The 16:13 Holyhead - London crosses the Stanley Embankment from Holy Island on 8 July, with 47 739 Resourceful at the head. (John Lewis.)

Regular Contributors: Dave Sallery , Alan Crawshaw, Rowan Crawshaw, Dave & John Skipsey, John Lewis, Tony Flusk,  John Dawson ,  Tony Miles, Ian Bowland, Tim Rogers, Ivor Bufton, Alastair Graham, Mike Stone,  'Concrete Bob'  Selwyn Williams, Steve Vaughan and many others.

LAST UPDATE: 08 July  2001

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An unusual and historic working on the night of 7-8 July was entrusted to 66 519:  0Z00 23:30 Basford Hall - Bangor and 0Z33 04:30 (Sun) Bangor - Basford Hall Light Engine carrying personnel to remove covers off speed restriction signs. The North Wales Coast is now 90 mph running (where permitted) as of 00:01 Sunday 8 July.Thanks for this good news to Steve Vaughan, who adds: 'Anyone have a picture? - Thought not!' - 8 July

47739 Resourceful on the 16:13 train from Holyhead to London on 8 July. Horrible overcast day, but of course Paint Shop Pro can work miracles!  Interesting to see the black headcode box here, on both ends of the loco - it looks rather crudely painted when viewed up close, but I rather like the look of it otherwise. Brings back a few memories of the way 47s appeared during the 70s anyway - shame it's not in blue.... - 8 July

Those who miss the 37-hauled trains on the Coast might like to visit one of the preserved railway Diesel Galas taking place in the next few weeks. A four-day event on the East Lancashire Railway begins on Thursday 12 July (they have a set of Mk 2a coaches which would look real nice in RR livery) and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway have a Diesel Weekend on 4-5 August featuring guest locos from DRS, both Class 20 and 37 as seen on the Nuclear flask trains to Valley. Both Websites have full timetables and diagram information.

On a smaller scale, there's a model railway exhibition in Colwyn Bay on 21-22 July, from 10:00 to 17:00 each day. The venue is Eiras High School [map] in Eiras Park, a few minutes walk from the station. - 8 July

The Class 175 experiment - first report

Thanks to all who sent in their Class 175 observations: the whole project to work out the diagrams was unfortunately thrown into chaos by the number of cancellations and subsitutions, but with all your notes and a special amount of help from David Wild, who originally raised the question, we have a first attempt at the North Wales Coast part of the Weekday diagrams ready for download. Please have a look and give us your comments and corrections. Particularly hard to sort out is where and when the various couplings and uncouplings take place, but we believe there currently eight daily turns for the Coast line units. As far as can be seen there is no interworking between the Coast group of services and the Barrow, Blackpool and Windermere diagrams. - 8 July

Preserved loco 47 449 was moved on 5 July from the Llangollen Railway to Chester depot for use by Alstom. It has, it is said,  been received with great intrest by the depot staff. No, they haven't given up on the 175s and turned to loco-hauled trains instead; from what we hear it's for 'coupling tests.' What these are, and why they could not have been done with 47 705 ages ago, we would be very interested to hear. Thanks to George Jones for passing on the report. - 7 July

A group of members of the Llandudno and Conwy Valley Railway Society thought it appropriate to try and put something back into the Conwy Valley community and in turn approached various local persons and businesses with our ideas, so in partnership with First North Western, Railtrack and Bodnant Gardens have in recent weeks been clearing and renovating the disused platform at Tal-Y-Cafn and Eglwysbach Railway Station in The Conwy Valley, on the line from Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Plants and flowers for the initiative were provided by Bodnant Garden whose estate is near to the station. The Llandudno and Conwy Valley Railway Society membership is drawn from all walks of life and the common bond is each member's interest in railways and their efforts have been entirely voluntary. A Full-Size replica station sign originally seen here in the 1950s has been constructed by one of the members of our society and funded by Railtrack.

The work was formally acknowledged in a brief ceremony at Tal-Y-Cafn station on Saturday 7 July where Councillors Emlyn Davies, Eglwysbach Community Council and Christine Jones, Conwy County Borough Council presented a cheque to Mr. K Thompson, Project leader for the Llandudno and Conwy Valley Railway Society's funds in appreciation of their efforts.

Special thanks are extended to Mr. Ben Davies, First North Western Trains and Mr. Martin Puddle, General Manager, Bodnant Garden/Nurseries and also to our colleagues of the Conwy Railway Heritage Society who are our neighbours with a Railway Preservation Project in the near by former Tal-Y-Cafn Goods Yard.

[Well done indeed to the LCVRS. Pictures somene please! - C.H.] - 7 July

As the hot weather continues, we seem to have had less reports of problems with the 'hippos' although maybe people are just bored with sending them? Certainly one was in some trouble at Staveley on the Windermere branch on the afternoon of 7 May, but let's hope things are improving. Meanwhile, how about this quote in RAIL magazine issue 413 from Roger McDonald, Senior President UK of Alstom, in respect of class 175 reliability:   "I think if you spoke to David Franks [outgoing FNW Managing Director] he would say he was pleased with them."

A letter in the August 2001 Railway Magazine reminds us all that Valhalla, the name carried by 175 008, means 'In Old Northern mythology, the hall assigned to those who have died in battle...' A reference to Chester depot, perhaps? [OED.] - 7 July

A bit more on the lack of 1D87 08:35 London - Holyhead on 5 July. I was told today that 1D87 was turned back at Crewe due to late running, the power cars being 43 159/086. I went out for 1D87 on 6 July as I was working in Abergele. No Show again! Aargh..... Turned out it was approximately 90 minutes late and eventually turned back at Bangor, power cars being 43 098/088. Nothing was wrong in particular. The set was late off Longsight depot and delays just kept on mounting.

To cap it all for HST fans1D89 (19:05 from London) and 1D90 (21:25 from Euston) were both locomotive worked on that day. The HST set that should have been 1D89 was sent to Manchester on 1H23.

Just in case anyone is wondering what D87 looks like the picture above shows 43 086/159 on this train at Rhyl on Wednesday 4 July. If you look very closely on the left of the picture you will see the rare, lesser spotted 175! - 7 July

These two sad pictures by Concrete Bob show 37 706 hauling 37 414 Cathays C & W Works  away from Walton Old  Junction sidings, Warrington on 7 July, on what we presume was its final trip to Wigan 'Component Recovery Centre.' It was planned to be part of a train of withdrawn locos from Cardiff Canton to Wigan a few days earlier, as reported here, but at the time was left behind for reasons unknown. 37 414 was one of the locos repainted in 1993 for the Coast Line and other Regional Railways North West services, and has been stored out of service at Cardiff for some time now.

No doubt it will be stripped down, its load-bearing body sides destroyed, and then offered for sale in the railway press as though it were in some way a workable loco. Of course the Clss 37/4 preservation project is waiting in the wings, but the trouble is that 37/4s are seen as too valuable to competitors to be sold intact. Of course we could be wrong, and pigs might fly. - 7 July

HST Notes - by Steve Vaughan

1D89 18:45 Euston - Holyhead (43 099/068) struck an obstacle on the line at Nuneaton on Sunday night 1 July. The train terminated at Nuneaton and ran empty to Longsight. 1D89 restarted at Crewe with the other West Coast HST set which came empty from Blackpool (43098/088).

On Wednesday 4 July the two West Coast HSTs were 43 098/088 and 43 159/086.

1D87 (08:35 Euston - Holyhead)  and 1A70 (13:43 Holyhead - Euston) were cancelled for at least some of the way on Thursday 5 June. I went to photo the Power Cars at Abergele and it was a 'no show'. Anyone know the details? - 5 June

Unsuitable trains were conspicuous again on boiling hot 5 July: the 16:19 Crewe - Holyhead was operated by 142.039 today, arriving Chester full and standing at 1648 and leaving at 1650, 11 minutes late. At least it didn't have those Merseyside seats: we've had letters from people less than 6 feet tall saying they also hate them! The seat backs are virtually upright causing backache after 10-20 miles or less and the seats are so low to the floor that some older people need help to get out of them.  Who could think that a refurbished 142 could be worse than an original?  Who specified the seating - Merseytravel?  What a dreadful way to waste public money.

Slightly better, perhaps, was a pair of 153s on the 17:19 Manchester - Llandudno: were the passengers dreaming of Class 37s? We can now reveal, as they say in the tabloids, that First North Western wanted  to continue for while, at least until more 175s were in stock, with a set of coaches and locomotive power hired from the small hiring companies. Not having the financial resources to pay the higher cost of such an operation, the applied to the Strategic Rail Authority for a special grant, and were turned down. These same useless bureaucrats have now managed announce that all the franchises will be changed and then do nothing about it, thus blighting everyone's plans. What happened to Wales Rail? Gathering dust in someone's pending tray. - 5 July

I am involved with the Anglesey Traction Group which was originally intending to provide locos and stock for the Preserved line across Anglesey. Now, however we are looking at setting up some sort of small railway centre in North Wales. Hopefully this will be on the existing site at Tal-Y-Cafn goods yard on the Conwy Valley which is now for sale since the Auction Mart closed. Readers will probably have seen our loco and wagons at Tal-Y-Cafn from the passing trains.

Some time ago we had some limited edition prints done (the heading picture is a small sdcan, not to be taken as any guide to reproduction quality). The print depicts 40 020 shunting at Octel at Amlwch.It is full colour and limited to 750 individually numbered copies signed by the artist. Size is approx. 16.5 x 11.5 inches on quality 200gsm art paper. The price is just £10 inclusive of postage dispatched in a sturdy postal tube. Copies are available from D.G.Owen. 27 Overlea Ave.Deganwy. Conwy. LL31 9TA. Cheques made payable to: Anglesey Railway Traction. Every purchase supports our work.

For interest, our loco at Tal-Y-Cafn is an 0-4-0 diesel hydraulic, named Taurus A product of Vulcan Foundry, Newton le Willows. We also have a brakevan, 12T general merchandise van and a pipe wagon.

Readers are welcome on Saturdays, someone is normally there. By the way, the Llandudno and Conwy Valley Railway Society have now adopted Tal-Y-Cafn railway station. On Saturday 7 July there will be a small event there to unveil a replica 'Tal-Y-Cafn and Eglwysbach' running-in board. It is supposed to be at about 13:30 to coincide with the train. All in all there is a lot of attention around the railways of Tal-Y-Cafn at the moment. With the station 'adopted' and if our scheme gets off the ground it could turn out to be an interesting attraction. - 5 July

[Our picture report Roman Nose Day from 1998 includes coverage of Tal Y Cafn]

Daisy's last ride (repeat)

The legendary green Class 101, 101 685, was withdrawn from service (again, could this really be the end?) on Saturday 30 June as planned, along with 101 679 and 101 689. Its last week had seen it working on several routes, including a very full morning peak run on the Hazel Grove branch on 28 June with your compiler aboard: the picture above shows it at Piccadilly on this turn, as Rail Regulator Tom Winsor hurries disdainfully past (looks like him anyway.) Of course, it was turned out for the equally legendary Fridays only 15:00 Stockport - Stalybridge on 29 June, and inserted in place of a more modern unit on the final day on the diagram beginning with the 07:43 Manchester - Sheffield.

At Bamford they picked up a young boy who had written to First North Western asking them not to send it for scrap: again FNW management show us yet again they have a heart. Unfortunately, on this trip the leading car, 53164, suffered a failure of its Automatic Warning System. The train returned as the 09:15 Sheffield - Manchester since the other car was leading and had functioning AWS. On arrival at Piccadilly attempts at a repair were made, but unsuccessfully, and since very strict rules (after the Southall disaster) ban the use of trains without AWS, another train had to be found and the 09:15 from Sheffield  turned out to be 685's last journey. 101 fans were not disappointed for the rest of the day, however, as it was arranged for another last day set, 101 689, to take over. 101 679 spent its last day more quietly on Marple and Rose Hill turns. There are now just seven Class 101 units remaining in traffic, including three-car 101 657, seen below at Hazel Grove on 4 July.

Very special thanks to First North Western for being the railfan's friends again, and to the members of the indispensable Class 101 DMU mailing list (especially top DMU fan Kevin Dowd) for the information above. To join the list, and to get lots of info about 101s including their current booked workings, visit Dave Root's wonderful Class 101 pages. - 5 July

'The nature of the problem is now fully understood' (revised 5 July)

Well, maybe ... but at 21:45 on 4 July 175 114 was languishing 'failed' in the bay platform at Manchester Oxford Road (above.) 175 006 also failed at Manchester Airport the same evening leading to cancellation of the 1D50 21:03 Piccadilly-Chester. The driver of that train then works the 22:43 Chester-Bangor, the guard working back on 1H50 23:00 Chester-Piccadilly. Both these trains are the last services down their respective lines. The driver eventually brought 006 along with 114 empty stock  to Chester, but not before a 50 minute delay to the 22:43 and a 32 minute delay to the 23:00. Needless to say, the staff were seen to be taking the brunt of it all again. Its no wonder some say HIPPOS stands for Hopelessly Impossible Plastic Pieces Of Scrap ...

And, further to our notes from 3 July, the 175 noted at Piccadilly on the eastern spur was 175 112.  The symptoms for imminent failure (fluctuating lights) were spotted and it was taken out of traffic, being replaced by the Merseytravel 142 which had been there on standby, the 142 being "stepped up" and working to Barrow in its place.  A Rose Hill service was lost before spare 3-car 101 656 was brought out to cover.  Responsible operating! - 4 July

66 517 entering Rhyl on the ballast from Penmaenmawr at 12:30 Wednesday 4 July. (Nick Gurney)

Signalling problems on the Mid-Cheshire line - by John Oates

On 5 June some small-minded individuals took it upon themselves to break into the relay room opposite the station building at Northwich.  They started a fire in the room, the effect of which was to cause serious damage to the relays in the room and wipe the signalling, track circuits and points circuitry out in the Northwich area.  Damage is estimated as in excess of £85,000.  Temporary block working has been installed using 4 posts, on the up (Manchester-bound) just after Greenbank and at Lostock Gralam and on the down just before Lostock Gralam and just after Leftwich Viaduct.  The men at the beginning of the section use the signal post telephones to contact Greenbank 'box before issuing a ticket, the ones at the other end collecting the tickets before contacting the box.  If nothing much else is around, trains are only losing 2-3 minutes.  However, it is more difficult in the peaks (there is only one phone line into the box) and much more so when the hopper trains are around, when all the points need to be worked manually and clipped to gain access to Lostock Yard.

EWS have helpfully agreed to the retiming of the first hoppers to run at 01:30 to minimise the disruption which otherwise would have affected the morning peak.  The Middlewich branch has been temporarily clipped out of use.  Hopefully, subject to the relays being returned successfully rebuilt shortly, the system will be recommissioned by 9 July.  This has caused lots of disruption to railway staff and less so to the public and major expense to Railtrack due to these  individuals.  There was a very good article in the Northwich Guardian explaining much of this in a responsible and sensitive way.  Unfortunately, the one in the Knutsford Guardian chose to sensationalise the passenger disruption way over the reality of the situation.  Meanwhile, the Railtrack staff stationed near Greenbank have been suffering from occasionally being stoned by the local mindless individuals.... - 4 July

Dave Sallery's Archive Spot

37 409 pases the carriage shed at Rhyl on 17 September 1985 returning to Crewe after its first outing since fitting of ETH equipment.  The carriage shed, which was trackless by this date, was demolished later that year.  In its place are the two seldom used permanent way dept. sidings.  I think that 37 409 is one of the very few 37/4s which didn't appear on the Coast during 1993 - 2001. - 3 July

Our article about the overheating battery chargers in the Class 175s and the ensuing failures appears to have cause some ructions in certain quarters, perhaps because it had been hoped to struggle through without too much publicity. (There seems to have been a lack of those apologetic posters on stations which were a hallmark of the reign of the previous First North Western managing director.) However, the gentlemen of the press do read this page, and contacted FNW's public relations agency, who rather reluctantly put out the following:

2nd July 01

FIRST NORTH WESTERN - NEW TRAINS
Recent problems with First North Western's new fleet of trains have been caused when the temperature around the battery charger on the trains has reached excessive levels. The problem has occurred despite  earlier modifications to the trains by the manufacturer, Alstom.

The nature of the problem is now fully understood and all the trains will have been modified by tonight to keep the battery chargers at lower temperatures. First North Western is rigorously challenging Alstom,  the company that manufactures and maintains these trains on its behalf to ensure them that effective and lasting solutions to the teething troubles of the new trains have been found.

In the meantime, First North Western is doing everything possible to minimise disruption to passengers.

On the brighter side, the 08:18 Manchester - Llandudno was not only a 175 but also only three minutes late, something of a record for this train recently. Apparently there have been problems with the signalling which have been causing delays on the inbound run from Chester. It does get cold inside these trains though, doesn't it?- 3 July

One note which slipped by us in the busy times recently was a report on the 'Salopian' railtour organised by the Branch Line Society. David White reports: 'The tour, worked by 156 423,  completed its itinerary of  Hooton run round loop, Chester  North/South Junction,  Chester and then on to the Gobowen run round loop,via a reversal at Gobowen. Traffic is not possible beyond Park Hall to Oswestry on this line because the wooden sleepers  are rotten !

'The tour then went out of the area into Shropshire/Staffordshire and returned  to Chester. We noted two steel trains running north,one while we we on the Gobowen loop, loco unknown and 66180 at 2.40pm at Shrewsbury. An excellent tour,with a Chester  Driver in charge of 156 423.'

For a full report, see the Six Bells Junction website. - 3 July

Kevin's Class 47 notes

Saturday 30 June:
47 774 1D90 00:36 Crewe-Holyhead;  1A13 05:46 Holyhead-Crewe
47 843 1A39 09:19 Holyhead-Crewe
47 774 1D87 10:31 Crewe-Holyhead; 47 774 1A62 13:35 Holyhead-Crewe; 47 774 1D89 20:24 Crewe-Holyhead

Sunday 01 July:
47 774 1A02 03:58 Holyhead-Nuneaton (Dragging electric Crewe-Nuneaton, diverted Stafford-Nuneaton via Birmingham due to Trent Valley being closed);  1D87 12:45 Crewe-Holyhead;  1A75 16:13 Holyhead-Crewe. (pictured above at Holyhead by John Lewis.)
47 845 1D88 1932 Crewe-Holyhead

Note the Crewe-Stafford power isolation over-ran only slightly this Sunday with 47 761 dragging 1A13 (07:29 Manchester-Euston) Manchester-Stafford & 47 845 dragging 1A25 (08:29 Manchester-Euston) Manchester-Stafford before 1D88- instead of sensibly leaving it at Crewe and saving on light engine moves it  went to Longsight and back in the afternoon.

My view on the 175s: I have travelled on the 20:40 Holyhead-Chester to get back to Liverpool off 1D88 2 Sundays in a row - last week the 175's air conditioning had collapsed and it was like an oven inside with passengers passing out. This week it was 175 108 and like an industrial freezer with people shivering in summer dress! Where is the happy medium? Bring back the old trains - these units are a joke. There was a 142 (see picture below) stabled at Holyhead Saturday night/Sunday - presumably short of 175s again. - 2 July

47 774 Poste Restante passes Holyhead water tower with the 16:13 to London, 1 July. (John Lewis)

A picture (by John Lewis) we should never see: Merseyside PTE-specification refurbished 142 048 stands at Holyhead on 1 June. FNW, if you must use nodding donkeys on long runs please spare us these dreadful yellow ones with their excruciatimg seats in which it is impossible for anyone over 6 feet tall to actually sit ... to think that from Summer  2000 [sic] it was hoped to run the First North Western coast line services with nothing but 175s. - 2 July

The Petroleum Coke story

Following up on Sel Williams' comment that no trains have run to the Aluminium plant near Holyhead for a while, we've done a little research into the whole subject.

Petroleum coke is a solid product produced from the heaviest components of crude oil which remain after petrol, diesel, etc. have been extracted; it consists largely of carbon. The type of material transported to Holyhead is more accurately referred to as Anode Coke, because of its role in the Hall - Héroult process, a technique for extracting Aluminium metal from purified ore (Aluminium Oxide, also called Alumina) by melting it and passing electric current to separate it into Aluminium and Oxygen. The molten material is dissolved in molten Cryolite (Sodium Aluminium Fluoride) to lower the melting point, and small amounts of other salts are added to improve the efficiency of the process. The salt is kept molten in a 'pot' with the current passing between a carbon base and anode blocks (manufactured by processing the anode coke) which are dipped into the mixture. Molten aluminium collects on the bottom of the vessel from where it is siphoned off, whilst the Oxygen forms around the anone blocks and reacts with them to form Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide which bubble off from the mixture. The anode blocks are thus 'burned' in the process although this is not burning in the normal sense.

The electricity supplied to each pot is at a low voltage of about 4 volts, many being connected in series to a high voltage line, but the currents involved can be up to three hundred thousand amps! For each tonne of Aluminium metal produced, 1.95 tonnes of alumina are consumed, as well as 0.5 tonnes of anode coke. (This information is paraphrased from a very detailed description found out there on the Internet.

The anode coke used at Holyhead is brought in trainloads from the Humber Oil Refinery, operated by Conoco  near Grimsby on the south side of the Humber estuary. This is the only refinery in Europe which produces this material. This plant has a maintenance shutdown each year; the Holyhead factory allows for this by building up a stock from the weekly trainloads which arrive for the rest of the year. However, the situation this year is complicated by the fact that soon before the planned maintenance was about to start, on 16 April 2001 the refinery suffered a serious explosion and fire (see the BBC news report.) Since then the wagons, a rake of vehicles built specially for this service, have remained in the sidings at the Anglesey plant.  The Conoco website gives no indication as to when the refinery will begin work again, although the petroleum coke side of the operation does not seem to have been badly damaged.  Any comments or inside knowledge very welcome. - 2 July

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