Grand Central Rail Training Runs

[schmoo_smith]

Hi There,

I'm new to this forum so hello to everyone!

I was reading the grand central rail website that they have been running training trains down to london and back using top n tailed class 47's from drs. I'm orginally from sunderland but I now live in chippenham so I havent had a chance to get down to the station to check it out for myself. I was wondering if anyone has been there and got any pics or anything. Also I'm very curious as to which platforms they will be using, ass there are only two platforms both are which are used by the metro. Will they be diverting the metro's onto one platform while the hst's are set down.

cheers.

Martin Smith

 

[me123]

Hi Martin, welcome to the forums.

There has been a lot of discussion about these trains lately, in particular on this thread, with the timings for you. There are also some photos in this section of the site. Just browse around and you'll see the 47s somewhere.

 

[rail-britain]

Grand Central have been hiring various trains from DRS over the last few months

37194 and 37611 saw use early in February

47237 05 June
37515 07 June
37069 11 June

These all operated between Heaton and Derby

DRS then provided a pair of Class 47s and their Mk3 Charter Set for the last two weeks for training and to also familiarise the on-board staff, yesterday was the last run

Sunderland station is operated by Northern Rail
The GCT service will operate to/from Heaton
Southbound it will leave Heaton, pass through Newcastle and then arrive at Sunderland to allow passengers to board
The opposite will happen northbound

 

[schmoo_smith]

Ahh i get it now, so the trains will only set down for a few minutes thus leaving the normal metro service unaffected. so if they pass through newcastle why arent they picking up passengers, seems a bit pointless running an empty train from one city to another.

 

[rail-britain]

GCT are promoting direct services from the rail lines not currently served with a direct service, between Sunderland and York
Had GCT made this a full Newcastle -York - London service, then the proposal would almost certainly run into more objections as it is then competing directly with four passenger TOCs, and they would all most certainly object and request compensation for further losses, most noteably GNER and VT
Since there is no stopping south of York, VT did not make any objection
Both Northern and TransPennine Express were already aware during the bidding process that GCT would probably be up and running during their franchise, so they too did not object
GNER saw the operation as a direct threat, to its paths and revenue between York and London
EWS also raised an objection if paths became an issue, but that was resolved and the objection was removed

 

[schmoo_smith]

thanks for that info m8internet.