FGW Motorail vans @ Old Oak

[BestWestern]

Any thoughts on why a rake of Motorail vans have been at Old Oak recently? Caught a glimpse a week or so back, the usual green and gold liveried jobbies - have they been shifted from Canton or is this a different rake? Surely they're redundant now - unless they're fitting seats and slotting them into HSTs ;D

 

[RichmondCommu]

Any thoughts on why a rake of Motorail vans have been at Old Oak recently? Caught a glimpse a week or so back, the usual green and gold liveried jobbies - have they been shifted from Canton or is this a different rake? Surely they're redundant now - unless they're fitting seats and slotting them into HSTs ;D

They were used on a Tesco trial run into Euston. Not surprisingly the trial finished and has not been repeated. I would imagine that they will now be cut up. They were still there last Saturday.

 

[fgwrich]

They were used on a Tesco trial run into Euston. Not surprisingly the trial finished and has not been repeated. I would imagine that they will now be cut up. They were still there last Saturday.

I doubt that as their owned by Colas Rail now. The trail was from Daventry to Euston which was to convey what we call 'ambient' goods to their smaller London stores. I think... that Colas are currently using them as barrier vehicles (they have done in the past) for the FGW Mk3 overhauls being carried out at Wabtec's Kilmarnock plant. So as they are sat on one of the approach roads I would say that they are about to marshal another set of Mk3s in-between them (the motorail vans come in pairs). In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what Colas are currently using them for.

 

[WestCountry]

They were used on a Tesco trial run into Euston. Not surprisingly the trial finished and has not been repeated. I would imagine that they will now be cut up. They were still there last Saturday.

The Euston ones were repainted in nice shiny blue, weren't they? These are reported to still be in green.

 

[fgwrich]

The Euston ones were repainted in nice shiny blue, weren't they? These are reported to still be in green.

Nope. The only plain blue rolling stock around are the FGW Mk1 & Mk2 Barrier Vehicles, and Eversholt Rail's almost BR Blue Mk1 Barrier vehicles.

The Colas Ex Motorail Vans that worked the supermarket trial into Euston were externally tidied up, with some vehicles having their Motorail branding painted over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD-lpNHfpQI

 

[No Fault Found]

I doubt that as their owned by Colas Rail now. The trail was from Daventry to Euston which was to convey what we call 'ambient' goods to their smaller London stores. I think... that Colas are currently using them as barrier vehicles (they have done in the past) for the FGW Mk3 overhauls being carried out at Wabtec's Kilmarnock plant. So as they are sat on one of the approach roads I would say that they are about to marshal another set of Mk3s in-between them (the motorail vans come in pairs). In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what Colas are currently using them for.

They've been at OOC since before christmas. They were being used as barrier vehicles for the sets that are going up to Kilmarnock. One of the locos turned up unexpectedly with 6 barrier vehicles and 4 (i think) of them have been there since.

They've been moved further up the yard because they ran out of space to stable other units (on a Saturday night)