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I recently found a website where the diagrams for all FGW trains for 2008 were shown.  I was quite staggered on the number of hours / rail miles of Empty Coaching Stock Movements.  Some were nearly 1.5 hours long. 

So a few questions about ECS moves for a relatively new novice in terms of railway knowledge:

1) Are ECS movements made by the same drivers who drive carrying passengers or are there specially qualified ECS drivers?

2) Do guards have to be present on ECS moves?

3) What is the difference between a class 3 ECS move and a class 5 ECS move?

I would appreciate any other information more knowledgeable people could give me on the subject of ECS moves including whether anyone knows where I might find the diagrams for SWT trains.

Thank you very much.

1. Same drivers

2. No except in very limited circumstances


3. There is not really any difference.  class 3 empty stocks are to alert the signaller that the train will form a passenger service for its next working and it should not be delayed on its journey. 

Try Yahoo Groups - there's a group called southwesttrains (or similar) which certainly used to be good for SWT diagrams. I haven't looked very recently, but I think it's still going and is probably a good place to look.

im going to take a wild guess here.... would you like to take a shot of a 159 between pen mill and yeovil junction? :-)

Yep I would but i'd rather be a passenger on train. I missed out on the Yeovil link on a railtour when they couldn't find (or forgot to book) a 33 driver with revelvant route knowledge.

Suspect it's possibly a combined ECS driver route knowledge refreshing run. Some of the HST ECS moves from Hereford to Bristol mentioned elsewhere on this forum are partly to keep route knowledge (and use) of Maindee East curve.

this is the closest i got to a shot on the curve

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/relex109/3016735816/in/set-72157610782790363/)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/3016735816_3bfd7d766a_b.jpg)

I've been on a HST Routed via Yeovil Junction/Pen Mill... Fabulous journey...

I haven't got a picture yet, but i've known SWT 159's to pass through Frome at 21:30ish in the evenings on a weekday ;D

On another route we watched - frustrated as our train left with no passengers on board after the train manager was taken off duty due to her being violently sick, as she was about to open up the train - train ran with driver only to crew change-over as at 04.26 there was no spare TM. 

I suspect that some of these ECS workings are equally frustrating and note that (I think it was Firstbus) converted an early morning Sunday bus movement across the Pennines from a dead car-working, to a registered service that took early morning walkers oop out of a Yorkshire mill town for a day's walking, in the process getting the tax benefit (BSOG) available for a registered bus service.

I wonder what factors work to scupper the use of ECS workings in this way?  Presumably one is the detail that an ECS working can run late (or early) without regulatory liability.   

1.  ECS workings can go via a variety of routes for example Bristol to Cheltenham can go via either Newport, Bristol Parkway or Swindon depending on the engineering work going on at the time.  If you run it as a service then a bus would have to be laid on every time it was rerouted.  Not cost effective for the very early / late night moves when the number of passengers can be counted on one hand.

2. With ECS workings you usually dont need a guard.  So if one was not available then the train would have to be cancelled with the consequence impact on performance figures.

3.  ECS workings give you flexibility to get the set fro differing locations  Sometimes due to the location of HST you may run a ECS from Paddington to Cheltenham instead of Bristol.  If this was a passenger service then again this would have to be a cancellation and a bus would probably have to laid on.

Put simply most of the ECS which run in the early morning or late at night would not raise sufficient revenue to justify running them as a passenger service.

Does anyone know where I might get hold of the current diagrams for FGW 165/166 so I can see where there are ECS workings?