Steve

I just saw a news item about how new long lengths of welded railroad rails are suffering much more buckling from the recent hot spell, compared to the old style "clickity clack" rails that allowed for thermal expansion:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/rdv/volpe/pubs/techppr/trk-risk.pdf
http://www.lexcie.zetnet.co.uk/infrastruct.htm

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
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I'll take my car (or for long journeys, an aeroplane) any day...

Stephen: in answer to your question about mobile 'phone reception, if your previous reference to Cumbria means that is where your friend lives, then reception there is a well-known problem. In fact, house prices have rocketed in some Lake District villages where there is no reception at all and no immediate prospect of a mast being built, because mobile 'phone haters like me (though with rather more money than me, alas) have been snapping them up.

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Rail failure (I can't remember the exact details, but it was something to do with a crack) also caused a fatal train crash in North London a couple of years back.

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Guage corner cracking, at Hatfield, the aftermath of which almost brought the whole system to a halt.

Broken rails have also cuused several other major accidents, but then so have bad weather, drunken drivers, defective vehicles (road and rail), signal faults, human error and many other factors. The probability of any particular train journey ending in a serious accident are extremely small.

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I'll take my car (or for long journeys, an aeroplane) any day...}

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I cannot do one, and I would avoid doing the other, If I possibly could. You are quite welcome to do either, if you so wish; unlike some people on the transport newsgrougs, I do not try to tell other people how they should travel.

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Stephen: in answer to your question about mobile 'phone reception, if your previous reference to Cumbria means that is where your friend lives, then reception there is a well-known problem. In fact, house prices have rocketed in some Lake District villages where there is no reception at all and no immediate prospect of a mast being built, because mobile 'phone haters like me (though with rather more money than me, alas) have been snapping them up.

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All previous references to Cumbria were in relation to a CTA visit there some years ago. The private cinema I have been working on, and about which I have asked for advice on this forum is, by co-incidence, also in Cumbria, but not related. I think their remote location, many miles from a public cinema was one of the reasons they set up their own one. The equipment came from Yorkshire. I wish they would let me take some pictures, it's a very nice place, wood panneling, red velvet curtains, and all.

I know very little about mobile 'phones, I wouldn't really have any use for one, so I didn't know how good, or bad, the coverage was in remote areas. The thing which really annoys me about 'phones, mobile or otherwise, is people who insist on shouting into them.

I will definitely be going to Newcastle soon, but I don't know the date yet, I will try to get to see tho Odeon, and the other cinema, while I am there.

The only thing I'd add about drunk drivers and defective vehicles is that these are factors which are largely within your control. By making sure you drive sober, and by using defensive driving techniques designed to enable you to deal safely with other drunk drivers should you come across them, it is within a driver's power to vastly reduce the chances of him or her being involved in an accident. Similarly by making sure brakes, suspension and tyres are in a good condition (something which I, personally, do), you can minimise the chances of losing control of the vechicle due to a mechanical failure. On a train you have no control whatsoever over any of these things, and that's what scares me. The engine driver could be totally rat-arsed and the brake pads worn out: the first you'd know about it would be waking up in hospital (or in another world).

Getting back - sort of - to the topic, the Tyneside Cinema is holding a 'heritage day' on Sunday 15 September, and I believe there are plans afoot for projection box tours. We'll also be screening a programme from the Northern Region Film and Television Archive's holdings. The day is still in the planning stage as yet, but I'll post something when everything's been finalised.

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No offence intended on the trains issue. I've just had so many bad experiences with them (which includes knowing someone who was killed in the Paddington crash) that I'm very seriously prejudiced against them. And the fact that there seems to be a fatal crash between York and London pretty regularly (it seems to happen about once a year on average) doesn't help, either. I always spend that two hours wondering if I'm going to get out at the other end alive.

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There's a lot wrong with the railways today, unreliability, disruption to services, high cost etc., but I certainly don't think you are less safe on a train than in a car. Obviously, you take a risk every time you make a journey by train, as you do with any other form of transport, and you are correct when you say the the risk is outside your control. In a car, some factors are within your control, but many are not, the best you can hope to do is to take evasive action if they happen. The better driver you are, the better your chances of avoiding an accident in these circumstances, but there
is still a considerable element of luck.

In the last few years we have seen a cluster of serious accidents on the railways, Hatfield, Heck and Potters Bar on the East Coast route, and Southall and Ladbroke Grove on the Great Western line. This has happened in the past, Purley happened not long after Clapham Junction, and these were quite close too. At other times you can find several consecutive years with no serious accidents. If you look at the history of railway accidents, this has always been the case, there have allways been 'bad' years, sometimes several of them together. This makes it quite difficult to see trends in the figures, you have to look at trends over long periods. In a very bad year, there are typically a few tens of railway passengers killed, of course each of them is a tragedy to those involved, but the number, as a proportion of passenger journeys made, is very small. The really bad accidents of the past, Quintinshill, Harrow & Wealdstone etc. where hundreds were killed, are exremely unlikely to happen again, due to the much better crash worthiness and fire resistance of trains today. Even the B.R Mk.1s, which there has been some fuss about recently, are much safer than the older, wooden-bodied vehicles, which often resulted in high casualty rates, even in quite minor accidents. Even in the worst of railway accidents today, most passengers are unharmed, or have only minor injuries. This includes Clapham Junction, very severe accident and Mk.1 stock.

With best case years of zero deaths, and worst case of a few tens, the average is probably about ten per year.

The average number of deaths on british roads is over three thousand per year. At one time, I used to travel a great deal by rail, many times the distance by road at that time. The worst railway accident I have been involved in was a buffer stop colision at about one mph, a bit of a jolt, but no harm done. The worst anyone I know has suffered is a broken arm while standing on a platform, and being hit by an open door as a train pulled in. This risk is now much reduced my most trains having sliding doors, or central locking.

I have been involved in one accident in a car, and servral in buses. Near misses happen about once a week. I have known four people who have been killed in road traffic accidents, and many serious injuries. I recently saw flowers left at accident sites in three separate places in just a few kilometres, two of them between New Addindton and Croydon. Today I saw some on the way home from work, which were not there a few days ago. Almost every edition of the local paper will have at least one fatal accident in it. On Tuesday, my bus was diverted by the police between Coulsdon and Redhill because of an accident at a junction, one car was on its side, goodness knows how that happened, it's not a high speed road. I don't know if there were any injuries.

Of course, I never hear about most road deaths in other parts of the country, because only the most major road accidents ever make it to the national newspapers, or television news.

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The only thing I'd add about drunk drivers and defective vehicles is that these are factors which are largely within your control. By making sure you drive sober, and by using defensive driving techniques designed to enable you to deal safely with other drunk drivers should you come across them, it is within a driver's power to vastly reduce the chances of him or her being involved in an accident. Similarly by making sure brakes, suspension and tyres are in a good condition (something which I, personally, do), you can minimise the chances of losing control of the vechicle due to a mechanical failure. On a train you have no control whatsoever over any of these things, and that's what scares me. The engine driver could be totally rat-arsed and the brake pads worn out: the first you'd know about it would be waking up in hospital (or in another world).

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On the road, the condition of your velicle, and its driver, is largely within your control, not totally, a part could have been fitted which was defective without being obviously so, if you do not do your own servicing it is possible that the mechanic who does could make a mistake, and you could have a sudden heart attack at the wheel. The condition of other vehicles, and the abilities of their drivers is totally outside your control. A small mistake by a train driver is far less likely to cause an accident than a small mistake by a car driver; trains run much further apart, and there are various safety systems, AWS, TPWS, DVD etc. fitted, which aim to stop the driver causing an accident. They are not perfect, not all accidents are prevented by them, but a car driver has nothing similar. Even if a train driver were to drop dead at the controls, on a busy line, which did happen a few years ago, it is unlikely to cause an accident. Is the same true of a car driver?

A train driver turning up drunk, or under the influence of drugs, is very likely to be spotted, a car criver, probably not.

Of course, to those involved in accidents, and those close to them, it makes little difference whether it was on road or rail, but do you really feel you are at greater risk in a train than in a car?

The fact that you don't like trains is a good reason for not using them. The risk of being killed in an accident seems to me to be a bad one, given the risks of the alternatives.

Dolby made the cat. 93, as an extra card so you could put into your
MPU 1 & playback older 12khz format mag.
Dolby cinema sound was new around 1975. So Dolby made only so many
cat. 93 cards that was the last year for that card.