Really interesting run, Lamplight. As you say, the use of lower cut-offs looking deserving of more experimentation. When I saw the log I immediately noticed the higher speed you achieved through Salwick and the 62 maximum beyond - our highest yet. Regarding the scheduled time to Layton - I suspect there are two factors. I found this schedule in a public timetable, and it showed arrival and departure times for all stations, except Layton - where it only showed the departure time. The dwell time at all the other stations was 1 minute, so I guessed Layton would be the same. I suspect, though, it was actually 30 seconds (which seems optimistic for a steam loco with a rake of slam door stock, but still). That would give 2m30s for the run from Blackpool - still not achievable with the current line speeds, but I suspect you’re right that some of the line speeds historically were higher. More recently I was looking in public timetables from the steam era at some Preston - Blackpool schedules with a view to finding us a new challenge. I realised that some of the non-stop trains were booked to complete the journey in a time which certainly wouldn’t be achievable - quicker, even, than the 45/47 is allowed by the 1980s. My suspicion is that in the 1950s the Kirkham avoiding lines had a significantly higher line speed (perhaps a straight run with no reduction at all). That would save a lot of time, giving a clear, fast run all the way from Preston to Poulton. At some point I suspect a decision was taken to change the alignment either to reduce costs, or to give a higher line speed into the station at Kirkham (where, by that time, most trains stopped anyway) sacrificing the line speed on the through lines in the process. It seems unnecessary as neither of the junctions - East or West of Kirkham - are in particularly constrained locations, so it should have been possible to have a reasonably high line speed on both through and diverging routes, but in that era I suspect cost was a big factor. Anyway, it is also quite possible that the line speed over the station throat at Blackpool was higher, and that might enable 2m30s Blackpool to Layton to be achievable. I did think about trying to amend the challenge to allow a shorter dwell time at Layton and/or a higher speed leaving Blackpool, but by that time a number of attempts had already been made and it would have made different attempts non-comparable, so I decided to leave it as it was. I actually quite like the fact that the challenge is such a deceptively tough one - we are seconds away from achieving it, but we have been for some time. I’m still optimistic that it’s possible, but we’re not there yet.
I agree with you that there are probably a number of factors in play with Layton, lcyrrjp. Being so close to Blackpool North, I imagine it was a quick affair in terms of stopped time (for steam days anyways) and not so much of a proper stop. I had also considered whether they might have (officially or unofficially) just gunned it out of Blackpool. Quite a few platforms give you an almost straight shot onto the mainline and given the more lackadaisical approach to speed limits in steam days (from what you hear), I wouldn’t surprised at that. That is, if the same 15mph was imposed back then. It’s a moot point now, but I think you made the right choice not changing it. All of our runs have some amount of educated guessing involved. I do remember also having to fill in some blanks in some of my posted challenges. I think it’s fine as is - an additional challenge to our skills, if you like Interesting points about Kirkham and the non-stop runs. True enough - the luxury of the performance logs we used for many other runs is that we have evidence of the line speeds which public timetables lack. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the timetable you were eyeing? I’d be curious to see the sort of timings they were working with. Also, we reached page 10! Cheers everyone!
Nice to see activity here again! Must admit I haven't the time to read through all the posts, but I will do. I should also, providing I find my notes, have the Jubilee ECML run which I decided to have a crack at, though never remembered to put here.
Yes, the possibility of the schedule being a product of a lower level of compliance with speed restrictions in steam days crossed my mind too. I understand a number of scheduled running times had to be increased when diesels took over as they weren't achievable if you actually adhered strictly to the line speed! I've seen it recorded somewhere (it may have been OS Nock's wonderful "Railway Race to the North") that the North Eastern Railway scheduled their fastest train to average 76.4mph between passing Berwick and arriving in Edinburgh. This was particularly noteworthy given that Scotland had a blanket 75mph speed restriction at the time! I'm not absolutely certain which timetable I was looking at for a Preston - Blackpool run, but I think it may have been this one: London Midland Region 1958 Here's to the next 10 pages!
Not a challenge, but a few shots from a recent steam special from London Victoria to Brighton, with 45674 'Duncan' and 10 mk1s... Departure from Victoria was at 10:00, and running through the London suburbs was steady, mostly around 40mph on the climb to East Croydon. There we were held at a red, due to a class 700 just vacating the platform ahead of us. From a standing start it was then a long slog to the summit at Quarry Tunnel, which we passed at 33mph. Speed rose steadily once over the summit, and we touched 85mph before Gatwick, green signals giving us a fast run at the next climb, going over the summit at Balcombe Tunnel at 65mph. Speed rose again over the Ouse Viaduct, but we were brought down to another red before Haywards Heath, which cleared as we slowed to a crawl. The train ahead of us there turned out to be a stopping train, and we ran on its signals from there to Brighton - an interesting challenge, riding the yellows to stay 'on block' to the stopper, without being brought to a stand at a red as it departed each station ahead of us. All in all, this was an interesting run, which I'd recommend in free roam with all the AI traffic around. Spoiler: Shots A steady start through the London suburbs Overtaking a stopper near Selhurst Between a freight and a Thameslink service after Purley Storming through Gatwick at 80. Journey's end.
Someone mistook the speed limit for a minimum speed then! Always feels like the railways in steam days are barely comparable with the ones nowadays. I read that before as well. Fascinating stuff This doesn’t happen to be based on a real run, right? My ears perked up when I read Brighton and London Victoria since that was my home route in the UK
No, purely my imagination. I haven't come across any logs of steam on the brighton line. In any case, the signal checks I received (which I had expected and hoped for, with all the AI traffic around) would have made any comparison of speeds or running times pretty limited.
As a short follow-up, I did some digging and actually found a real railtour to copy for those interested. Not posting this as a proper challenge since we lack some detail on it, but there was a railtour hauled by a Black 5 from London Victoria to Hastings via Eastbourne. Based on the pictures, the railtour was made up of 13 coaches. It departed (at least if kept to the timetable) London Victoria at 10:30 before passing East Croydon at 11:15, Redhill at 11:35 before (presumably) departing from the Brighton Mainline at Wivelsfield (so a switch from BML to ECW in TSW). Scheduled arrival at Eastbourne was 13:05. Think I'll have a go at this. Source (information and pictures): https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/17718322.steam-train-travel-london-hastings/
So, I was eager to find a new run for us. While looking through the timetable lcyrrjp kindly linked, I started researching what sort of loads would be appropriate. While doing that, I happened to stumble upon a performance log of a Black 5 running a Blackpool - Crewe run from Blackpool (South) to Preston via the coastal route. Two similar logs of Black 5s on lighter trains from Blackpool South to Liverpool also exist (1, 2). I invite you to join me on a journey back to the 60s when Blackpool was still buzzing and steaming along its many routes. Source Blackpool South to Preston - Jubilee +8 mk1 coaches The Set-Up: Spawn in Blackpool South on foot at 9:50. Ready yourself to spawn the Jubilee +10 mk1s consist. Don't be alarmed, you'll need to wait for 9:52 before the line is free and you can spawn anything. Simply lose the last two coaches for an 8-coach train (feel free to back up in the station a bit if you have the time). Set your path to Preston - I chose one of the eastern platforms since they are not as often occupied as the western platforms with the Pacers. No additional waypoints are needed. Timetable: You'll call at most stations on the coastal route before becoming more of an express to Preston. The exact schedule can be found here on our spreadsheet. You will also see the performance of the log linked above in our spreadsheet. Please note that I opted for a universal one-minute stop at every scheduled stop in line with our other challenges. It would appear that the real run stopped for shorter periods so keep that in mind when looking at the figures for the real run. Lea Road Station: In our spreadsheet, I have included Lea Road station, which was already history by the time of TSW's BPO. As a visual aid, if you wish to find it, the following picture shows the site of the former station in TSW. It is shortly outside Salwick and noticeable by the three separate bridges next to one another. Closing Thoughts: This one is a little different from our usual runs. It is the first one that mostly acts as a stopping service (even more so than the previous Blackpool North - Preston run). The coastal route from Blackpool South to Kirkham is beautiful and a steam engine fits right in. Additionally, the timing for the stopping part of the run is really tight - if you look at our spreadsheet or the performance log, you'll notice that the real driver was struggling as well (though do keep my imposed one-minute stop in mind!). While putting this run together, I've had three attempts at this (and a similar) run and every one was great fun! More on this in my next post. Unfortunately, comparisons with the real log are not that easy since the real run experienced frequent signal checks and the driver seems to have held back on the final stretch to Preston because of the expected signal checks there, which are also accounted for in the timetable. Also, does anyone else find it weird that the run doesn't stop at Kirkham despite needing to negotiate the station and likely experiencing signal checks at the junction?
Now onto my runs. This is about two of my runs since the third was done with a different rule set. I don’t know if something is broken regarding free-roam randomisation but I happened to get the same old Lady – 45627 Anson – on all three runs. In my first run, I kept the cylinder cocks closed at every stop, which I think made my departures slower. On my second attempt, I kept them open, which allowed me to trash the loco a lot more. Other than that, the variations in technique were minuscule, so I’ll talk you through both runs at the same time. I generally used this technique for quick starts: Start with the cut-off fully forwards at 75 and the regulator at 20 (20/75 from here on). You’ll need to fan the regulator if you keep the cylinder cocks closed. Around 10mph, I switched to 40 regulator with 50 cut-off (40/50) and quickly dialled the cut-off back to the 20s. From there one, I used steps of 2 24-22-20-18-16 until I reached 16 while keeping the regulator on 40. This meant that I was usually over 30mph when I reached 16. Using this technique, I usually got to around 40mph in between stops. From Blackpool South to Lytham, I tried being aggressive when starting and somewhat aggressive in stopping in an attempt to match the tight timetable. I could have been more aggressive in braking, but I opted for what I thought was a more realistic approach. As you can see in my times, this only worked somewhat. Only 3 (and once 4) minutes to get from station to station is a real challenge with the Jubilee (and the Black 5 in the log) and I doubt it is even possible to meet. But this is how close I got. Following Lytham, I could let her run a bit before easing off for the restriction in Moss Side. Note that while the speed limits in Moss Side was higher in the 60s, I stuck to TSW’s 35 for the run. In the following climb to Kirkham, I used 40/16, which seemed to work well and kept my speed above 30mph. Easing off again for the 30mph restriction in Kirkham, I quickly got up to 40 once out of the points and got the old girl working again with 40/16 all the way to Preston. Comparing my performance to the real run, they seem to match pretty well here except for the driver in the log taking it easy before the expected signal checks while I could just let her run on account of having a green wave into Preston. After hitting a maximum speed of 62mph, I finally stopped in Preston (gently as I should) 19 (or 47) seconds ahead of schedule. This is why I mentioned that the timetable likely accounts for the signal checks. All in all two very enjoyable runs and certainly not my last ones for this challenge. Spoiler: Stopping Service Snapshots I don’t know if the Class 2/B lamp code for this run is actually appropriate, but I felt it fitted with the stopping pattern at the start and it’s something different for the pictures. Unfortunately, Blackpool South is but a shadow of what it once was. The empty space and bridge bear witness to that. The Jubilee looks almost lost in a meadow here. JT did a phenomenal job on the scenery, I think. This is the kind of view I’d love to have in my backyard. With the reduction of the line to a single track, this looks more like a heritage railway in this shot. Anson leans into the curves shortly before Kirkham Junction.
Really interesting challenge, Lamplight, I look forward to giving it a go. I agree the stopping pattern does seem a bit strange, but I suppose they took the view that trains to Blackpool North, Central and Fleetwood could provide the Kirkham & Wesham service. Even though nearly everything stops there now, Kirkham & Wesham station actually appears to have less population around it than most of the stations on the Blackpool South branch. I think in modern times Kirkham & Wesham has become a bit of a 'parkway' station for the surrounding towns and villages which don't have stations. In the early 60s that would have been less of a factor, with much lower levels of car ownership. The gradient profile, from Ian Allan's 'Gradients of the British Mainline Railways', is here: Mostly undulating, but with a significant 2-mile ascent after Moss Side which looks particularly tricky given the speed restriction at the foot of the climb.
I gave this Blackpool South to Preston a go tonight. I had 45617 'Mauritius' and 8 mark 1s. The full times are shown on the spreadsheet, here. On the first section along the coast, with its frequent station stops, running was similar to that of Lamplight with his two runs with 'Anson'. 'Mauritius' achieved slightly higher maximum speeds on the whole, but start-to-stop times were comparable, and I suspect the braking made a bigger difference than variations in acceleration. My braking was mostly OK, except for St Annes where I made a rather slow approach and lost 17 seconds compared to Lamplight's second (quicker) attempt. I tended to start out of stations with a lower cut-off than described by Lamplight - around 50% - and quickly reduced to around 30%. I found that meant that, at each station, by departure time pressure was high, but without the safety valves lifting. The net result, though, was that we started out of Lytham just over 2 minutes late, and 9 seconds behind Lamplight's best. From Lytham I took a different approach, knowing I had a longer run ahead and a 35mph PSR through Moss Side, I quickly reduced to 18% cut-off and adjusted the regulator to keep boiler pressure high, sacrificing acceleration. As a result we dropped a little more time to Moss Side, but went through there with full pressure and made a spirited assault on the climb beyond, going over the summit at 36mph and then touching 42mph once over the top, before braking for Kirkham. The long period of coasting through Kirkham had the safety valves lifting for the first time since Blackpool South and the loco was worked hard once clear of the speed restriction, 61mph at Lea Road and touching 64mph before braking for Preston. Arrival at Preston was 1m20s early. One of the things which is very different about driving these stopping services is there's much more to do than on the non-stops. Each station stop has barely enough time to prepare the loco for the 'off' and the quick dashes between stations are a flurry of control adjustments to get the most out of the loco. Amidst all of this, I'm afraid I entirely forgot to get any photos, and had to make do with a quick shot on arrival at Preston. I'll try to do better next time! It was a really enjoyable and interesting run, though - thank you to Lamplight for the challenge.
Excellent work, lcyrrjp. That was an impressive run. I’m quite intrigued by our almost opposite approaches to the starts. For me, the safeties were usually lifting around the time I stopped. Based on your account, I suppose I could have made more use of my steam. I did feel that going all the way down to 16 cut-off was somewhat overboard for the stopping part of the run, but it also meant I didn’t have to worry about pressure and could focus more on the upcoming stops. I should try starting with 50 cut-off sometime - after all, I’m always around 55 anyways when I stop since that is the designated ‘drifting’ position on the cut-off. In the end, I agree that the stops are likely more important for the times here than the starts. It is my impression that you can only get that much acceleration out of an engine like the Jubilee no matter which way you slice it (though that’s not to say that there isn’t room for improvement). And the top speed will likely have comparatively little impact as well given the frequent stops. It’s true that these stops are much more hectic. It’s part of the reason I was so intrigued when I found the Blackpool South logs. I think it would have been interesting to see what it was like in the cab of a commuter service back in steam days. Your climb out of Moss Side looks impressive. About 30 seconds quicker than me. My 40/16 got me over just above 30mph, not 36! Was that just with 40/18 or did you do a final push? After Kirkham, our runs seem extremely similar (minus the final push I didn’t do) down to one second and one mph at Salwick, so at speed, 16 and 18 cut-off might not differ all that much. Interesting
No final push on that climb, as I wanted to maintain pressure for after Kirkham. 40/18 held me at about 35mph all the way up the climb, with a slight acceleration on the final, less steep section. As it was, I could have afforded to give it a bit more, as the safety valves lifted passing through Kirkham. I started the climb with pretty much full boiler pressure, though, having taken it easy before Moss Side.
Inspired by our different techniques, I had another go at the Blackpool South - Preston run today trying to find something of a middle ground between the two approaches presented thus far. Suffice to say, I may have to take back my statement on the Jubilee's acceleration... Join me on the footplate of 45613 Kenya. My log is - as always - here on our spreadsheet. Before we start, here is what I changed in my approach. This time, I started with 55 on the cut-off (so I just left the cut-off where it was from drifting into the station stops). I started with the cylinder cocks open and 20 on the regulator, which I gradually increased to 40. I had some wheelslip when I was too quick on the regulator but nothing worth noting in the log. Instead of going all the way down to 16 on the cut-off, I instead only went to 30. The 36 that lcyrrjp put down in the log felt a bit too high for me personally - especially since the safeties didn't lift until Kirkham. While that is good technique for which I tip my hat, I wanted to be a little more conservative still and went down to 30 on the dot. As it were, that actually made the safeties usually lift seconds before departure, so exactly right for getting pressure when you need it. Now, onto the main course. I started out of Blackpool South with thunderous hammering of the pistons. I had never really started with lower cut-offs than 60 and was quite surprised at how well the Jubilee was pulling away. On the way to Squires Gate, I watched the pressure gauge anxiously. More and more pressure was being used up. No climb lay ahead of us and the next stop would allow for regeneration, but I nevertheless grew nervous as the reading fell - 200psi, 190, 180, 175, ... We pulled into Squires Gate and I braked the same as in my other runs - gently but with an appropriate bite for a stopping run. Once stopped, I checked my time and then checked my time again since I could not believe it. 20 seconds(!) quicker than the quickest runs by lcyrrjp and I. That's why I feel the need to edit my previous comment about the Jubilee's acceleration. I'm certain I wasn't braking harder than before and as such, the acceleration must have bought me that time. The safeties lifted seconds before pulling out of Squires Gate. After some wheelslip, I got going and from now on trusted the loco to know what she is doing and did not worry about the quick loss of pressure. We got to St Annes maintaining the lead. On the way to Ansdell, I managed to increase the lead up to 30 seconds. However, I did also (unintentionally) brake a little harder than I aimed for. I had misjudged the stopping distance a bit and thus needed to be a little rougher. Pulling out of Ansdell, I experienced some heavy wheelslip when I (again) made a mistake correcting a mistake: When she slipped, I only reduced the regulator but did not shut it off in hopes to keep accelerating but of course, I did not catch the slip that way and had to spend more time now fully shutting it after all. Be that as it may, we got to Lytham save and increased the lead up to a little more than 30 seconds. On the way to Moss Side, I changed back to my old approach since I figured preserving pressure for the climb was key. After all, I didn't have another stop to regenerate pressure sacrificed for quick acceleration. I still started with 50 cut-off but then reverted to my progression of 24 cut-off down to 16 cut-off. We passed Moss Side for the first time still at 17 and not 18 past. As soon as we passed the end of the PSR, I switched to 40 regulator and 18 cut-off as discussed in the posts before. While it worked great, I also discovered an operational error that caused my previous runs to lose that much speed: there is a short stretch of relatively flat track just after the end of the PSR. In this run, I managed to make use of it but in the previous runs, I missed it and only really opened her up while already climbing hard. Still, the combination worked great and I added a final push (for a passing of the summit with 37mph) since I didn't really need high pressure again until getting back on the mainline after Kirkham given the downhill running and speed restrictions through the points. I used 40 regulator and 30 cut-off (40/30) again to reach the 40mph limit in Kirkham and then used 40/16 on the mainline. I briefly used 40/18 at the start but in the end felt more comfortable sticking to 16. Much of the running to Preston now behaved the same as before except for a final push added. I went up to 60/22 right after Lea Road. All in all, this made for a very timely arrival at Preston. My braking suffered a little again here since I initially failed to remember that I still had the regulator cracked slightly open from drifting. Quite chuffed with how this went. I don't really know what happened at that first stop that already got me a 20-second push. I truly didn't think the acceleration would make that much of a difference and I'm convinced my braking behaviour was comparable. Not that I'm complaining, it's just not what I expected at all going into this. Spoiler: Bought a platform ticket just for these... Looks almost like a model railway layout the way all this infrastructure neatly fits together. Now that is what a proper departure in a steam loco looks like. A gateway to a bygone era of railroading. Finally free of the stopping pattern, Kenya stretches her legs on the mainline. I know the Jubilee, the Pacer, and the layout of Preston don't really fit together, but I still thought this snapshot of Kenya pulling into the amalgamation of points and tracks that is Preston's approach looked nice.
Lamplight Are you doing these runs in scenario mode on pc or console? Have you tried Scotsman on this route, or is it out of gauge I was thinking of getting the Blackpool branches, if JT did this route circa 1960 would be great.
I’m on console (PS5). We mostly use the free roam functionality in the regular timetable to spawn the Jubilee alongside the coaches. Not quite sure which route you refer to, but we do have one run with the Flying Scotsman. Generally speaking though, we mostly stay away from Scotsman and the 4F. With our restrictions (manual firing with dampers at 25%), the Jubilee and 8F seem to behave quite close to the prototype but we haven’t really found a way to make the 4F and Scotsman behave more realistically. Blackpool is great even if it is the 80s version I highly recommend it. And if you’d like to get a feel of the 60s, we do by now already have two runs on it based on real timetables of the steam days.
Yes I meant Flying Scotsman, I always use manual firing now and dampers at 25% on all steam. So in free roam it's possible to use any loco to haul a service?
Well, yes and no. You cannot attach a new loco to a service in the timetable and drive that service. But you can spawn a loco with some coaches and do what you like with it. For example, in the above Blackpool South - Preston runs, I spawn a Jubilee +10 coaches in Blackpool South. I uncouple the last two unneeded coaches and sit down in the Jubilee. Then, I set a waypoint in Preston via the map. The game now gives me a route to get to Preston - nothing more. All the timetabling we talk about here is done outside the game (for example on a piece of paper). The game only knows that I want to get to Preston.
Great run, Lamplight - well done. I think it’s going to be a struggle to beat that. Interesting to see the evolution of techniques for achieving the quickest acceleration. It feels as if you did *something* on that first dash to Squires Gate which was particularly effective. Perhaps a little more experimentation might pin-point it. I also wonder whether the approach you established might be worth trying on our Blackpool N - Preston stopper, on which we still have a few second to find to achieve a right time arrival into Preston. The stations aren’t quite so close together, but on the Blackpool N - Layton - Poulton section it might work. Great pictures! The first has to be my favourite - a beautifully composed shot.
I know! That’s what makes it so frustrating in a way. Given that no other stop gave that much time gain, it seems I did something in just the correct way (by accident, I’m not claiming skill here ). I’ll have a go at it and see if I can reproduce my run and find what worked so great. I’m indisposed this week but hopefully next week. You read my mind. The stopping start is what we always struggled with and the combination of techniques I used might give us the push we need. Certainly worth a try.
Having recently returned to England for a week, I managed to have a magnificent find in the book sale of the Bluebell Railway (for a whopping £1!). Backen, Jack. (1993). Blowing Off Steam: Tales of an LMS Fireman, 1941-54. Silver Link Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1857940032. As you can deduce from the title, Jack Backen shares tales from his time as an LMS and later BR fireman in the Midlands. While his stories are centred around Kirkby, Mansfield, and the connecting lines, there are a few mentions of Ambergate, Nottingham, and others we know of. It’s a tremendous book for anyone reading along here. His storytelling style is quite similar to the accounts we share of our TSW runs. Without giving anything away, I wanted to share a few highlights that are relevant to our runs. Sadly, the author never mentions Jubilees at all but in turn, talks quite a bit about 8Fs and 4Fs with one mention of a Black 5. I reckon this is just as well given that we know next to nothing about the 8F’s performance while the performance logs give us some good pointers as to the Jubilee’s performance. At least between Kirkby and Wellingborough, the maximum load for an 8F was 56 cars loaded with coal forming a 700t train (which is different in TSW – about 30 loaded coal cars already produce a 700t train). Fortunately, there is a mention of a regulator and cut-off combination. It actually appears twice (once for the aforementioned 8F, once for a 3F). 50 on the regulator and 20 on the cut-off when working on the flat. There are also some mentions of boiler pressure. On a heavy climb on an 8F, Backen couldn’t keep the boiler pressure up and it started to fall from 225psi to 200psi. Based on the way he talks about this, I infer that dropping to or even below 200 when working hard was generally not done. Useful information for trying to drive realistically. In a similar vein, he also comments on 8Fs: “When working heavy, they’d blast the fire through the chimney end as fast as you could stoke it”. Lastly, he briefly mentions firing an excursion train from Whitwell over Pye Bridge, Longsight, and Manchester to Blackpool on a Black 5. This tour was routed along TSW’s PFR through Ambergate, Matlock, and Chinley as well as BPO from Preston to Blackpool. While there are unfortunately no specifics on how they drove on PFR, Backen does mention that they “stormed [their] way through (…) Dove Holes tunnel” uphill on the return trip and praises that the “Staniers could certainly steam” and that he was glad to see Ambergate and be off TSW’s PFR with its winding curves throwing the engine side to side. I’d like to wholeheartedly recommend the book to all interested. It tells tales from a bygone era of railroading and was doubly interesting because of its regional and locomotive connection to our runs in this thread.
While real life is keeping me very busy, I managed to get another run in on the Blackpool North to Preston run. I wanted to implement the driving techniques from the Blackpool South run and see if it improves things. Sadly, it did not. My log is here on our spreadsheet. I applied to aforementioned technique to my starts out of Blackpool, Layton, and Poulton: cut-off at 55, start with 20 regulator and increase to 40 regulator before winding the cut-off slowly to 30. My timings were within the normal variance close to the other attempts. The technique seems to offer little benefit given the brief acceleration times on the stop: the long speed restrictions out of Blackpool and the speed restrictions ahead of you pulling out of Layton. On the plus side, I replicated the 64mph before Preston, which to my mind is solid evidence that the lower cut-offs (I used 40 regulator with 16 cut-off again) are working and worth using. Apart from that, the run was uneventful. A standard day on the footplate, one might say. And of course, I brought a few pictures. Spoiler: Two for the price of one. Two very different sets of wheels waiting for their run out of Blackpool North. With heavy blasts out of the chimney and cylinder cocks, the Mauritius makes her way out of Poulton a minute late.
Interesting run, Lamplight. Thanks for the account. Although the overall running time was similar to previous runs, I notice you achieved (I think) the best time yet from Kirkham to passing Salwick - which is the only ‘pure’ measure of acceleration on the route (as all the other timings are start-to-stop rather than start-to-pass). The fact that this didn’t prevent you from achieving comparably high speeds between Salwick and Preston confirms that the technique you used is a good one which will prove useful on runs with longer non-stop sections (like Preston-Carlisle, perhaps!) Great pictures, with a particularly unusual angle at Blackpool N, which works really well. The steamy start from Poulton looks impressive too, with that sharpness which black and white brings.
Good catch. I had another look and it actually shares first place with my first run on the footplate of Jutland. While this might detract from the findings at first glance, I noticed that it actually strengthens them instead. What both runs shared was that I used a ‘wasteful’ start using up pressure. On #1, that was 40 regulator with 22 cut-off (40/22) down to 200psi. On my last run #4, I used a modified version of the Blackpool South starts. Still starting with 20/55, up to 40/55. Then, the regulator won’t be touched again while I slowly wind the cut-off back (often in chunks of 10) but don’t stop at 30 obviously. So something like 55-40-30-26-22-20-18-16 or similar, I can’t recall each specific step. The interval between steps was just based on feeling. I think I did ran the boiler down to about 215-200psi (thereabouts) in the initial acceleration before 16 cut-off regenerated a bit of it. So, maybe it’s worth sacrificing a bit of pressure for high acceleration if you’re also using the lower cut-offs we’re settling on as they appear to make better use of the steam and be less wasteful than 19 cut-off? Not to give anything away, but if I theoretically had already started looking into it, it’s possible that I might have already found a candidate Quite liked these two as well. I think both highlight the aliveness of steam locos in different ways and I’m always partial to that.
I’m thinking about doing a (unofficial) report on GWE. But I must ask how to read the logs, as I really am getting interested with this
tomtrainboi#1289, I'm sure we'd all be more than happy to help you out Any logs in particular we can help you with?
One log I will attempt with the Jubilee is this one https://locoperformance.tripod.com/edition10/7007wcs.htm
May I suggest this one? https://locoperformance.tripod.com/edition10/5054hfd.htm It calls at Reading, which will give a more satisfying end to the run, and it doesn’t have the Permanent Way Slacks (Temporary Speed Restrictions) which are difficult to recreate in TSW and which make comparisons difficult.
In response to your original question, whichever log you use, you read it as follows: Clearly you have the mileage - 35.98 miles to Reading General (now just called Reading), followed by the schedule. This author simply records the number of minutes scheduled start-to-stop (the stops being the stations with a dashed line underneath) and notes the actual time at the bottom. So in the case of the log you shared, departure time from Paddington was 4.45, so the 40 minute schedule to passing Reading means it was scheduled to pass Reading at 5.25. Then, the column marked m/sec shows the actual running times of the train in question, followed by the speed, in mph, recorded on that section. Where the speed has an * next to it, it means speed was reduced for a specific reason - usually a speed restriction or a signal check. As noted above, p.w.s. means Permanent Way Slack - what we’d now call a Temporary Speed Restriction. Finally, the net times at the bottom are the author’s attempt to estimate the times which the locomotive would have achieved over each start-to-stop section had the train not experienced signal checks or permanent way slacks. I’m sure you knew most of that but hopefully some of it was helpful. Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Those logs do look interesting. I'd be curious to see what performance you can get out of the Jubilee on a flat run like this if you do decide to report back, tomtrainboi#1289
After the book recommendation I shared, I just had to return to PFR and to our old friend, The Palatine. I have always talked about having another go at it and I did have quite a few in between with, admittedly, embarrassing results since I was asking too much of the old girls. Now, I finally make good on my word and return with a proper report - and not a bad one either! Join me on the footplate of 45591 'Udaipur' from Matlock via Millers Dale to Chinley. My log is - as always - here on our spreadsheet. Having spawned at Matlock with almost 10 minutes to spare before departure, I could take plenty of time to arrange my 8-coach train. Once arranged, I simply relaxed knowing that the run ahead would not be easy. For the start, I used a modified Blackpool South start again: 20 on the regulator with 55 cut-off (20/55) going up to 40/55 as quickly as the danger of wheelslip would permit. Then, I gradually wound the cut-off to 40, 30, 26, 24, 22, 20, 16. For this, I paid close attention to the pressure gauge (which is not easy for me with the steam HUD turned off!) and made sure to stick to 225psi with the highest cut-off allowed. This propelled me towards Darley Dale 10 seconds quicker than in my previous runs. Off to a good start! The run to Rowsley was uneventful, but that is the easy part, obviously. I eased off the regulator almost perfectly and didn't need any brakes to hit the speed restriction through the station. For the climb, I opted to stick to 40/16. I've grown fond of that setting and this is the home run that inspired me to use it thanks to lcyrrjp, who had used the similar 37/16 back then. For much of the climb, I trusted the Jubilee to know what she was doing and just let her chuff away with 40/16. This seemed to work until Hassop signal box, shortly after which I heard the safeties lifting. That was not what I wanted to hear - the steam should pull us along, not fly out of the safeties! So, I wound the cut-off to 20 for 40/20. This setting had great results for me on the Up Palatine from Chinley to Peak Forest. And it did work here, too. The pressure needle stayed close to 225psi as we continued. Arriving at Headstone Tunnel doing 27mph wasn't all that impressive, but I had consciously forgone the opportunity of doing a final push using up pressure. I wanted to keep that pressure for the last climb before Millers Dale. Anyways, 40/16 got me through the downhill tunnel speedy enough and I opted for 40/20 once we reached the final climb followed by a 60/26 final assault before hitting the 30mph restriction through Millers Dale. I tried to keep 30mph with the final push but failed and only managed to stick to about 28mph. During the short breather, I took a glance at the time and noticed that we were doing well. Not compared to the real schedule, mind you, but compared to the other runs. It was my quickest arrival here yet. When we were clear to go, I used a similar start as described before trying to maximise the cut-off while not using up pressure. Underway, I settled for 40/20 again due to the success of the Up Palatine. Unfortunately, I had a brief moment of doubt when pressure began slowly dropping and switched to 40/16 for a few seconds approaching Tunstead signal box. While I don't have any data to back this up, I had the distinct feeling that this killed my momentum and slowed my climb. We soldiered on and I opened her up to 60/26 passing the Great Rocks Junction signal box. The effect was perhaps underwhelming but still got me up to 26mph passing Peak Forest at the cost of running the boiler down to almost 150psi. After this, there's not much of interest to report back on. I used conservative power to hit the 50mph restriction through Dove Holes Tunnel before opening her up properly through Chapel-en-le-Frith and Chinley. In the end, this was my fastest run up to Peak Forest yet and I passed Chinely 32 seconds faster than my previous best. Still a far cry from the fantastic run by matt#4801 (a whopping 70 seconds faster than mine!) but I'm happy about the improvement vs my other runs. Spoiler: Palatine Pictures from Peak Forest Having passed Rowsley, Udaipur buckles up for a long climb testing her endurance. Still working hard, Udaipur makes her way through Hassop. More than ready, for a short break, she pulls into Millers Dale while a southbound train just leaves the station. This shot reminded me of the many tunnel shots of the real route like this one from here. Something that fascinates me about the route - both real and virtual - are the two 3-way junctions at Tunstead and Ambergate. Beautiful pieces of railway engineering that are marvellous to behold.
Very nice run there Lamplight I must say, I have my run penned in for Sunday afternoon and still yet to decide if I wanted to do an up or down run, I think this has made my mind up though! That acceleration from Matlock from the start is impressive, the second fastest if I am reading correctly, and then going from 5 seconds behind my run to 5 ahead between Darley dale and Rowsley is certainly good going over such a short distance. I do like the look of that 40/16 setup, though seems to be one for shorter climbs as after Great Longstone it appears that the higher reverser setting and lower regulator got our runs about level again timewise from you being 8 seconds ahead at Hassop. The 1:90 up to Peak Forest does seem to be a make or break climb and looks to need near perfection to get up well, I still remember that shocker of an attempt I had shortly after my successful one which, although I had a similar setup, had me 2 minutes behind where I were before. From there not much else you can do but a very good run and certainly gives me things to consider for my run on Sunday! As always beautiful screenshots, that last one takes the biscuit personally, lovely shot and does just show the scale of the hills, almost making the train look like a miniature! Just reading this back I think I have used a lot of words to not say a lot! Hope it reads ok!
Thank you for your kind words matt#4801 The starts were always something I struggled with. Judging by my performance across the board, I think I always wound the cut-off back too quickly. That Blackpool South challenge I posted was really good to see how I can get the Jubilee going. About the 40/16: It seems to excel at high(-ish) speeds as shown by the increased top speeds we reached on BPO approaching Preston. So, I feel it works well and in a conservative way for the beginning of the climb but once the speed has fallen far enough for a longer time, it just doesn't let enough steam through. I should have pushed a bit harder in the Hassop - Millers Dale section. Headstone Tunnel lets us regenerate some pressure and the following stop at Millers Dale will too. I was perhaps overly cautious here. Definitely agree on the Peak Forest climb. We went from 10 seconds apart to a full minute apart in this short section. I do want to try it again sticking it out with 40/20 or similar instead of switching it up briefly with 16 cut-off. It won't make a whole minute of difference but I'd like to know if my feeling that it killed the momentum was right. I see what you mean now about the last picture - it does look like a model railway almost Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the run
Matlock - Chinley 45725 ‘Repulse’ +8MkIs In a similar vein to Lamplight above I got a sudden appetite to do a proper SoS challenge run as it has been too long, and I return to the thread with a record, though we will build up to that later in the post! Also just to confirm and rid any doubt from the other thread the other day, I will be recording this run in my new notebook from the garage, not driving to the garage to record it! After sitting in the platform for 10 minutes, with the tele muted to not suffer the safeties constant hissing I suddenly jumped into action giving the old girl a hefty 39/55, which with the cockerals open seemed not to give me too much slip, and I were away heading towards Darley Dale. Rather amazingly I passed through at 10:49.55 matching Lamplight’s run timewise on this section though doing so passing through at just 45 mph, I suspect this were due to my take off being more (too?) aggressive and leaving me with less pressure, 180PSI in fact. Getting near Rowsley weren’t too bad, preparing to pass through were another story. I approached and realised I were going to need to just give a dab of brakes, but I fell into old habits and gave too much taking me down to 38 mph before recovering to 42 by the time of reaching the station itself at 10:52.53 (losing about 18 seconds on Lamplight), For the climb I decided to adapt the 40/16, using 44 on the regulator which, I must admit did the job well, but hitting the climb at a slower speed meant by Bakewell, doing 30 mph, I were 34 seconds behind Lamplight, but had a favourable 215 PSI in the boiler. From Bakewell to Hassop I lost more time and with a nice reserve of steam became more aggressive with a 58/19 setup, which were a mistake as pressure dropped and speed continued to drop being at 26 mph passing through Great Longstone at 11:03.41 with only 185PSI in front. Although this were the slowest time getting here so far, I were feeling confident about the climb to Peak Forest, even with my other failures on that climb looming in the back of my mind. I weren’t expecting to be breaking any records, that’s for sure! Eventually I crawled over the summit into Headstone Tunnel at 11:05.11 at only 24 mph and just tried to get some pressure back on the descent. Ultimately that one mistake at Rowsley were still causing complete havoc as in my attempt to get some pressure back I only managed to get to 34 mph upon passing Monsal Dale and climbing another 1:100, this time deciding on, and sticking with 43/17. Arrival at Millers Dale were looking to be positive as although it weren’t the best and I had lost time not too much speed were lost on the climb, but of course there were bad news, and it were, again, my fault. As I came into Millers Dale I noticed something on the cab window, then another one, then multiple ‘things’ when I had this sudden feeling of ‘oh balls what have I done?’, realising I were on dynamic weather. I came to a halt at 11:12.44, with a fitting sense of pessimism as the rain thundered down increasingly heavily. I knew with the rain this would be a different climb with more caution, so at 11:14.00 I set off using a 38/55 setup, which sent me into a rather wild wheel slip meaning I readjusted to about 18/50 and eventually started to make some progress, knowing my time would be further dented. The climb itself weren’t actually too bad holding 24mph most of the way up using 38-52/22 depending on what pressure allowed, holding it at about 200 PSI all the way up. As I approached Peak Forest I knew I were behind even with the positive climb so I really gave her some juice, 80/22, but once again I had overdone it and this just caused the wheels to spin, meaning I went through at 11:25.40 at only 22 mph almost feeling the disappointment in the passengers eyes as I slithered past. I entered the tunnel down to Chapel, getting a reprieve from the rain, to find light, and some optimism, at the end of the tunnel as the rain seemed to suddenly disappear and lighting return with a literal pop as I whizzed through the platforms (sodding dynamic weather). From here down to Chinley all I could do were stick as close to that limit as possible which I did do, even sneaking a little bit over at one point as I approached Chinley, capping it at 84. I looked at the time, looked at my notes and picked up my pen as it were this point I realised it were going to be a record run and had to be right to the second. Chinley approached, sweat ran down my face and that were it, I had done it! Not just one record on this run but two, as I can officially say that I hold the record for the slowest officially recorded and written up run! Overall it were about as bad as it sounds and can be linked to two points where I made terrible errors, the first being my braking at Rowsley and the second my over aggressive nature leaving Millers Dale, which both cost me precious speed and time. Table of times and info below in a spoiler with some extra surprises. If any numbers look blatantly wrong I can refer to my new notebook and doublecheck! Again sorry Lamplight but if you get a chance would you be able to add it to your fancy document? Spoiler
matt#4801, It never rains but it pours, I guess (pun fully intended, I'm sorry) I added your log here. Please do let me know if I messed anything up. If it's any consolation for you - the few unofficial experiment runs I did many moons ago went very similarly. Opened her up too much on the climbs hoping for a faster time but ended up costing me the runs instead. And as luck would have it, the rain set in for you at arguably the worst possible time. It did remind me though of the pictures Backen shared in the book mentioned above showing the working of steam locos in a flooded Nottingham, very similar to these. The over-braking into Rowsley would have been hard to recover from in any event. I recall the impact this had on the gentle BCC climb. And the Down Palatine is an unforgiving run since climbing is the only thing you do after Rowsley before hitting Dove Holes Tunnel at the very end. Still, you soldiered on and 30mph through Hassop is interesting. It's the fastest speed through yet together with my first run. While both of these runs paid for it with slower passes through Great Longstone and into Headstone Tunnel, it could improve our times quite a bit if we managed to hit 30mph while keeping up pressure. Not sure if that can be done but we've had a number of surprise performances over the course of this thread already. What I find quite intriguing is your climb to Peak Forest. Despite our very different speeds passing Peak Forest (and the adverse weather in yours), we took the exact same time for the climb: 11:40. Lovely pictures as well. Love the long shots. The first two would be great postcards and the last one is a nice "day in the life of" shot. Might not have been the fastest run, but I congratulate you on seeing it through and getting the passengers where they need to go despite all the issues. That's what matters.
Wow never seen these before, had family who lived in Nottingham at this time, though luckily they weren't severely impacted from what I have always been told. It says a lot about the past seeing things still cracking along even with 3-4+ft of water. The City Ground looks a completely different place as well! I must admit I didn't pick up on this. Certainly something to aim for, though will be a challenge to do the speed whilst keeping the pressure up. I am sure one of us will crack it at some point. Thanks mate, must admit that last one is the one I liked the most. I like the idea of them being postcard style pictures.
Just wondering if anyone gets false SPADS on SOS Lime street - Crewe? I seem to remember this happening when I drove on the route a year or so ago. I had a false SPAD today when heading for Runcorn from Lime street on an afternoon express. So I restarted and took a 7am ish depart lime street, calling at Edge Hill wich seemed to avoid the SPAD. I didn't finish the run but got to Runcorn and had to go out. Might be one to try with the manual firing 25% dampers, most likely someone already has. I did a run lime street - Crewe before in manual firing, I think it missed out the Edge Hill stop. I remember I did the run in a few seconds over 55 minutes.
If I’m not mistaken, this here should be your run logged on our comprehensive spreadsheet if you want to relieve some memories. The table also links back to your original post. Personally, I haven’t encountered any rogue SPADs on SoS over the past months, but I also haven’t spend a lot of time on SoS recently. I’m usually either on PFR or doing one of our runs if I’m in the mood for steam.
Thanks I couldn't see my actual run, but it's the same timings etc. I think I took 55 mins which I think was the booked time in steam days. Edit: These runs are from Crewe-Lime Street. My run started at Lime street- Crewe. I had another go today with the manual firing and 25% dampers. Unfortunately I got just at the approach of Crewe and had a blue screen crash. I've gone from PS4 to PS4 PRO, but still getting those crashes at times. Probably partly because of the manual firing. The whole run the Jubilee seemed to be slow mo with the motion turning at quarter speed. I was quite rusty on this route. Might add my timings at some point even though I didn't get to Crewe, it should give a rough idea.
I have a little fun thing to share. I'm always looking for stuff involving Brighton because of my personal connection to the place and I found this. It's a picture of a Black 5 railtour in Polegate coming from Brighton via ECW on her way to Faversham and Gillingham. Since the uploader has kindly provided booked timings, actual timings, and a list of the stock used, it was easy to recreate in TSW. It's a Jubilee (for us in TSW) with 10 coaches and a 31 at the back. Both brake handles on the 31 remain in neutral/shutdown and the break selector on air brakes - then the 31 is braked via vacuum brakes like a coach controlled from the leading Jubilee. For those wishing to have some visual references, pictures are at the end of the post as always. I wasn't sure if the diesel helped or was only there for turning around, but my timings indicate that a Black 5 was more than capable of achieving the timetable with the dead 31 idling at the back. Since I only intend for this to be a one-off aside, I've decided to share my timings unofficially (so to say) here in this post. However, if anyone else would like a go at it, I'd be more than happy to add it to the spreadsheet for comparison. Station/Place - Booked Time - Actual Time - My Time Brighton - 09:00 - 09:00 - 09:00:00 Lewes (a) - 09:18 - 09:19 - 09:15:53 Lewes (d) - 09:21 - 09:21 - 09:21:00 Southerham Jn - 09:24 - 09:24 - 09:24:41 Polegate - 09:39 - 09:38 - 09:37:41 Willingdon Jn - 09:46 - 09:43 - 09:40:49 Eastbourne - 09:51 - 09:50 - 09:45:31 Compared to my timings with the admittedly more powerful Jubilee, I would hazard a guess that the tour was either running relaxed or stuck in a gap between local traffic. I usually achieved around 50mph with the heavy load on the relative flats. One operational exception I'd like to highlight is that the braking behaviour is completely changed with the heavy diesel throwing her weight against the coaches: Until the brakes on the diesel kick in, you essentially have no brake performance whatsoever, meaning you always need to wait for the brake pipe to have equalized along the entire train before you start slowing down. Same thing in reverse when releasing the brakes. It means you need to think even more ahead than is usual with vacuum brakes. I had a lovely time recreating this tour. Spoiler: Coastal Views Can't resist throwing in some black-and-white. This is rear engine 31285 awaiting departure at Brighton. I think the viaduct speaks for itself. 45690 Leander leads the railtour over the London Road Viaduct. After Lewes, the line levels out and Leander shows what she's capable of. This is the above-linked picture of the real railtour coming through Polegate... ... and this is my recreation in TSW. I messed the timing up a bit, but I still thought the comparison was neat.
I had a go at the Blackpool north- Preston run with 8 mk1s , yep about half a mile from Preston blue screen crash
That's very disheartening to hear. I can well understand the frustration this causes currently facing similar issues running Frankfurt - Fulda. Though neither workaround is perfect, it could help to switch off some layers or if you're doing one of the free-roam runs like Blackpool (N) - Preston, you could also use the free-roam mode giving you an empty map. It's a pain though, I get that.
Yes it's quite annoying, when I was using a standard PS4 I couldn't even get a diesel into Preston from Blackpool without blue screens. Excuse my ignorance but how do I switch off layers?. I also tried boost mode , but I think that is upscaling for older games. I didn't seem to help. It's not quite as fussy going from Preston to Blackpool, although it does go slow mo , and almost froze about two miles from Blackpool just before the 1in 120 climb after the junction. After the failure to complete the run into Preston, for a bit of fun and an UNREALISTIC challenge I spawned on foot at Preston, then added a jubilee with 10 coaches, then another jubilee with 10 on. Deleted one of the jubs, then hauled a 20 coach train to Blackpool in manual firing mode. It took a while, but didn't blue screen and made it into Blackpool.
When you select a route and choose timetable mode where you choose your train, there should be a button called "layers" next to the search bar.
I unchecked nearly all the layers, just leaving autumn on. There were quite a few about 15 or so. I tried the Blackpool N - Preston again in manual firing with 25% dampers, this time I made it into Preston I got distracted briefly by our cats outside, and nearly missed the 30mph restriction near Kirkham. I was doing 35mph as I entered the speed restriction and overdid the braking. The speed fell to 10mph and I had to accelerate again towards the station. Looking back a few pages at other Blackpool to Preston runs I need more runs to get familiar with the route. After spawning on foot at Blackpool N, I Spawned a Jubilee and 10 coaches, removing the last two. I didn't take note of the loco name, Departing 09.00 and slowly easing the train through the 15 mph restriction, I opened up to regulator 45- cut off 20% reaching 37 mph, then eased off to slow for Layton. Arriving at Layton at 09.03 , I departed Layton at 09.04 and 20 secs. Leaving Layton I had regulator 42 and cutoff 18 which seemed to hold a decent amount of boiler pressure over a short distance. Poulton arrive was 09.10 depart 09.11, after departure from Poulton I gradually opened the regulator to 40 and cutoff to 18, this kept the speed at 40 mph up the 1in473. Up the next climb of 1 in 304 with regulator at 38 cutoff 19, with a minimum of 42 mph. The 30 mph speed restriction for Kirkham snuck up on me, I braked to 35 mph and overdid the brakes, so the train slowed to 10 mph. A brief burst of 50 regulator and 19 cutoff before stopping at Kirkham. Time was now 09.22 as I stopped at Kirkham, departing at 09.24 and setting the regulator at 38 cutoff 19 for the 1in413 climb. A maximum of 40 mph was reached on the climb. As the gradient levelled off through Salwick I opened up to regulator 50, cutoff 17 and passed Salwick at 09.29 with 46 mph. On the last couple of miles from Preston I had regulator 100 and cutoff 17 with a max speed of 53. It was time to shut off for the 35 mph limit for the approach to Preston. Arrival at Preston was 09.37 and 20 seconds. Obviously not a record run but it's the first go. I will try the service again, and should be quicker. The last couple of miles to Preston, trying to regain time.
Just for curiosity I tried the same run from Blackpool North to Preston with the 8f and ten mk 1 coaches. I had the same setup with manual firing and 25% on both dampers. The total weight of the train including the 8f was 500 tons, with three one minute stops. On the first run everything was going ok until just after Salwick, suddenly the pressure gauge needle flipped past the red mark and all the way to the right, so I had about 400lb of boiler pressure. Then the needle came back to it's previous position of about 190 psi. The needle fell gradually lowering the boiler pressure, and the 8f ran out of oomph, just coasting towards Preston. When I arrived at Preston at 09.40 , the boiler pressure was about 50 psi. So I thought ok that was a glitch, I will try another run with the same setup leaving Blackpool North at 09.00 , this time the 8f seemed to be going well, until again about three miles from Preston the gauges went offkey and I had to get to Preston with about 60 psi. I arrived this time at 09.37 Anyone else tried the 8f in manual firing on BPO? Edit: Interesting to read about the driving with the regulator set, and adjusting the cutoff. I read somewhere about a few drivers in steam days , the drivers would leave the cutoff set at 45% , and use the regulator for adjustments. I'm not sure what region or locos this was though.
A fine run, andy#3741. I added your run to the spreadsheet here. Please do let me know if I messed anything up! The start up to Layton is right up there, really well done. While you seem to have lost some time to Poulton, it's only Kirkham where it becomes noticeable, probably largely due to the overbraking. I think you also lost some more time on the last leg to Preston. Comparing our driving techniques, I think a more conservative use of the regulator might yield improved results. Congratulations on your run though! A very fine effort! I wish you all the best for your next run! Regarding the 8F, I've only done the railtour timetable services on BPO with her alongside some free-roam freight operations but never experienced the issue you described. How odd, I have no idea what happened there.
