Why allow an early running freight to disrupt passenger trains?

[whole diary]

[trainer]

 I remember back in the late 70's being on a class 50 (?) hauled rake of a cross-country service being stopped between Coventry and Birmingham International by a failed local EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) ahead of us.  After about a 30 minute delay we simply drew up to the rear of the failed unit under caution, and then slowly propelled it into BHI.  Caused less than an hour's delay. All the buffers and couplings matched in those days.

I think that was a well-rehearsed move back then as I had an identical experience between Smethwick and Wolverhampton.  One of the down-sides of the breakup of the national system into self-interested companies is that as well as the technical difficulties of getting different types of stock to engage with each other (I use that term as computer systems are involved as well as physical couplings) there are more complex communication systems between the various companies to agree such a move even it was possible.

[Interceptor]

Back in the day when I was working for NR^» (Network Rail - home page) and Chiltern Railways on Evergreen 2, we were slewing track at Beaconsfield to lift the 40PSR upto 70 on the up. A rather tired 07 tamper was toiling away at the London end around 02.30 on the Monday morning. Now tampers can make a fair bit of noise and all was going well. I am up at the road bridge end making sure all our gear was clear as we had to hand back at 05.30ish. Suddenly all goes quiet. Ah, get down to the other end and the tamper has sat down and blown a main gasket depositing hot but environmentally friendly hydraulic oil all over. Machine is immobile with no self  drive. Fitter called for. In the meantime, how do we move this dilapidated piece of....... No rescue locos anywhere on the patch but the only vehicle with a screw coupling to match the tamper's  is Chiltern's Bubble Car at Aylesbury.
A series of phone calls (avoiding any NR on call persons because they may not have known what I was on about) and Chiltern control agree to man up the Bubble car and bring it upto the protection near High Wycombe. Marylebone SCS fully aware of move. In the meantime fitter arrives and literally fabricates an ad hoc gasket to insert into guts of machine. It holds sufficiently to get drive and control back to tamper and limp it back to engineers siding at H Wycombe. Bubble car not needed but it could have been used. Up side -  Monday morning service ran as timetabled. Downside - speed not raised for another week and ESR^▸ (Emergency Speed Restriction ) imposed but no more onerous than when we started on the Friday night.
A case of who you know perhaps rather than what you know. Happy days.

[grahame]

Back in the day when I was working for NR^» (Network Rail - home page) ...

A lot of likes - but where are our manners?  "Welcome to the forum, Interceptor".  I suspect that you first post was of such high quality that no-one noticed it was your first