A high-level view of Barmouth Bridge from the Panorama Walk, with a 158 crossing (Charlie Hulme)
The few years immediately preceding Privatisation saw the railways of North West England and North Wales run by a particularly enthusiastic team of people who put on all sorts of events intended to please the railfan community and assist staff morale at the same time. One of theese was the 'Motive Power Day' in North Wales on 20 May 1995, when an intensive servive of loco-hauled trains was operated, using a variety of locomotives borrowed from non-passenger sectors, and money was collected for charity. It's strange how today's privatisation proponents tell us that old BR lacked entrepreneurial skill and flair...anyway, Carl Hodkinson has unearthed for us some pictures taken on the day.
20 128 Gugliemlmo Marconi & 20 075 Sir William Cooke coming off the Llandudno branch with the 16:00 Llandudno – Crewe.
37 066 / 37 142 joining the Llandudno branch with the 15:08 Crewe – Llandudno.
56 071 approaching Colwyn Bay with the 10:05 Crewe – Llandudno.
60 055 Thomas Barnardo approaching Colwyn Bay with the 11:15 Llandudno – Crewe.
20 075 & 20 128 join the Llandudno branch with the 13:00 Crewe – Llandudno.
56 071 coming off the Llandudno branch with the 13:00 Llandudno – Crewe.
Any other illustrated reminiscences of this day, which was just a few months before the North Wales Coast Railway website was born, are very welcome. Carl Hodgkinson operates the very interesting West Coast Rail picture 'fotopic' site.
Here's a selection of links that we have received recently, all well worth a visit.
First, a quick meditation on Fotopic - readers may recall that we sent off our credit card number for a pictorial coffee mug from one of the pictures on John McPhilemy's Fotopic site. The mug came, well-packed, just a few days later, and the picture abive shows it mingling with the menagerie on the Page 27 computer. There's just one copy of the picture, printed diametrically opposite to the handle of the standard British coffee-mug, which means that the picture is not fully visible when the mug is held in the normal way. Many Fotopic sites offer this sales option, with mouse-mats and other things available, all of which might well make good festive gifts. Try this link and have a look around.
Sadly not included in the sales scheme are the excellent sites run by Matthew Hall, who writes: 'Thought you'd like to know that I've just added a second collection of images featuring North Wales; 'Diesel Units In North Wales' to my site 'Its a Train Thing!'. Also, on 'It's a Tram Thing!' there is a comprehensive section on the Great Orme Tramway.' The Diesel Units one includes some fine shots of 101 685 and her friends.
A couple of general Welsh sites of interest ... Run by fellow librarians is Wales on the Web/ Cymru ar y We: the subject gateway to material of Welsh interest funded by Cymru ar-lein of the Welsh Assembly Government and based at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. Having been live for less than a year, the number of validated websites listed on the Wales on the Web portal has passed the 2000 mark and continues to expand to cover an expanding range of subjects. The compilers are keen to ensure that as many people as possible know about Wales on the Web and are able to take advantage of its resources ... and one rather different in style is World Wide Wales which is a large collection of what the creators call 'movies' but which are mostly slide shows with a sound commentary. There is a section about railways which includes some very entertaining and informative presentations: sadly, due the end of its subsidy, free access to this site will be terminated on 31 December 2003, so we recommend that you take a look soon.
Crewe Works held an Open Day on 5 April 1981, and Richard Boyd was there. Here are some views from his archive.
First a general shot of the erecting shop, with Class 47s under overhaul much in evidence.
Sir Daniel Gooch (47 078) renewing a professional acquaintance with Isambard Kingdom Brunel (47 484) across the traverser.
Back in 1981 Crewe was still building the North East-South West HSTs: the power car nearest the camera is 43 161.
Finally we have a fairly rare shot of a 37 under repair in Crewe, 37 184, in the company of regular 47 418.
Return to Denton, 22 November - with Stephen Parascondolo
Trying to travel over every passenger route in the UK, I identified an unhighlighted section of my Baker Atlas from Telford Central to Guide Bridge via Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester, Altrincham and Stockport. So with a Saver Return West Wickham (Kent) to Denton - A bargain at £35.45 with a YP, I set off.
With the aid of NRES Online and the excellent DB Planner , the plan was: - West Wickham d 06:32, London Bridge a 07:03, LUL to Euston, Euston d 07:50; Nuneaton a 09:22 d 09:33, Shrewsbury a 11:03 d 11:35, Chester a 12:30 d 12:57, Stockport a 14:09 d 14:42, Stalybridge a 15:05 d 15:17, Manchester Picc a 15:34 d 15:47, St Pancras a 19:06, LUL to London Bridge, London Bridge d 19:45, West Wickham a 20:15.
Well, that was the plan - Probably not strictly in accordance with the Routing Guide although I did try and make some sense of it. However, applying the unwritten rule of "If the Inspector doesn't know where the origin or destination station are, you should get away with it", I wasn't expecting much trouble in the Shrewsbury area. NRES on quoting me the fare West Wickham - Denton, helpfully pointed out that "er, it says Routing Error here". On explaining the obvious reason why Return to Denton is unusual, they were happy to confirm it was available and I had no problems buying it in advance from West Wickham on Friday morning.
Problems started at Euston when I discovered (despite checking the NRES website) that BNS-Wolverhampton-Telford was shut. The suggested alternative was a bus. Either direct from Birmingham to Shrewsbury (a 1140, -5 connection) or change at Birmingham International for a diverted Wolverhampton train, then bus to Telford for onward connection (-7 connection at Wolverhampton on to the bus). Whoever plans these replacement buses obviously does so without any thought to sensible connections with the trains, especially when the trains are hourly or worse!
Ditching the Nuneaton plan, I boarded the 07:55 to Birmingham with the intention of using the 20 minute connection time in New Street to seek out some staff and attempt to ensure the connection at Shrewsbury off the direct bus could be made. This was fine until International where the service was terminated "due to severe OHL damage between Proof House and New Street". Every northbound train then proceeded to terminate and more and more people built up awaiting buses etc. which were not there. An attempt was made to run a local 170 through via Aston but having got the train wedged to the limit, Control had other ideas and decided to terminate it - all out again.
I salvaged a ride on the newish transit to the Airport and after NRES informed me that not only was East end of New Street shut, due to the passenger congestion, the whole station had been shut, I abandoned Shrewsbury and thought about what could be salvaged.
Silverlink back to Coventry and then Central Trains to Leicester via Nuneaton (being operated by an MML 170) not only got me the required route from Coventry to Leicester but connected nicely with the 1229 to Stockport, giving a comfortable connection onto the Stalybridge.
The train was packed due to the Rugby football match being played that day, but also a major signalling power failure at Stoke which meant with north of Crewe blocked, the WCML was going nowhere and many passengers had been redirected to St Pancras for Manchester and north.
More new route through Toton and after a bit of congestion in from Hazel Grove, arrived at Stokport in time to see 57 306 shunting to the front of 87 011 to be dragged north.
142 011 performed the honours on the Stalybridge with 14 passengers, arriving a few minutes late into Stalybridge.
No one got on or off other than to grab a photo at either Redish South or Denton.
Denton station: not many facilites provided ...
Stalybridge: rather more welcoming!
Wanting a more interesting route back, I identified a route requiring highlight between Huddersfield and Barnsley (but the connections didn't work out) and also through Healy Mills Yard which did so it was another 142 on the stopper to Wakefield Westgate. A connection on a 321/9 to Doncaster put me on the 1753 to Kings Cross and I was home just 30 min behind schedule. The route from Telford - Stockport via Shrewsbury and Chester will have to wait for another day.
Compiler's note: Stephen Parascondolo operates the Unofficial Croydon Tramlink website, which is a model of what such a site should be.