I watched a youtube video of Sir Nigel Gresley being serviced at Upperby and there seemed to be a long row of coaches on one siding. They appeared to be 5 or 6 Scotrail sleeper lounge cars (67xx) then a chocolate and cream vehicle, then a set of ex EMT HST trailers
Yes that's the ones, I was hoping to find out their identities but have drawn a blank
Ah great, thanks Rhys
Ahh. So there were a couple of BUOs as well as a couple of RLOs. Useful acquisitions. Tjhey would be handy for the Jacobite at the moment !!!
You’d probably need a negotiator who’d make Henry Kissinger look inept to sort that one.
Yeah, won't happen, ever.
Yeah. I know !! I was sorta idly speculating !!!
Yes, the BUOs received CET when they were converted from Mark 2E TSOs. The reasons being that they spend quite some time sat in stations (as the Mark 3 sleepers do) so it was thought a good idea to make them common with the sleepers in having CET.
Also the reason why Network Rail now has a number on hire too.
Quick question on this, if 401 is still not available by Saturday, what loco would actually replace it? I was under the impression that a single 37/4 doesn't have a high enough electric train supply index for the ScotRail push pull set, so surely allocating one of the green 37s alone isn't an option?
Potentially 37401 could be rushed out before repaint or they could hire out another /4?
Having two 37/4s doesn’t make any difference for train supply purposes. You can’t have them both supplying and double the rating.
Why not?
While that would generally work, it may not be applicable for this tour. As the tour does the Lickey, double-heading is apparently favoured by Network Rail for the incline, rather than top and tailed operation.
Unusual for NR to dictate train operations. D1015 + a 57 coupled rear seemed acceptable very recently.
Quoting the website:
Having said that, I don't actually understand why its advertised as top'n'tailing - as far as I can see from RTT, the tour doesn't actually change directions all day so the only benefit of any loco on the rear will be for the shunt moves at Crewe and Cardiff. To me, double 37s on the front would make more sense.
This could be possible, even if the 37s are top'n'tailing - sneak a duff just in front of the rear loco, connected to the coaches perhaps?
Originally the tour was advertised as doing the triangle at Cardiff…
Ahh right. There's hope for double heading yet then!
I love a 47 - force of habit calling them duffs all these years haha. I've grown to like them a lot recently.
It was far more universal than that and included spotters. It was definitely around in Western days as in one of that era's ditties:
Was a very common nickname until spoon became common late 80s, early 90s.
As a mid-80s spotter I only knew them as duffs. 37s were Syphons although not sure I used that myself - was ‘tractor’ a later term?
Tractor also came along later, I always remember 37s as tractors.
