller needs them in to get trains moving again.
Most of the infrastructure such as points and signals are monitored remotely using sensors which tell us if there’s an issue. Covert cameras abound, disguised as rocks, which are placed at trespass areas and send pictures direct to control centre.
We have special keys and tools we insert into the points motors to wind the points into the correct position for the train route. The biggest fear is an attack on the signalling centre because it houses, or is in the process of housing, the signalling from Kings cross to Edinburgh and including most of South, East and West Yorkshire. Hence there is a small arsenal of weapons stored nearby ready, the whole building is as secure as a prison, even topped with razor wire and huge gates that look like they hold dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
Even I have a back up mouse ready to plug in if one fails
And the hand gel to combat chemical attack
Lol. Too true
And to incidents like this?!!! (North Circular Road, London, early 1990s)
It’s terrible disaster:sob:
In the first picture is that a person still in the seat?
No it’s a dummy we used to show the positions of deceased. The car also had gas bottles carried in the boot