Milepost 29¾ – January 2009 The Quarterly Magazine of the Railway Performance Society Honorary President: Gordon Pettit, OBE, FCILT Commitee: CHAIRMAN Frank Collins 10 Collett Way, Frome, Somerset BA11 2XR Tel: 01373 466408 e-mail [email protected] SECRETARY & VC Martin Barrett 112 Langley Drive, Norton, Malton, N Yorks, YO17 9AB (and meetings) Tel: 01653 694937 Email: [email protected] TREASURER Peter Smith 28 Downsview Ave, Storrington, W Sussex, RH20 (and membership) 4PS. Tel 01903 742684 e-mail: [email protected] EDITOR David Ashley 92 Lawrence Drive, Ickenham, Uxbridge, Middx, UB10 8RW. Tel 01895 675178 E-mail: [email protected] Fastest Times Editor David Sage 93 Salisbury Rd, Burton, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23, 7JR. Tel 01202 249717 E-mail [email protected] Distance Chart Editor Ian Umpleby 314 Stainbeck Rd, Leeds, W Yorks LS7 2LR Tel 0113 266 8588 Email: [email protected] Database/Archivist Lee Allsopp 2 Gainsborough, North Lake, Bracknell, RG12 7WL Tel 01344 648644 e-mail [email protected] Technical Officer David Hobbs 11 Lynton Terrace, Acton, London W3 9DX Tel 020 8993 3788 e-mail [email protected] David Stannard 26 Broomfield Close, Chelford, Macclesfield, Cheshire,SK11 9SL. Tel 01625 861172 e mail: [email protected] Publicity/Webmaster Baard Covington, 2 Rose Cottage, Bradfield,Wix, Manningtree, Essex CO11 2SH Tel 07010 717717, E-mail: [email protected] Steam Specialist Michael Rowe Burley Cottage, Parson St., Porlock,Minehead, Somerset, TA24 8QJ . Tel 01643 862182 E-mail: [email protected] Non-committee official:- Topical points Martin Robertson 23 Brownside Rd, Cambuslang, Glasgow, G72 0NL e-mail: [email protected] Directors of RPS Rail Performance Consultants Ltd.:- Frank Collins (chairman),), Peter Smith (secretary), Martin Barrett CONTENTS Notices 218 WCML Upgrade Virgin Driver 225 The Driver & Train Timer Virgin Driver and John Heaton 227 91’s in ’91 David Adams 234 Fastest Times Martin Robertson 237 Network Developments Ian Umpleby 248,255 & 286 Confessions of a South Wales Explorer David Ashley 249 50 Years Ago – The Dunkley Collection Martin Barrett 256 Recorders Guide to SNCF Alan Varley 272 Around Ireland – Part 3 Martin Barrett 277 Letter to the Editor 285 News Alert 286 Front cover: D95 passing through Coaley, south of Gloucester in July 1963 – Bruce Nathan Enclosures (where subscribed): UK & Foreign Distance Charts, 2007 MTD Sequel, 2008 MTD, Membership renewal forms Copyright The Railway Performance Society Ltd, registered in England & Wales No. 04488089 Use of the material in the magazine is permitted only for the private purposes of the reader No material in the magazine can otherwise be used for publication or reproduction in any form without the express permission of the Society The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the RPS, the Editors or any of their advisers. Whilst efforts are made to ensure accuracy, the Editor his advisers and the RPS accept no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from any inaccuracies howsoever caused. Readers are asked to note that the RPS encourages contributions from all members, and articles may appear that are interesting in content, but occasionally may not be to the standard of the rest of the publication. Material sent to the Editors, whether commissioned or freely submitted is provided entirely at the contributors own risk; neither the Editor nor the RPS can be held responsible for any loss or damage howsoever caused. Published by The Railway Performance Society Limited, 92 Lawrence Drive, Ickenham, Uxbridge, Middx, UB10 8RW Printed by Prontaprint Harrow, 7 Central Parade, Station Rd., Harrow, Middx, HA1 2TW. Milepost 29¾ -218- January 2009 Chairman’s Foreword – January 2009 We live in challenging times. The RPS has not yet been hit by the Credit Crunch, or the recession in the UK economy – but nevertheless we have to be fast on our feet to ensure that the Society continues to deliver to the membership the services its member want, and provide value for money in the process Within the Society we have a unique asset – the Society Archive. I can state with some confidence that this is almost certainly the largest collection of locomotive performance data ever assembled anywhere in the world – and it continues to grow rapidly at a pace dictated largely by the speed with which Lee Allsopp and his scanning team can deal with the data given to us. Our main vehicle for making this vast bank of data readily accessible to the members is of course via the Society’s website. You can imagine our shock therefore when it was discovered, one Wednesday morning in July, that the access to this had been barred by our web-provider. Enquiry revealed that our database was simply too large for them to handle. My thanks therefore go to Baard Covington and Lee Allsopp for reacting very swiftly to the situation and finding us a new host within a couple of days. It took a week or two before everything was properly back up and running with our new hosts – testimony to the vast amount of data which had to be transferred and loaded. Thank you also to everyone for being patient and bearing with us during this period. We do now have an ISP who is able to cope with us, albeit that we are now paying rather more for web hosting than we have done in the past. Watch the website over the next few months for further improvements to its layout, appearance and functionality. Whilst some cost rises are inevitable, the Committee is always looking to contain costs where it can. One way we can do this is to avoid printing and postage costs where possible. Some years ago now we streamlined the mailings that go out in order to make these more cost-efficient. Recent changes to Company law however open up the possibility of making it possible to deliver official notification of General Meetings via the website. If all of the Members who have web access were to elect for this, it would save us a useful sum each year in printing the AGM papers and the Annual report. With this Magazine is notification of an EGM on November 1st to make some changes to the Constitution, partly with this in mind; your committee urges you to use your vote to support these changes. Another way we can both economise and make data more widely available is by publishing certain things via the website. With this in mind, the Committee have restructured the subscriptions for 2009. Everything covered by the basic subscription will automatically be distributed in paper format, except for AGM papers where the Member elects to receive these electronically. All the additional services previously covered by the Full subscription – Overseas Line Charts, Overseas Fastest Times, Historic Fastest Times etc – will now be available to all members via the website free of charge. However, any member who prefers to have these in paper format may still do so for an additional £5, to cover the additional printing and postage costs associated with these. At just £18 per annum however I believe that the RPS subscription represents excellent value for money Frank Collins Chairman, September 2008 Milepost 29¾ -219- January 2009 PUBLICATION OF MILEPOST Milepost is published in April, July, October, and January. If you have not received your copy by the end of the month of publication it may have gone astray. Requests for replacements of missing or defective copies should be directed please to the Editor. REPRESENTING THE SOCIETY The RPS is always keen to be represented at special media-type occasions. However, we do ask that anyone wishing to do this should do so with the express agreement of the Committee. Should the opportunity arise for any member or in exceptional circumstances, friend of a member, to do this please can contact be made with the Secretary (either by telephone or e-mail) setting out the circumstances of the occasion. Please give us at least one week in advance of the occasion. SUBMITTING ARTICLES Submissions may be sent as attachments to an email or by post as documents on a CD or diskette or as a printed document. If sending a diskette or CD, please enclose a hard copy of the article; this helps if file(s) are unreadable for any reason. Please send all submissions to the editor whose contact details are in the inside front cover of Milepost. The editor will normally acknowledge email submissions within a few days, and always within 3 weeks. If sending by post and you wish to have a receipt, please enclose an SAE for reply. If you wish any material/CD/diskette to be returned, please clearly state this. Milepost 23¾ gave detailed guidelines for submissions. The editor is happy to supply these, on request by email or by post. Please note that page margins are critical: one inch or 2.54cm top, bottom, left and right. FASTEST TIMES Please send all Fastest Times contributions to David Sage at the address on the inside cover. This is with the following exceptions:- John Heaton for Voyagers, 180s, Pendolinos and 222s. Bill Long for DB material. If in doubt then e-mail or post to my contact details on the inside cover. Please, where practicable, also copy claims and logs to Lee Allsopp for the Society archive, and to Martin Robertson for material for his Fastest Times articles. Note that the Members area of the RPS website – see www.railperf.org.uk - has the latest GB and Overseas Fastest Times. These times are also there in the general area, but without the recorder’s initials. At present all entries are as up to date as possible from submissions received.