OK, here another one. Before I go any further, I should say that my record keeping was still pathetic and I didn't record most of the none-loco runs we did.
I am deeply indebted to my good friend 45135, who over the last few days has dug out his records of the move and provided me with all the gen on the HSTs and the vast majority of units.
As with my last couple of rovers I have no pictures, so to brighten things up a bit I've stuck in a few shots of some of the traction involved.
Including, for the first time, a HST!
Anyway, here goes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When planning this move for September, we became aware of an attractive looking railtour, Pathfinder’s “Marching Cat”, that was running on Saturday the 20th, so we decided to incorporate that.
The plan was to do the tour on the Saturday and start the rover on the Sunday.
Four of us were on the tour, but only two of us were up for an 8 day move.
Starting at Crewe behind 86608 (now 86501), the tour went to Felixstowe, out via London and back via Peterborough & Nuneaton. Traction involved was 47212, 56006, 56062, 58018 & 60085, with 37678 working the last leg, Nuneaton – Crewe.
What a nice way to begin a holiday.
We had driven to Crewe in the morning and our two pals drove home again after the tour. My mate and I, however, had booked a room in a B & B in Crewe for the Saturday night, so we could get straight on with the serious business of roving early on the Sunday morning.
And so the big day dawned. Another rover was up and running.
We walked down to the station and began with something a bit more conventional than yesterday’s extravaganza. It was 86212 which whisked us down to Nuneaton, followed by 47854 on a Sunday dragged service to Birmingham New Street. From there it was out to Wolverhampton on 47807 and 86224 back.
A 47 was then put on top of the 86 for the drag over to Nuneaton, this time it was 47749, one of the original Western Region named 47s, formerly 47076/47625 “City Of Truro”. I must admit that I preferred it as COT than “Atlantic College”, which was the name it carried now.
The 73s on the Gatwick’s were calling us by this time and so we stayed on the same rake and 86224 again took power for the run to Watford Junction. It was then unit time and 319007 was done from there to Clapham Junction, followed by sister unit 319012 into Victoria.
The usual ED entertainment was had, with 73205/73208/73211/73202 done for a couple of round trips before it was time to make for the down sleeper.
CIG unit 1848 was done from Victoria to Clapham Junction and 455/8 number 5861 was taken into Waterloo.
The loco for the sleeper was 47816 and we did it for the full 330 miles to Penzance.
Monday started with some HST mileage as we had no choice unless we wanted to spend the day in Penzance. 43037 & 43022 were taken to Liskeard. We then took a break and decided to score the line to Looe, taking 153373 there and back again. We wanted to get back among the locos, so it was 158864 to Exeter and then 47854 up to New Street.
After the Penzance sleeper last night, it was to be the Fort William one tonight.
HST 43062/43063 was done to Stafford (43062 now being one of the NR measurement train power cars, of course), followed by 90007 to Crewe.
Here is 43062 in its current guise, at Crewe Works open day in 2005:
HST 43062_2005.09.09_Crewe by philwood55013, on Flickr
This was the Euston – Holyhead service and the 90 gave way to a 47 at Crewe. I was in luck, it was one of my last 2 ETH 47s required for haulage, 47721, and so it had to be done. Because we were booked on the sleeper, we could only do it to Chester but a winner is a winner and I was pleased.
In the event it was a hellfire heritage unit back, 101683.
87004 was the spark on the sleeper and we were soon in the Land of Nod.
We ate breakfast in the lounge car as we crossed Rannoch Moor. Something which can’t be experienced too often, in my opinion.
We were only going to get two locos for haulage today, both on sleepers. After alighting at The Fort, we observed that the power from Edinburgh had been 37424 and then we were on the first unit out of there (156431 & 156453), which we did, obviously, to Glasgow. We were making for Aberdeen and this took most of the day, we did 158728 to Dundee and HST 43156/43088 forward.
We arrived in the Granite City in plenty of time to get something to eat.
We mooched back to the station and the stock was in. As we made our way down the platform to view the loco, we were stopped by one of the stewards who told us that we weren’t allowed to go any further. We disagreed. Apart from anything else, several sleeping coaches, including the one we were booked on, were further along the platform. Maybe he thought we looked like ne’er do wells, but once he knew we had accommodation booked, he somewhat grudgingly agreed we could go on.
The loco was 47732 and the journey to Edinburgh passed without incident.
On the trip South we went from the 23rd into the 24th. A day that, by contrast, would see plenty of incident.
87032 was the loco we had from Edinburgh, but, whilst we slept, the WCML was descending into chaos.
We awoke at around the time we should have been arriving in London.
We hadn’t had a knock from the steward, which was an indication of problems.
A look out of the window revealed we were just passing Crewe. Oh dear.
It transpired that the wires were down South of Beattock and a chat with the guard revealed that a diesel had dragged us from somewhere around there to Carlisle. Unfortunately, he was unable to give us an ID. Since then we have asked on numerous internet forums, etc but nobody seems to know what worked those crucial miles.
Several trains were dragged that night and some gen has come out indicating that a few different locos were in action on both passenger and freight trains.
The most likely loco for our train seems to be 47760 as this is recorded as seeing plenty of action between Beattock and Carlisle that night, but that’s far from definite and so we have a very irritating gap in our haulage records.
87032 had worked forward from Carlisle and took us through to Euston.
We planned to do the Anglian 86s today, but first it was some more 73 miles. The underground was done to Victoria and 73204 was taken out to Gatwick, from there we had a quick trip to Haywards Heath behind 47841, coming back to Gatwick on CIG pairing 1859 & 1834. 73235 was enjoyed into Victoria and it was over to Liverpool Street for loads of 86 haulages. Or not.
Yet another incident was causing chaos.
This time it was a derailed Freightliner just North of Witham station.
The Anglian services were up the spout and unsurprisingly, nothing was going North of Witham.
We didn’t want to have wasted our time going East, so we did 86217 out and back.
The derailed train could be seen from the platform and it looked a mess.
Indeed, the line remained shut for the rest of the week.
At least Witham was a winning station
Our Anglia plans thwarted, we decided to head for North Wales, this was achieved by doing 90002 Euston to Nuneaton.
Here's 90002 at Manchester Piccadilly in the early hours of the 25th of February 1989:
90002_1989.02.25__Manchester by philwood55013, on Flickr
then we did 90011 to Stafford where we picked up the Holyhead train that had served us well earlier in the week. This time it was 87016, which gave way to 47596 at Crewe.
This was done throughout for the middle of the night Holyhead fester before the Birmingham International service departed in the early hours.
Monster 37422 was the traction that took us to the West Midlands.
Here's the beast in Question at Hereford on the day I scored it. I'd just disembarked after a run from Crewe:
37422_1989.05.03_Hereford by philwood55013, on Flickr
We bailed at Wolverhampton and did 86102 into New Street.
86256 & 87035 were both sampled before it was down to Reading.
Here's 87035 early in its retirement:
87035_2005.09.09_5_Crewe by philwood55013, on Flickr
Reading was reached behind Porterbrook purple liveried 47817.
At this time, two of the long range 47s were in this tasteful, understated, livery and after getting off one it was straight onto the other as 47807 took us to Banbury.
47841 was next on the menu and we took this into Paddington. We had a run out of Paddington on 47814 and then it was a HST back (43010/43130) and the underground over to Kings Cross as we were heading home for the night. It was 91024 that whisked us back to Yorkshire.
Friday the 26th began with me doing a unit to Leeds to meet my mate and then we did 91030 to Kings Cross.
We decided to head over to Liverpool Street to see if things were back to normal.
As I mentioned above, the disruption went on all week and so we were out of luck.
86237 was done to Witham and back and it was over to Euston in order to find something to entertain us in the Midlands.
We took 90008 to Coventry, 47822 to New Street and 47851 to Crewe.
From Crewe we did 158868 to Wilmslow, followed by 323228 to Manchester , running via the airport and scoring us some track.
Then an unusual working, 47822 & 47843, both powering, on a Friday night holiday service, which we did from Piccadilly to Birmingham.
Saturday was our last day, we stayed on board our Newquay bound service, although 47822 came off, leaving the erstwhile VULCAN to work forward on its own (happily, it got its name back a couple of years later).
We bailed at Plymouth and did a HST (43157/43198) back to Bristol. Next up was a last run to Devon, with 47839 doing the honours.
We leapt at Newton Abbot to meet a North bound cross country service, which was worked by 47814.
This was done to Exeter and we went for something to eat before rejoining 47839 on its way back North.
This was taken to New Street and it was now time to wind our way home.
A couple of mega mileage moves were done, 87024 to International and 86256 from there to Coventry. From Coventry it was 47853 to Stoke and our last loco of the week, 90002 forward to Manchester. 158908 was taken to Huddersfield where I bailed for my bus home and that was that, another rover over.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I hope people are still reading
Cheers,
55013
I am deeply indebted to my good friend 45135, who over the last few days has dug out his records of the move and provided me with all the gen on the HSTs and the vast majority of units.
As with my last couple of rovers I have no pictures, so to brighten things up a bit I've stuck in a few shots of some of the traction involved.
Including, for the first time, a HST!
Anyway, here goes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When planning this move for September, we became aware of an attractive looking railtour, Pathfinder’s “Marching Cat”, that was running on Saturday the 20th, so we decided to incorporate that.
The plan was to do the tour on the Saturday and start the rover on the Sunday.
Four of us were on the tour, but only two of us were up for an 8 day move.
Starting at Crewe behind 86608 (now 86501), the tour went to Felixstowe, out via London and back via Peterborough & Nuneaton. Traction involved was 47212, 56006, 56062, 58018 & 60085, with 37678 working the last leg, Nuneaton – Crewe.
What a nice way to begin a holiday.
We had driven to Crewe in the morning and our two pals drove home again after the tour. My mate and I, however, had booked a room in a B & B in Crewe for the Saturday night, so we could get straight on with the serious business of roving early on the Sunday morning.
And so the big day dawned. Another rover was up and running.
We walked down to the station and began with something a bit more conventional than yesterday’s extravaganza. It was 86212 which whisked us down to Nuneaton, followed by 47854 on a Sunday dragged service to Birmingham New Street. From there it was out to Wolverhampton on 47807 and 86224 back.
A 47 was then put on top of the 86 for the drag over to Nuneaton, this time it was 47749, one of the original Western Region named 47s, formerly 47076/47625 “City Of Truro”. I must admit that I preferred it as COT than “Atlantic College”, which was the name it carried now.
The 73s on the Gatwick’s were calling us by this time and so we stayed on the same rake and 86224 again took power for the run to Watford Junction. It was then unit time and 319007 was done from there to Clapham Junction, followed by sister unit 319012 into Victoria.
The usual ED entertainment was had, with 73205/73208/73211/73202 done for a couple of round trips before it was time to make for the down sleeper.
CIG unit 1848 was done from Victoria to Clapham Junction and 455/8 number 5861 was taken into Waterloo.
The loco for the sleeper was 47816 and we did it for the full 330 miles to Penzance.
Monday started with some HST mileage as we had no choice unless we wanted to spend the day in Penzance. 43037 & 43022 were taken to Liskeard. We then took a break and decided to score the line to Looe, taking 153373 there and back again. We wanted to get back among the locos, so it was 158864 to Exeter and then 47854 up to New Street.
After the Penzance sleeper last night, it was to be the Fort William one tonight.
HST 43062/43063 was done to Stafford (43062 now being one of the NR measurement train power cars, of course), followed by 90007 to Crewe.
Here is 43062 in its current guise, at Crewe Works open day in 2005:
HST 43062_2005.09.09_Crewe by philwood55013, on FlickrThis was the Euston – Holyhead service and the 90 gave way to a 47 at Crewe. I was in luck, it was one of my last 2 ETH 47s required for haulage, 47721, and so it had to be done. Because we were booked on the sleeper, we could only do it to Chester but a winner is a winner and I was pleased.
In the event it was a hellfire heritage unit back, 101683.
87004 was the spark on the sleeper and we were soon in the Land of Nod.
We ate breakfast in the lounge car as we crossed Rannoch Moor. Something which can’t be experienced too often, in my opinion.
We were only going to get two locos for haulage today, both on sleepers. After alighting at The Fort, we observed that the power from Edinburgh had been 37424 and then we were on the first unit out of there (156431 & 156453), which we did, obviously, to Glasgow. We were making for Aberdeen and this took most of the day, we did 158728 to Dundee and HST 43156/43088 forward.
We arrived in the Granite City in plenty of time to get something to eat.
We mooched back to the station and the stock was in. As we made our way down the platform to view the loco, we were stopped by one of the stewards who told us that we weren’t allowed to go any further. We disagreed. Apart from anything else, several sleeping coaches, including the one we were booked on, were further along the platform. Maybe he thought we looked like ne’er do wells, but once he knew we had accommodation booked, he somewhat grudgingly agreed we could go on.
The loco was 47732 and the journey to Edinburgh passed without incident.
On the trip South we went from the 23rd into the 24th. A day that, by contrast, would see plenty of incident.
87032 was the loco we had from Edinburgh, but, whilst we slept, the WCML was descending into chaos.
We awoke at around the time we should have been arriving in London.
We hadn’t had a knock from the steward, which was an indication of problems.
A look out of the window revealed we were just passing Crewe. Oh dear.
It transpired that the wires were down South of Beattock and a chat with the guard revealed that a diesel had dragged us from somewhere around there to Carlisle. Unfortunately, he was unable to give us an ID. Since then we have asked on numerous internet forums, etc but nobody seems to know what worked those crucial miles.
Several trains were dragged that night and some gen has come out indicating that a few different locos were in action on both passenger and freight trains.
The most likely loco for our train seems to be 47760 as this is recorded as seeing plenty of action between Beattock and Carlisle that night, but that’s far from definite and so we have a very irritating gap in our haulage records.
87032 had worked forward from Carlisle and took us through to Euston.
We planned to do the Anglian 86s today, but first it was some more 73 miles. The underground was done to Victoria and 73204 was taken out to Gatwick, from there we had a quick trip to Haywards Heath behind 47841, coming back to Gatwick on CIG pairing 1859 & 1834. 73235 was enjoyed into Victoria and it was over to Liverpool Street for loads of 86 haulages. Or not.
Yet another incident was causing chaos.
This time it was a derailed Freightliner just North of Witham station.
The Anglian services were up the spout and unsurprisingly, nothing was going North of Witham.
We didn’t want to have wasted our time going East, so we did 86217 out and back.
The derailed train could be seen from the platform and it looked a mess.
Indeed, the line remained shut for the rest of the week.
At least Witham was a winning station
Our Anglia plans thwarted, we decided to head for North Wales, this was achieved by doing 90002 Euston to Nuneaton.
Here's 90002 at Manchester Piccadilly in the early hours of the 25th of February 1989:
90002_1989.02.25__Manchester by philwood55013, on Flickrthen we did 90011 to Stafford where we picked up the Holyhead train that had served us well earlier in the week. This time it was 87016, which gave way to 47596 at Crewe.
This was done throughout for the middle of the night Holyhead fester before the Birmingham International service departed in the early hours.
Monster 37422 was the traction that took us to the West Midlands.
Here's the beast in Question at Hereford on the day I scored it. I'd just disembarked after a run from Crewe:
37422_1989.05.03_Hereford by philwood55013, on FlickrWe bailed at Wolverhampton and did 86102 into New Street.
86256 & 87035 were both sampled before it was down to Reading.
Here's 87035 early in its retirement:
87035_2005.09.09_5_Crewe by philwood55013, on FlickrReading was reached behind Porterbrook purple liveried 47817.
At this time, two of the long range 47s were in this tasteful, understated, livery and after getting off one it was straight onto the other as 47807 took us to Banbury.
47841 was next on the menu and we took this into Paddington. We had a run out of Paddington on 47814 and then it was a HST back (43010/43130) and the underground over to Kings Cross as we were heading home for the night. It was 91024 that whisked us back to Yorkshire.
Friday the 26th began with me doing a unit to Leeds to meet my mate and then we did 91030 to Kings Cross.
We decided to head over to Liverpool Street to see if things were back to normal.
As I mentioned above, the disruption went on all week and so we were out of luck.
86237 was done to Witham and back and it was over to Euston in order to find something to entertain us in the Midlands.
We took 90008 to Coventry, 47822 to New Street and 47851 to Crewe.
From Crewe we did 158868 to Wilmslow, followed by 323228 to Manchester , running via the airport and scoring us some track.
Then an unusual working, 47822 & 47843, both powering, on a Friday night holiday service, which we did from Piccadilly to Birmingham.
Saturday was our last day, we stayed on board our Newquay bound service, although 47822 came off, leaving the erstwhile VULCAN to work forward on its own (happily, it got its name back a couple of years later).
We bailed at Plymouth and did a HST (43157/43198) back to Bristol. Next up was a last run to Devon, with 47839 doing the honours.
We leapt at Newton Abbot to meet a North bound cross country service, which was worked by 47814.
This was done to Exeter and we went for something to eat before rejoining 47839 on its way back North.
This was taken to New Street and it was now time to wind our way home.
A couple of mega mileage moves were done, 87024 to International and 86256 from there to Coventry. From Coventry it was 47853 to Stoke and our last loco of the week, 90002 forward to Manchester. 158908 was taken to Huddersfield where I bailed for my bus home and that was that, another rover over.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I hope people are still reading
Cheers,
55013
Last edited:
