Not too shabby.

Tell us more about the show....

Thanks all and I have been doing just that for the last two years.

I prefer to think of it as being fully qualified to pretend to teach little "angels" [LIFTED] that they really don't want to learn

just back from a job interview seemed to go well but I think I come across as a bit strange prob wont get the job, had experiance in all the things he was asking though

Have just finished cleaning out and bathing 4 ducks, what a mess! I can't wait for some reasonable weather that they can go live outside in!!

British railways:
Newer doesn't mean better! DMU's suck for long train journeys, even if they are new. Give me an intercirt 125 any day. Much quieter.

as a train simulator driver I should know what a DMU is but I dont, diesel class? ive driven many dmus too

The Class 43 is fine for journeys with significant distance between stops, but otherwise the Class 220/221 (Voyager) is a far superior specimen - it can achieve 125mph (the maximum allowed in the European Union without AWS) and requires much less time to get up to speed and slow down before arriving at the station, resulting in lower journey times. The Voyager isn't much louder than your typical 125 service, and is just as comfortable.

A multiple-unit train means one made from (or mainly from) self-propelled carriages spread throughout the train such as on most local commuter services. There is no dedicated locomotive because the engines/motors are on all (or many) of the carriages.



The usual alternatives to MU are either a Loco-at-end (where there is one Locomotive with one control cab at one end of the train) or a push-pull config (where the locomotive(s) can be controlled from either end of the train). The power cars are usually very different from the passenger/freight cars. These are more common on long-distance routes because the carriages don't have cope with the extra weight, noise, vibration and space requirement of an engine/motor. In the following, note the presence of one or more dedicated locomotives or power cars:

They are doing a huge redevelopment of Reading station at the moment. It will include flyovers for High Speed through trains. I have this image in my head of an HST "catching air" as it takes off over the top of the station

I maintain and support ERTMS on 24 class 158 DMUs, and 3 ex-class 37 locos (reclassified as class 97s). The locos are used for testing and line maintenance, a couple of times when we've had a special service down it's had to be lead using a 97 because of the lack of ERTMS on the other locos pulling it.

The 158s can be quite nice when the engine in your carriage goes. Lovely and quiet, but difficult to get up hills...

There aren't many 5 carriage Super Voyagers, though, and for the XCountry services they're just not big enough a lot of the time. I'm much happier when it's being run with a Class 43, although the carriage numbering suggests that the 221s can be expanded to 7 carriages, not that I've seen or heard anything to suggest this is actually possible.

I've seen voyagers running 8 carriages long - i.e. two trains coupled together, albeit rarely.

No doubt the 125s are better for capacity, but then they run so sparingly - a lot of the time you're stuck on a 2/3 carriage sprinter, meaning the voyager actually offers superior capacity.

Diesel Multipul Unit
ie Trains with a diesel engine under the floor of every carriage.
Bloody noisy inside for the passengers. That's fine for a short commuter hop, but for a long journey it's sucks.7
[LIFTED]!
Sitting inside a 125 carriage, there's hardly any engine noise (if any) at all. Voyagers are annoyingly loud inside.
(Or were you talking about external noise levels?)

I only take pendolinos.
Sometimes supervoyagers if there is no choice.

They're EMU's. No cabin noise like DMU's.
Yesterday I took:
a Turbostar DMU's - Noisy and uncomfortable
A Intercity 225 - Quiet and comfy.
A Voyager - Noisy but comfortable.