Purely out of general interest, would a 170/3 travelling from Perth to
Oxford be capable of meeting or beating the following timings?  The
x0.00 is only meant to indicate cumulative times rather than departure
times.


x0.00 Perth
x0.35 Stirling
x0.43 Larbert
x0.58 Cumbernauld
x1.20 Motherwell
x2.26 Carlisle
x3.26 Lancaster
x3.59 Preston
x4.47 Crewe
x5.45 Birminham New Street
x6.53 Oxford

Of the operational stock presently available for spot hire or lease,
what would offer the greatest fuel economy or lowest track access
charges for this folly?

Cheers

On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 14:37:34 -0700 (PDT), rhdoxon wrote in
,
seen in uk.railway:

> Purely out of general interest, would a 170/3 travelling from Perth to
> Oxford be capable of meeting or beating the following timings?  The
> x0.00 is only meant to indicate cumulative times rather than departure
> times.
[...]
> x4.47 Crewe
> x5.45 Birminham New Street
> x6.53 Oxford

Off the top of my head, and remembering how poor the acceleration was
on the 170s I used to suffer, I have to say I doubt they'd manage the
Crewe - Oxford timings above.

Although theoretically 100mph units, they take so long to accelerate
that you'd be lucky to get to 100mph from Crewe by the time you got to
Norton Bridge, if not Stafford.

-- 
Ross. 
* Opinions are my own; my employer has disowned me again.
* Reply-to will bounce. Replace the junk-trap with my first name to e-mail me.

AD: <http://www.merciacharters.co.uk> for rail enthusiast tours in Europe

"Ross"  wrote in message 
news:61kq64dsg6htsrgsu081njhkc2bod8svcg@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 14:37:34 -0700 (PDT), rhdoxon wrote in
> ,
> seen in uk.railway:
>
>> Purely out of general interest, would a 170/3 travelling from Perth to
>> Oxford be capable of meeting or beating the following timings?  The
>> x0.00 is only meant to indicate cumulative times rather than departure
>> times.
> [...]
>> x4.47 Crewe
>> x5.45 Birminham New Street
>> x6.53 Oxford
>
> Off the top of my head, and remembering how poor the acceleration was
> on the 170s I used to suffer, I have to say I doubt they'd manage the
> Crewe - Oxford timings above.
>
> Although theoretically 100mph units, they take so long to accelerate
> that you'd be lucky to get to 100mph from Crewe by the time you got to
> Norton Bridge, if not Stafford.
>
> -- 
> Ross.

Most of the timings should be feasible - if there were no other trains on 
the railway. But if you have pathing requirements for other trains at 
stations and junctions, some of the timings might be optimistic.

Birmingham - Oxford has been done in under 63 mins by a Class 47 with load 
9, according to R.P.S. records, so with a clear road, 68 minutes by a Class 
170 should not be a problem.

The same RPS records also show a Crewe - Wolverhampton time of under 37 
minutes by a Class 47 (recorded by uk.r contributor Brian Basterfield), so 
58 minutes to Birmingham by Class 170 should also be feasible.

Bevan

Thanks for the replies.

The query was expanded from a general pub "Wouldn't it be good"
conversation concerning getting from central Scotland to NW England
avoiding a change of trains at Edinburgh or stations in Glasgow.

Playing with an ipod touch and the national rail website brought us
down to 1h51 mins from Stirling to Carlisle, a form of cross-rail
without any new rails...