Roger Marks
@RPMarks
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Train driver, husband, dad/grandpa, snapper, whippet owner, cider & ale fan, centre-left. ASLEF. Part-time misanthrope. Opinions unrelated to employer. He/Him
Buckinghamshire
Joined June 2009
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I'm a train driver and many will believe we're "always on strike". Well, in nearly 20 years I've never experienced the faintest whiff of industrial action. We are now in a situation where govt have forbidden our employers from entering into pay talks. That cannot be acceptable.
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If you'll indulge me in a proud dad moment, I'm delighted to say (finally after a lot of Covid-related delay), my eldest daughter has passed out as a driver today. Well done Soph!
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I will never decry the removal of superannuated rolling stock, but I am left very uneasy when fleets are withdrawn without a replacement. The DfT clearly think (or hope) the railway is in decline. Those of us with our noses on the ground know this is fantasy/folly. Bad decision.
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Eldest daughter has done her first productive solo driving turn at her new TOC.
#prouddad
#womeninrail
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Before we get too snidey about the IET issue, it should be acknowledged that this is the way things are supposed to work. Fault detected, fleet withdrawn and inspected. At least we're not clearing up a derailment caused by a catastrophic failure in service.
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Electric trains refurbished to the extent that pax think they are new go for the chop whilst East-West Rail is descoped to a diesel railway. This is what I mean by broken.
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A driver has been dismissed from a TOC for listening to an audiobook on their phone, not whilst driving, but whilst changing ends. This is utterly ridiculous. Yet Control still try to contact us on our switched off phones whilst on duty...
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If a driver has an incident, one of the very first things the investigation will check is whether they took their break. Woe betide any driver who didn't.
A whole group of us on a train to reach a funeral in Shropshire at 11am. An announcement has just informed us that we are being delayed because the driver needs a break. So glad they got their massive, budget-smashing, pay rise without any improvements to service.
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OK, I know they're past their sell-by date. I'm not getting into that discussion today, but this one took me half way along the country today, and it doesn't half retain its iconic looks. The train that blew my mind as a 70s child still looks good to me as a quinquagenarian.
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I've shared this pic before, but I like it so much I think it bears a repeat. Tanygrisiau station, Ffestiniog Railway, 1969. One of dad's pics. Full of Blaenau Ffestiniog atmosphere.
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So Railway Twitter, let's see your most obscure/niche railway book. This is mine.
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Loving the fact that the sleeper car stop boards at WFJ are designated "ZZ".
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I can't really get behind the CrossCountry HST farewell. I'm not being sentimental about old trains, but removing them with no replacement is objectively disastrous for the railway, and destroying rail capacity is disastrous for net zero. Shameful.
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The scrap line, Gloucester Horton Road, April '66. One of dad's pictures.
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Much confusion re ASLEF rest day ban. It's not a strike. It *is* industrial action, but specifically action short of a strike. We're just not working our equivalent of weekends. The mildest form of protest. The fact it wreaks havoc is down to poor management practices.
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First experience of a class 755 "Flirt" today. What an impressive product. Comfortable, well laid out, good ride, great acceleration on diesel, level boarding, low engine noise; and if (if) the rest of the network gets wired up, the diesel traction module can simply be ditched!
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Birmingham Moor Street in 1987, when it was about to be closed and replaced by the new Moor Street station (today's platforms 1 & 2). At the time it seemed likely it would be quickly demolished.
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I'm staggered how many people think trains are signalled to a stop at every station.
I'm on a train and the driver just announced that he forgot to stop at St Albans and is very sorry to anyone that wanted to get off the train there, and that the next stop would be St Pancras. "That one's entirely on me," he added. 😬
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This is the RMT's dispute, not mine, but I think a low-ish offer (4% + 4% next year) might have actually cut it *IF* it hadn't come with more strings than a symphony orchestra. Some strings may be tolerable but DOO and ticket office closures are a piss-take for staff and pax.
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The St Ives branch seems to be operated with a driver at both ends, no doubt due to the tight turnaround at both ends. I'm not sure if there is a guard on board as well, or if the trailing driver does guard duties?
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310055 at Birmingham New Street in 1986. Dig those original curved windscreens, cast double arrow and orange first class curtains.
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First go on a 730. The immediate question that comes to mind is "how do Bombardier/Alstom manage to make trains the ride so much better than CAF trains?"
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101 varieties. 101692, 101693 and 101685 at Manchester Piccadilly on 8th November 2002. A bit of an early, digital fuzzy mess.
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Train with a TPWS fault today. Made a number of announcements to keep the pax informed about what was happening. Then when I announced the train was cancelled, nobody got off; whereupon it became clear the PA wasn't working either. You can but try.
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Only a handful of slam-door units received the Southern/South Central livery but I did think it sat quite well on them. 4-Cig unit 1854, London Bridge, 19/05/04.
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OK, so there appears to be an astronaut on the concourse at Marylebone.
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I'm hoping it will still be snowy tomorrow, because I love driving trains in the snow. (I know, what a child!)
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I love a vintage Underground sign. This one a Maida Vale is a nice survivor.
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The driver of 101678 changes end at Rose Hill before working the unit back to Manchester Piccadilly on 28/11/03. First North Western stuck their logo on anything that moved but not the 101 fleet, much like Virgin's attitude to their 158 fleet.
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I'm deliberately not engaging with train driver strike/pay tweets, but I am staggered at how many people think we just push a "go" button and the train does everything else. Less surprised but also peeved that so many think automation is easy/affordable/happening any time soon.
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Hey railway Twitter: 1. HSTs are pretty much life-expired and have very poor impact protection for drivers. 2. Lineside vegetation management is not anywhere near good enough at the moment. Both things are true. You don't need to get into heated, one-sided debates about it.
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St Pancras in transition, 2003. HS1 was the bête noire back then.
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When Voyagers were new. A Virgin Trains advertisement from 2001.
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Snow Hill '66. One of dad's pictures that was a bit ruined so I put it through some digital processing. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I quite like it.
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I think a lot of drivers would love to do things like this, but draconian, mutton-headed rules make us feel we don't dare. Come on TOCs. Lighten up. Make this sort of thing universally possible. It inspired me to want to be a driver.
So today at
@NetworkRailGLC
much to our surprise
#WeeArchie
was asked by
@ClaireD7777
from
@AvantiWestCoast
to have a look in the cab and he got to toot the horn and got another toot when the train left. Thank you
@ClaireD7777
much appreciated 👍
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Its a worry that the railway ticket office closure programme will be blamed on "greedy private train companies", when in reality is is entirely government-driven. This is one of those situations where you have to look at the facts and leave your political convictions at the door.
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101683 beneath the slate tips of Blaenau Ffestiniog with a service for Llandudno on 16/07/94. IIRC three-car 101 sets didn't last much later than this.
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GNER advertisement from 1997. It seems they envisioned a much smaller yellow panel back then. It's nice how the Intercity red stripe merges with the GNER one.
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And the prize for the narrowest aisle goes to: the Greater Anglia class 720.
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158747 at Leamington Spa on 22/09/00. You wouldn't know it from looking, but this was actually a Virgin Trains service. VT chose to run them in unbranded Regional Railways Express livery. I guess they weren't exactly on brand.
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Hmm. The railway is a strange place at the moment, but now we seem to have drifted into an alternative reality, one where the CG Main Line never closed 😂
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The government thought the ticket office closure programme would be a mere formality. The extension of the consultation period shows they bit off more that they could chew. Keep up the opposition. Keep the railway passenger-friendly and accessible. Show then how wrong they are.
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*Possibly* the last time I'll take a train in and out of Snow Hill. From the May timetable change, Aylesbury drivers will only take trains as far as Moor Street. Not a lot of milage lost from my route card but it still seems a pity.
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Whilst on the subject of virtual railways in Aylesbury, this is the Chiltern Railways simulator, based on a class 168/2 cab. I have long thought there is money to be made by selling simulator experiences.
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Impressions of the TfW 230. Reasonably comfortable. Gangways and air-con a big improvement on the LNWR 230s. Acceleration amazing. Engine noise slightly intrusive. I don't think an average punter would clock that is wasn't a brand new train.
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BR phone in Aylesbury messroom. I wonder how many more of these survive on the network?
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A certain TOC (not my employer) is using station ticket sales stats from the past few years to justify T/O closures. But there's been a recruitment ban over that period. Many stations partially/totally unstaffed for months/years. Beeching-style dishonesty.
#SaveOurTicketOffices
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Feeling very proud of my daughter Sophie, who's just (subject to medical) been accepted as a trainee train driver. I may have planted the seed 10 years ago, getting her to pose on D1015 😁
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Ridiculous, unenforceable, out-of-date policy. Please rethink.
We're happy for people to take 'family snaps' and selfies while on Metro, but if you’re interested in the stations or trains for larger projects – including as an enthusiast – you can speak to us first to gain permission. Find out more on our website ^DT
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Regional Railways days. 150128 arrives at Porthmadog with a Cambrian Line service for Pwthelli. July 1989.
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In 2002, 165026 ran as a 3-car set with DMSL 58852 from 165019 added to the unit. A blanking plate was made for the corridor connection. I don't think this was ever repeated. It isn't practical to do this today as the intra-unit BSI couplers have been replaced with bar couplers.
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We used to have regular turns where trains terminated at Princes Risborough and the unit had to lay over on the Thame branch siding. Noise issues around the exit signal meant we were instructed to draw right down to the
@ChinnorRailway
boundary, as here with 165032 on 25/07/14.
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Made me giggle, but you've probably got to be the wrong side of 50 to appreciate it.
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Intercity days. 47501, 47826 and 47810 at Bristol Bath Road on 25th March 1990.
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Driver's desk of 121034. The stop/go button is centre-bottom. All the other controls and gauges are just there for show.
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Whilst the DfT denigrates train drivers, I absolutely know I could do Mark Harper's job for a day much more competently than he could do mine.
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Filthy! 88004 "Pandora" at Stratford. Presumably having recently been on RHTT duties.
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Old St Pancras. 43082 at the head of an Intercity Midland Main Line service, 5th April 1997.
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43091 at the head of a Virgin CrossCountry service at Banbury on 15th June 2002. The missing headlight cover and general grubbiness are somewhat at odds with the image VT liked to portray.
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Back to the days of CRT departure screens. Princes Risborough, 2002. There was no computer in the booking office back then. We had to keep popping out onto the platform to look at this screen.
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Saw at least 15 people miss their train today because they were following the advice of a third-party ticket retailer's app and ignoring what the actual departure board and platform screens were saying. Another reason not to use third-party ticket retailers.
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Being anti-HS2 means you either oppose electric public transport, or you understand precious little about the subject. There is little wriggle room left.
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I thought the Southern/South Central livery looked pretty good on mark 1 EMU stock, although not many were so treated. This is class 412 unit 1854 at London Bridge on 19/05/04.
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Searching through old photos I came across some of the Old Oak Common open weekend, August 2000. I was stationed on the Chiltern Railways stand upstairs somewhere. Quite shocking to think this was well over two decades ago.
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Remember when Sprinters looked like this inside? 150270, 04/07/02.
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Can this really be so long ago? 319457 and 319385 at London Blackfriars on 30th September 1998.
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The former GCR trackbed at Calvert, Quainton Road & Woodlands Farm, Quainton. The track has recently been lifted to allow HS2 construction. Strange to see a bit of railway I have driven over looking like this, but it is in a very good cause!
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Rail Express Systems - Quality Assured 90017 at Glasgow Central on 15th May 1997.
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Who remembers the short period when Virgin ran the Swindon - Cheltenham service with 158s? IIRC it was it was a prelude to a proposed PAD - Birmingham VT using shortened HST sets. In the event it never happened and the Swindon-Cheltenham service passed to Wessex Trains. 05/04/02.
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Some people go out of their way to avoid getting people in their railway pictures. Personally I love a bit of human interest.
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It seems like a lifetime ago. 101685 at Sheffield with a First North Western service for Manchester Piccadilly. 19th April 2001.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: levelling up isn't a north-south divide, it is London & the Home Counties vs the rest of the country. Cornwall & the Isle of Wight are among are amongst the most deprived counties. They couldn't be less "north".
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Now see. There is a lot of effort being put into spinning the ticket office closure issue as a private rail company issue. This is a complete red herring, designed to dupe left-leaning people. The TOCs are nothing but facility management contractors now (1/n).
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Was this really 21 years ago? 60081 "Isambard Kingdom Brunel" at the Old Oak Common open weekend, 6th August 2000.
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101678 departing from Llandudno Junction with a First North Western service for Blaenau Ffestiniog. 7th March 2000.
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If you've ever wondered why the leaf fall precautions on the Amersham line are so draconian, please allow me to illustrate.
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North West Northern First Silverlink. 150133. Bletchley, 11/11/06.
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Somebody has left one of those locomotive thingies at Aylesbury depot.
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