Two 37/4s on Mike Dunning's 'Talacre' garden railway, whose website at www.talacre.com has just been updated and redesigned.
56 081 climbing the beautiful Lledr Valley at
Dolwyddelan
with the Northern Belle, 10 September (Larry Goddard)
A collector's item
The latest EWS advert in the magazines includes, very unusually, a nameplate from one of the 1990s North Wales Coast line Class 37/4 fleet, namely 37 414 Cathays C & W Works 1846-1993. Just one plate is for sale by EWS: should you feel you have the funds to bid for this, send a bid in a sealed envelope labelled 'Railwayana 40' to The Disposals Manager, EWS Railway, Toton TMD, Long Eaton, Nottingham NG10 1HA to arrive by 10:00 on 11 October 2002.
We'd be interested to hear from anyone who can suggest a likely price for this item (where's the other plate, we wonder?) and especially from anyone who buys the thing. It would also be interesting to know the current whereabouts of the plates from some of the other locos, such as Robert F. Fairlie and The Kingsman. - 10 September
The Northern Belle luxury train ran one of its £140 lunch trips on 10 September, starting from Chester and running up the scenic Conwy Valley line, although this routing is not mentioned at all on the Northern Belle's website.
Mike Dunning was at Chester to watch events, and take these two pictures. Mike reports '56 081 arrived early on and went into the bay; 47 799 Prince Henry arrived 10.15, the 56 went onto the back and left at 10:50.
Larry Goddard chased the train up the Conwy Valley, where due to the strike it had the whole line to itself. Above, 47 799 leads the train out of Blaenau Ffestiniog, and ....
... passes Dolwyddelan in very pleasant weather. Is this the first time a 'Royal' 47 has traversed the branch? - 10 September
A double-decker bus belonging to a local company was de-roofed on the afternoon of 10 September at a notorious Cefn-y-bedd railway bridge nr Wrexham, N Wales. The bridge has a marked height clearance of 13ft 3ins (although some bristol VRs at 13ft 6 will go under with care) The bus, which was believed to be 14ft+ and empty at time of the accident, failed to obey height markings on approaches and drove under the bridge de-roofing the majority of top deck in the process. This is the second double-decker to be de-roofed by this company in last five years or so at the same location.
Passenger train services on Wrexham to Bidston line were not running due to industrial action, but freight trains were affected by bridge strike.- 10 September
September 14 and 15 sees a special event on the Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon) in the form of a Superpower weekend, which will see two trains in service and other attractions to coincide with the ‘Celtic Caernarfon’ event which is taking place in the town of Caernarfon. See the railway's website for more details, and the Gwynedd Bus Timetable for how to reach the railway from Bangor station. - 10 September
Displayed at Gobowen today the Winter Wales and Borders Timetable
for
2002/3 effective 29 Sept. 2002.
Times are for Gobowen and should be adjusted for Wrexham/Chester etc.
Monday-Friday & Saturday - Sat altered times noted otherwise as
Monday
- Friday.
| Up Trains
0704 Chester - Shrewsbury 0800 Holyhead-Cardiff - 0756 Sat 0900 Chester to Shrewsbury 1001 Chester to New St - 1000 Sat 1104 Chester to Shrewsbury 1204 Chester to New St 1307 Chester to Cardiff - 1309 Sat 1406 Chester to New St - 1409 Sat 1606 Chester to New St - 1608 Sat 1809 Chester to New St 1909 Chester to Shrewsbury - 1910 Sat 2054 Chester to Shrewsbury 2150 Chester to Shrewsbury - 2144 Sat 2343 Chester to Shrewsbury - 2336 Sat Sunday
|
Down Trains
0546 Shrewsbury to Chester 0633 Shrewsbury to Chester - 7.31 Sat 0752 Shrewsbury to Chester - 8.32 Sat 0942 Shrewsbury to Chester - 0937 Sat New St to Chester 1046 New St to Chester - 1047 Sat 1152 Shrewsbury to Chester - 1148 Sat 1250 New St to Chester 1446 New St to Chester 1651 New St to Chester - 1647 Sat 1754 Shrewsbury to Chester & 1848 Sat only New St to Chester 1926 Cardiff to Holyhead - 1930 Sat 2015 Shrewsbury to Chester - 2014 Sat 2216 Cardiff to Chester - 2220 Sat 2339 Shrewsbury to Chester Sat only Sunday
|
At least it shows an improvement for a major part of the day, although some regret that the line offers little more than a shuttle service. Better this with connections than one train every two hours. However the morning connection at Shrewsbury for Birmingham is said to be a 50 minute wait which hardly caters for rail commuters.
I saw 66 098 shunt the coal yard at Gobowen on 10
September.
In the course of an hour it added empties to its existing load and
headed
south some 33 hoppers in tow leaving the yard bare. This meant shunting
back and forth over the gated crossing no less than three times. No
doubt
loaded wagons will arrive in due
course but the lady in the booking office told me it was a once in
a while performance. - 10 September
A fine piece of Britain's heritage ... and Conwy
Castle!
Picture by Steve Vaughan, 7 September
Two more days of drivers' strikes will again cripple the North Wales Coast line service on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 September, when few if any First North Western or Virgin trains are expected to run. Replacement buses will run between main stations (see the National Rail website) but again there is no replacement service on offer for Conwy Valley passengers, a fact which has quite rightly attracted adverse comment in the local press.
One does wonder why, for example, a replacement bus is being provided between Stockport, Hazel Grove and Buxton were there is already a half-hourly service bus run by the Trent company, but nothing for Conwy Valley passengers even though other buses in the area are few and far between. Could it be that no FNW managers live on the Conwy Valley line, or is this just too cynical?
As for the strikes themselves, there seems to be no sign of a resolution - First North Western management are unlikely to improve their offer because they have been told not to by the Strategic Rail Authority who in turn report to Mr Blair and his colleagues, so this will surely drag on like the similar situation with Arriva Northern Guards who have already announced their strike days for Christmas ... let's hope something can be done, as surprising as it may seem to some, there are still people who depend on railway transport. - 9 September
More of Gordon
The appearance of D9016 Gordon Highlander on the Coast on 7 September certainly brought out our contributors with their cameras: here's another selection to add to the collection in the last notice board. Approaching Llandudno Junction on the outward journey (above, by Dave36) and running on to the train for the 14:04 departure from Chester (below, by Dave Skipsey.)
Roger Carvell writes: 'Many thanks to your lads on the spot
in
getting pics of D9016 on the coast.
Nice to see that Gordon Highlander attracts a lot of attention. Quality
British engineering. Two other Deltics were in service around Britain
on
the same day: D9009 with an epic Preston-Bristol, via Finsbury
Park,
and another, D9019 substituting for D9000 (makes
four!)
on a King's Cross to Edinburgh and back. Nice to see D9016
strutting
her stuff on the North Wales Coast. Note that '16 has double sets
of windscreen wipers once more. Always thought that alone made the
Deltics
a classy act. Looking forward to the 'Whistler' in December. Now
that is NWCL heritage...' - 9 September
I can add a bit more about 47 853's failure on 5 September (see last Notice Board). It did indeed fail with a blown turbo and managed to make its way into the loop at Holywell Junction. 'Plan A' was to detach 47 799 of the FNW 1D67 Holyhead going the other way at Chester and send that. Then 'Plan B' was a loco from Crewe or Warrington, next was 'Plan C' where 66 515 was to fetch it ... and in the end it waited for a Manchester to pass by and proceeded at 30 mph to Chester where 1A39 terminated 126 minutes late at 13:06. All the passengers were transferred onto the 13:18 Crewe shuttle which being a 153 was lengthened by a 156 for the trip. Virgin sent 47 848 light from Crewe and coupled to 47 853 and its train taking the lot empty to Crewe departing Chester at 15:10, thus causing a little congestion at Chester as it was in the platform from 13:06 to 15:10!
On the Wales & Borders front, they yet again proved they know what's good for the passenger on Saturday with the extremely busy 11:30 Chester - Birmingham departure formed of two 158's instead of the booked class 150. Ample space for the only route open to Birmingham on a weekend. Later in the day a defect on the incoming service lead to it terminating at Wrexham with the the good old fashioned bus to replace it! However by travelling via Crewe arrival time in Shrewsbury is only ten minutes later than direct. - 9 September
4 September saw 47 799 Prince Henry in use on the First North Western turn, seen above at Crewe (picture by Ian Bowland) on the 10:07 Birmingham - Holyhead, and in the sequence below with the lunchtime arrival at Holyhead, and below arriving and departing Chester.
These three Pictures by Tony Miles.
We hear that when the train made its Tuesday night trip to Crewe for the stock swap etc. and there were only three 47s available - two of them were the royal pair - so looks like we could be seeing plenty more of them.
XP64 number 47 853 Rail Express worked the 09:19 Holyhead - London as far as Crewe, seen above in Larry Goddard's picture passing Towyn ...
... and pictured by Ian Bowland after detaching from the 9.19 Holyhead-London at Crewe; 90 012 British Transport Police took over. - 9 September