Royston residents rudely awakened

Royston residents rudely awakened

Residents of the sleepy market town of Royston, Hertfordshire, were rudely awakened at 4 AM this morning by no fewer than five fully laden iron ore trains thundering through their station sequentially at high speed en route to London and destinations south-east.

Each train was observed to consist of three GE ES44DC locos pulling over 200 ore wagons. After the noise, vibration and dust had settled, Royston resembled a post-Vesuvius Pompeii, only ochre-red this time, making many residents extremely irate. Bill Hetherington, a local poultry farmer, complained that it frightened his chooks so much his egg yield was down by half, and all eggs were rusty-brown. Mrs Iris Goodfeather declared her intent to sue NutRail for the damage done to her fine china collection. Regular commuters to Paddington found they needed to be more agile to board their morning service after finding the ore trains had chewed three feet away from the platform edge.

The origin of this entirely non-prototypical service remained a mystery until it was revealed that Australian peer Lord Clive Palmer (the honour recently bestowed on him by Sir Pository Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister) had determined to get his iron ore to China one way or another, particularly after being blocked by Earl Kerry Stokes. It was rumoured his trains were en route to Beijing via the Chunnel.

This event required considerable pre-planning, of course. It turned out to have been masterminded by another Australian, Max Anderson (a part-time signaller working under the auspices of Cajon Rail), who artfully substituted his own timetable in place of the official version by NutRail. He is reported to have said gleefully later "I finally got this timetable to work." UK residents have been advised to report any unusual deviations from standard timetables and in particular the sudden appearance of huge, foreign-owned diesel locomotives.

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Royston residents rudely awakened

Residents of the sleepy market town of Royston, Hertfordshire, were rudely awakened at 4 AM this morning by no fewer than five fully laden iron ore trains thundering through their station sequentially at high speed en route to London and destinations south-east.

Each train was observed to consist of three GE ES44DC locos pulling over 200 ore wagons. After the noise, vibration and dust had settled, Royston resembled a post-Vesuvius Pompeii, only ochre-red this time, making many residents extremely irate. Bill Hetherington, a local poultry farmer, complained that it frightened his chooks so much his egg yield was down by half, and all eggs were rusty-brown. Mrs Iris Goodfeather declared her intent to sue NutRail for the damage done to her fine china collection. Regular commuters to Paddington found they needed to be more agile to board their morning service after finding the ore trains had chewed three feet away from the platform edge.

The origin of this entirely non-prototypical service remained a mystery until it was revealed that Australian peer Lord Clive Palmer (the honour recently bestowed on him by Sir Pository Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister) had determined to get his iron ore to China one way or another, particularly after being blocked by Earl Kerry Stokes. It was rumoured his trains were en route to Beijing via the Chunnel.

This event required considerable pre-planning, of course. It turned out to have been masterminded by another Australian, Max Anderson (a part-time signaller working under the auspices of Cajon Rail), who artfully substituted his own timetable in place of the official version by NutRail. He is reported to have said gleefully later "I finally got this timetable to work." UK residents have been advised to report any unusual deviations from standard timetables and in particular the sudden appearance of huge, foreign-owned diesel locomotives.

thats an interesting commuter route from Royston - Paddington (via NLL presumably) :P

" said:

thats an interesting commuter route from Royston - Paddington (via NLL presumably) :P

Royston - Hitchin & ECML - North London Incline - Camden Road - Willesden High Level Junction - Kensington (Olympia) - Clapham Junction - Woking - Guildford - Bedhampton - Fareham - Eastleigh - Basingstoke - Reading - Paddington if you want to do it without changing trains or reversing en-route. No wonder they call that Paddington outfit the Great Way Round... :laugh:

" said:

" said:

thats an interesting commuter route from Royston - Paddington (via NLL presumably) :P

Royston - Hitchin & ECML - North London Incline - Camden Road - Willesden High Level Junction - Kensington (Olympia) - Clapham Junction - Woking - Guildford - Bedhampton - Fareham - Eastleigh - Basingstoke - Reading - Paddington if you want to do it without changing trains or reversing en-route. No wonder they call that Paddington outfit the Great Way Round... :laugh:

At least it was built by the best

" said:

thats an interesting commuter route from Royston - Paddington (via NLL presumably) :P

Royston - Hitchin & ECML - North London Incline - Camden Road - Willesden High Level Junction - Kensington (Olympia) - Clapham Junction - Woking - Guildford - Bedhampton - Fareham - Eastleigh - Basingstoke - Reading - Paddington if you want to do it without changing trains or reversing en-route. No wonder they call that Paddington outfit the Great Way Round... :laugh:

" said:

thats an interesting commuter route from Royston - Paddington (via NLL presumably) :P

Royston - Hitchin & ECML - North London Incline - Camden Road - Willesden High Level Junction - Kensington (Olympia) - Clapham Junction - Woking - Guildford - Bedhampton - Fareham - Eastleigh - Basingstoke - Reading - Paddington if you want to do it without changing trains or reversing en-route. No wonder they call that Paddington outfit the Great Way Round... :laugh:

I'm rather upset that I couldn't find a route that would involve popping out at Paddington Suburban and continuing on a proper railway from there, but there doesn't even seem to be a connection from the underground lines at all at that end.

" said:

I'm rather upset that I couldn't find a route that would involve popping out at Paddington Suburban and continuing on a proper railway from there, but there doesn't even seem to be a connection from the underground lines at all at that end.

That's the trouble with all this modern image stuff... all the interesting bits have been closed.

Once-upon-a-time route:
Royston - Hitchin - Langley Junction - Hertford - Bowes Park - Palace Gates - Seven Sisters - Hackney Downs - Liverpool Street (platform 2) - Moorgate (Circle Line) - Praed St Junction - Paddington (Suburban).

" said:

" said:

I'm rather upset that I couldn't find a route that would involve popping out at Paddington Suburban and continuing on a proper railway from there, but there doesn't even seem to be a connection from the underground lines at all at that end.

That's the trouble with all this modern image stuff... all the interesting bits have been closed.

Once-upon-a-time route:
Royston - Hitchin - Langley Junction - Hertford - Bowes Park - Palace Gates - Seven Sisters - Hackney Downs - Liverpool Street (platform 2) - Moorgate (Circle Line) - Praed St Junction - Paddington (Suburban).

It's still possible now without too convoluted of a loop:
Royston - Hitchin & ECML - North London Incline - Camden Road - Willesden High Level Junction - Kensington (Olympia) - Clapham Junction (West London LIi- District Line to Earls court - Long way Round the Circle Inner Rail - Praed St Junction - Paddington (Suburban).

More suprisingly than this routes existence is the fact that if Wembly Mainline sim were to exits and NLL started chaining properly this entire route could be done on SimSig up to the Wimbledon box fringe.

You'd have to go Kensington Olympia - Clapham - Twickenham - Kingston - New Malden - Wimbledon - LUL to avoid the reversal at Wimbledon.

Shortest by far is still what I posted here

I would I thought:
Royston - Finsbury Park - Camden Road - West London Junction - Acton Wells Junction - West Ealing Junction - Greenford East Junction - Old Oak West Junction - Paddington, would of been the shortest.