Links lost at electrification

[spacehopper]

North sidings are the "West Dock" next to the box. South sidings are "HST sidings"- by the car park usually get TPE stabled there.

 

[DarloRich]

Engineers sidings just by the A66 flyover by the roundabout with the cinema on it?

 

[spacehopper]

Around that area- couple of sidings with hoses, authorised walking route from car park. Sets at Boro can shunt to West Dock, HST sidings or Guisborough Junction.

 

[DarloRich]

didnt know they were called hst sidings! you learn soemthing new everyday

 

[flymo]

Another thing about the Cleveland Exec is that it ran in the place of a 'local' so from Sunderland to Newcastle (and vice-versa) the Tyne and Wear travelcard was valid (in the right zones of course). I did this a couple of times, the last X4 bus Newcastle - Sunderland then wait for the Exec to Newcastle. Wonderful stuff, the only time ever a T&W travelcard was valid on a scheduled 125. (apart from the up of course). And yes there was always a ticket check between Sunderland and Newcastle.

Cracking..

 

[PinzaC55]

The T&W Travelcard would also be valid on the 21.30 Newcastle - Darlington sleepers as far as Sunderland which had passenger coaches and regularly produced 31's , 40's and the occasional Deltic. I had my last ever run with 55011 from Sunderland to Seaham in November 1981.

 

[vectra33]

When the WCML wires went up the through services from Euston to Birkenhead, East Lancs and the Cumbrian coast finished, and a bit later the same thing happened to Stirling/Perth/Inverness/Stranraer (except for sleepers). Then Mid-Wales and finally Blackpool and Shrewsbury went.

East lancs -London finished around 1969-1970 and were replaced by Standerwick double deck coaches (part of the nationalised NBC),this is the historic reason there was a Colne to London express coach service.

Barrow to london services didnt finish till at least the late 80s,I can remember them being electric hauled to preston,then replaced with a 47 for the last section from Preston to barrow.

Blackpool -London direct didnt finish till May 2003.

London -Manchester was opened as an electric line in 1966.

Dave

 

[Rhydgaled]

On a similar note, once the GWML is wired up, will we see the end of direct London services for Henley/ Pembroke/ Weston? Or Manchester - Scarborough trains if/when the TPE core is electrified?

The Weston-Super-Mare suituation is a tricky one. I personally think that, in many respects, it would make sence for all INTERCITY services from Paddington to Taunton and beyond to be routed via Westbury using INTERCITY 125s (bi-mode IEP is daft on most of their proposed routes and enviromentaly perverse, and I'm trying to come up with alternatives) and either

• Introduce direct INTERCITY 125s from Bristol to cover for sending the PAD services via Westbury instead or
• Replace a number of XC's Voyager services (prefrably ones from north of Edinbourgh) with INTERCITY 125s to provide a quality service between Bristol and the places having their London services routed away from Bristol

That minimises the distance diesels (and I include bi-modes in this) run under the wires, and mantains quality IC services to Taunton and beyond from London and Bristol. The drawback of course is Weston-Super-Mare losses direct trains to London. You could fix that by wiring Bristol to Weston-Super-Mare and extending one Bristol tph to Weston-Super-Mare, but to get best out of that you need to split all the non-IC services between Bristol and Taunton (eg. the Cardiff - Taunton) at Weston, which means passengers have to change at Weston to get from Bristol to Taunton unless they catch an XC service (this also means the Bristol to Taunton and beyond IC125s are running under the wires as far as Weston). What does anyone else think?

As for Pembroke, this could go one of two ways.

1. The DaFT plan to stop electrification at Cardiff goes ahead, making bi-mode IEP the only option for PAD - Wales services (except those that terminate at Cardiff). The e-mail I had back form DfT ommited Pembroke and Tenby from a list of places IEP (with it's 26m carriages) would be cleared to go.
2. DfT see sense (or the campaigns pay off) and electrification extends to Swansea. That makes my suggestion of using IC225s with a loco-swap for a TDM-fitted 47 to run Carmarthen and Pembroke a possiblity.