Recent content by Richard Scott

Ok, sorry, misunderstood.

Bremen also seems to be a good point and Frankfurt Sued not too bad either.

They run top and tailed on Eupen to Ostende services, believe they're hourly. They certainly have other turns but think Belgian allocations can be a little random on some routes, Brussels Airport trains seem to have quite a mixture and some appear to be loco hauled.

They go into direct drive at around 40mph so no, they wouldn't but then a 153 doing Cardiff Bay branch all day wouldn't either (when it used to be just a shuttle service).

Not sure if anyone's mentioned Manchester Victoria as sure used to be a 25 sat there for use as a banker, Miles Platting comes to mind, is that correct?

No need, quite hard to fit as exhaust stacks very short, in order of about 6 inches from exit of turbo to roof. Only EE loco fitted with a silencer was a 73.

You can get into third for a short period of time. Biggest problem is bands in gearbox becoming loose so there is a procedure at the end of the day to cycle through all the gears with the engines shut down to sort this out and reduce chance of slipping occurring in that particular gear (that's...

Both times I've been in past 2 years the hotel has emailed travel tickets in advance without prompting.

Probably when the train starts to slow down?! Assume on the Lickey were given green lights to at least the top? Would imagine could be awkward if train started to slow, probably have to rely on the train stopping assisting loco as wouldn't want to apply loco brakes incase it dropped back and...

Was on a railtour about 1990 with 50031 on the front and 50032 on the rear. 50032 powered from St Davids to Central.

Trying not to deviate off topic but all 90s are the same, none had a different gear ratio. Many were allocated to freight sector but were mechanically identical to the passenger sector. Sometimes freight sector imposed speed restrictions for maintenance purposes as kept costs down.

In addition I don't believe they were most reliable of trains hence their replacement? Seem to remember lots of cancellations over the years and never relied on one to get to Brussels for a tight Eurostar connection. Always went for a train 2 hours earlier at least.

Information does seem to be scarce, all I could find is a couple of vehicles from set 4681 (406081 and 406181) have been scrapped along with whole of set 4685. Information implies rest are still for sale but couldn't find a date so could well be out of date by now.

Have seen a couple in Romania, one at Bacau and one at Chitila (local station near Bucharest) so they do get about. Probably more luck than anything else if want to see them. Sure I've seen 92003 twice in Romania. Hope that helps? Picture below is at Chitila in 2024.

Thanks, that's definitely the interior, seems unit is 318.1 and 318.4, which I vaguely remember to be the formation. Now to sort other 3 out! If anyone can help then one unit had 289.3, another was 300.1 (if my memory is correct other end was 276.1?) and final one was 280.4. Thanks in advance, I...