THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE BOARD

Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd hysbyseb



47 798 Prince William stabled at Holyhead, 18 January (John Lewis)

Please make a note of this address

This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.

Edition of 18 January 2004

To the North Wales Coast Railway main page

Livery variety at Holyhead - by John Lewis



I thought I'd see what was in Holyhead station on the afternoon of 18 January - turned out to be  a nice variety of liveries here. Royal Train loco 47 798 Prince William in the sidings, with a rake of ex-Virgin stock



Also 47 790 with a rake of FGW coaches ...





...  and an 'unidentified' (i.e. I forgot to note the number!) 175 closer to the station bridge. Interesting to note that of all the five liveries represented here, none of them relate to the current operator of these trains. - 18 January
Corrections, amplifications, clarifications, questions...

Thanks to everyone who has written regarding various items published recently. Firstly, there is no such vehicle as ex-Virgin coach 5990 which we claimed was the one red vehicle in an Arriva rake. Anyone know the correct number of this vehicle - and indeed the numbers of the full red rake shown in the pictures above?

The reason the HST was at Holyhead on Sunday 11 January was that it was booked to be there. It had worked up on Saturday night's 1D88 and because of the line being closed on Sunday it wasn't due out until Monday morning on 1A23.

Our comment about the future of the 175s was over-simplified:  It should be clarified that 'Transpennine Express' or 'TPExpress' as it is also known has yet to start and is due to commence operations on Sunday t February, taking over from Arriva. From this point on, the 175s will be split between three franchises: Arriva Trains Wales (Manchester / Crewe - Llandudno / Holyhead), First North Western (Blackpool-Manchester Airport), and Transpennine (Barrow / Windermere-Manchester Airport).

The First Transpennine Express (FTPE) TOC (a joint venture between Firstgroup (55%) and Keolis (45%) - will use class 158s and 175s. We presume the 175s will only be used on the Barrow and Windermere trains as  they are not in general passed for other routes, but if this is dealt with, they could end up working to Cleethorpes and Newcastle. The franchise has a complete fleet of new trains (Class 185) on order which will not be in traffic until late 2006. New depots will apparently be built for these at Manchester and York, with a depot at Cleethorpes being upgraded (Chester style?) to take the new trains.

The DRS Class 66s used on the the flask train to Valley (which seem to have eluded all our photographers, unless you know better (!) were 66407 and 66408.  A total of 6600 bhp for 256 tonnes ....

Thanks to Shaun Courtnage, Steve Vaughan, Mike Stone and Dave Bramley for these notes. - 18 January
English Electric Day at Bury - report by Charlie Hulme

Despite the strike of Metrolink drivers, the promise of a feat of English Electric Traction at the East Lancashire Railway, and a first ride on the new extension to Heywood, was too good to miss.



This picture shows Ian Riley loco 37 261 (or D6961) at the new Heywood station, with steam hearing much in evidence and non-EE interloper D832 at the other end. The ELR staff kindly allowed visitors to cross the line to obtain this view: many thanks to them.



Looking the other way from the same point towards the boundary between ELR and Network Rail. A loaded charter train will pass this way early in the morning of 24 January.



Two Harry Needle Railroad Company 37s in their bright livery were on duty: this picture shows 37 194 Neil Webster running round at Rawtenstall.



All these funny colours are all well and good, but the stars of the show for many people were surely the line's two resident Class 40s, 40 135 and 40 145,  both in BR blue livery and looking very good indeed.  145 is seen here departing for Heywood during the afternoon: this loco is booked to work a railtour from Newport to Blaenau Ffesitiniog on 22 May, tackling not only the Lickey Incline but also the hills of the Conwy Valley. See the Pathfinder Tours website for booking information.  -18 January
Mystery Train



Larry Goddard writes: Two loco-hauled passenger trains passed each other just outside Abergele on 17 January. The Down working (attached herewith) shows 47 790 approaching Hen Wrych at 14:12. ' Was this an empty stock working returning the coaches to Holyhead after attention to the vehicle with a hot box? (see below) - 18 January


Bad day on the coast



Both the Arriva loco-hauled turns were involved in tragic incidents on Friday 16 November. The first to have problems was 1H44 06:38 Bangor to Manchester which unfortunately had a person jump in front of it at Llanfairfechan station,the train terminated at Llandudno Junction for it to run empty to Crewe for inspection.



The train was running at the full line speed at this location, with the result the loco, 47 787 Windsor Castle, had a large dent in its front end, as the picture shows.  One can only imagine the horror for the driver.
 
The other loco-hauled set  was already 35 minutes late from Crewe on 1D65 10:30 Crewe - Holyhead when it was reported that a woman had possibly jumped from it after leaving Rhyl.  At any rate a woman was beside the track west of Rhyl and required the line to be closed again for paramedics to attend.  This stock again left empty stock to Crewe, leaving ATW with no loco-hauled trains in service.


 
No stock was thus available for 1D75 15:29 Crewe - Holyhead or 1D45 17:20 Man Piccadilly - Holyhead: for the latter, First North Western came to the rescue again with 156 466, seen above at Manchester Oxford Road.


 
The third set of stock was still  in Chester Yard on 16 January after running a 'hot axle box' at Chester on Tuesday 13 January. The offending vehicle was mounted on a 'wheel skate' ready to move to Crewe, as the close-up view shows.



47 790 arrived at 15:00 on 16 January and was coupled to the rake. Thanks to Dave Bramley, Alex Roberts, Mike Stone and Colin Meredith for this item. - 18 January

Ferry spotting

Further to our item about the lack of working Irish ferries (bottom of this page) George Jones writes: 'The Irish Ferries vessel Ulysses is currently in the A&P repair yard, formerly Cammell Lairds, at Birkenhead. As seen on 15 January
from Birkenhead Priory, it is towering above the surrounding buildings like few other ships have dominated the scene of late. It may be due to depart beginning of next week - The Irish Sea shipping website has pictures and will certainly have any news of departure.' 15 January

Trials and Tribulations

All has not been going too well for Arriva Trains Wales, and especially the loco-hauled services, if our mailbag is to be believed.

On Monday 12 January, 1D45, 17:19 Manchester Piccadilly - Holyhead was worked by two-car unit 175 005, which came complete with a PA announcement apologising for the over-crowding.  Seen on Tuesday 13 January arriving  into platform 4 at Chester around 08:20 was 47 757 Capability Brown around half an hour late on the Holyhead - Manchester service due to depart at 07:53.  The stock was filthy apart from the ex-Virgin coach and the platform monitors showed the train as the 08:20 to Crewe, which it wasn't.  Apparently there had been some problem with the 47 possibly to do with train heat ... .  It departed around 0825, having been held to wait for the on-time Mid-Cheshire service to clear Mickle Trafford. Meanwhile, 153 327 had failed on the Wrexham - Bidston line, at least two services being cancelled.

Later the same day, the 15:26 Crewe-Holyhead  was cancelled on Tuesday, announced as due to a defect on the train - presumably this is the set noted at Chester the next day with one of the TSO coaches on a 'wheel skate.' As a result a whole  set of ex-Virgin coaches was noted on the empty stock for the afternoon Manchester service.

On the Virgin front, an HST was stabled in Holyhead sidings on Sunday 11 January early evening (19:00): was it a failure, or some other kind of problem?

Miscellaneous railcar news is that 175 107 is running as a 2-car set, presumably due to a fault on its centre car. 158 820 is another set now sporting Arriva colours. Thanks to Mike Stone, Mike Thomas and John Oates for news in this item.-  15 January




47 773 The Queen Mother leaves  platform 12 at Crewe with the 10.30 for Holyhead, 6 January. Note the ex-Virgin coach in the formation. (Ian Bowland)

Locomotive facts and rumours

Aaron Taylor reports that DRS are now using their new Class 66s on the Valley flask trains.  Two were in Valley on Tuesday morning 13 January.  Double-heading these trains as normal leads to  a very high power-to-weight ratio!

Various rumours are flying about regarding locomotive haulage of passenger trains.  It is said that EWS wish to withdraw all the remaining Class 47/7 locos, and have offered Class 67s (made redundant by the cancellation of mail trains) in their place. However, the story runs, Arriva do not wish to train all their drivers on these modern locos, and instead will return to the use of Class 37/4s, which will be released from the Cardiff Valleys services by the arrival of some 150s from Scotrail. However logical and welcome (to Class 37 fans anyway) all this would be,  we have no concrete information that it is actually going to take place. Many of the Coast line drivers have  experience on 37s, of course, but refresher course would still be required as they have not driven them for many months. Originally, the loco-hauled trains were only meant to be stop-gaps funded by Alstom until the full fleet of 175s was working reliably,  but whether this is still the case given the fact that the 175 fleet now has to apportioned between Arriva and TransPennine, we cannot say. As always, we'll have to wait and see, but the advice as always is to ride the loco-hauled trains while you can.



Much more certain, although rather more bizarre, is the plan by First North Western to bring into traffic a set of Mk 2 air-conditioned coaches with a Fragonset Railways Class 31 each end, similar to (or even the same as) that used in recent times by Wessex Trains (above is a reprise of Simon Pritchard's view from December 2003.) The origin of this plan is the requirement for First North Western to hand over two of its 158s to the new TransPennine operation which begins operation at the beginning of February. What TransPennine will make of the grotty interior state of these units is anyone's guess.

The proposed diagram for the loco-hauled set (Mondays - Fridays only) is an early morning empty-stock train from Blackpool to St Annes on the branch from Kirkham  to Blackpool South, then 2D44 0640 St.Annes on Sea - Greenbank (arr 09:16) via Preston, Manchester Piccadilly, Altrincham, 5D44 09:18 Greenbank-Chester, 2N97 15:49 Chester-Blackpool North (18:40) via Altrincham and Manchester. There seems to be a possibility that the train will continue as passenger from Greenbank to Chester, although this is not definite. 31 459 has been at Newton Heath depot for a few days now, and times have been issued for crew training runs with the full set between there and Preston and back during the week, 19-23 January. Funny old world, isn't it? The 15:49 from Chester calls at Manchester Piccadilly at 17:14, perhaps a rather tight connection for anyone thinking of returning to Chester on the 17:19 loco-hauled service via Warrington, but a treat for photographers including your compiler who is usually at Manchester Oxford Road around that time on the way home from work ...

Incidentally, Saturday 17 January is 'English Electric Theme Day' on the East Lancashire Railway, with a feast of 37s, 40s and 31s in operation. Services will run both on the Bury - Rawtenstall line and the recently-reopened Heywood section. See the Bury Diesel Group website for details.   - 15 January

First North Western managers make good

Many readers will remember David Franks, managing director of First North Western four MDs ago, who left to work for South Central, and later found himself trying to sort out the problems of Midland Mainline and their missing Manchester buffet cars.  Latest news is that he's  been appointed Chief Executive of the National Express Rail Division from 1 February  - his current post will be taken by Nick Brown, currently MD - Central Trains. Also at MML is new Managing Director Paul Bunting, a familiar figure on TV news and Oxford Road station when he was Commercial Director of First North Western.

Vernon Barker, the last MD of First North Western who presided over a very troubled period in FNW's history, is now the MD of TransPennine. - 15 January

A lick of paint
 
Aaron Taylor writes: 'I found the comments about Bangor station needing a lick of paint (item below) quite amusing.  The whole station has been painted in the past few weeks, but if I hadn't seen the painters there I would be hard pressed to notice it has been done.  Despite the best efforts of the painters, why does Bangor always manage to look tatty?' - 15 January
Bangor station to be improved?

The following item from the Bangor Mail at least puts a positive slant on things:

Bangor train station could be on track for a major revamp after Gwynedd Council submitted a bid for a £1.5 million Assembly grant. The Transport Grant Bid has been put forward by the council in partnership with other bodies and, if successful, will help radically alter the city's station. The money will help pay for a new access, increased car parking facilities, new lifts and a footbridge. It will also allow for improved bus links from the station. The Welsh Assembly is expected to announce the bid results by the end of this month.

A spokesman from Arriva Trains Wales said: "The bid would fund a multi-modal interchange at Bangor Railway Station, with access for buses and trains. "Passengers will no longer need to cross the road to get the bus, which will pick up and drop off just outside the station." Other partners in the consortium include Virgin Trains, Network Rail, the Strategic Rail Authority and English Welsh Scottish Railways. It is believed the developments will see further access to the station from the back, towards Caernarfon Road, which will help resolve disputes regarding congestion on Holyhead Road. Paul Harley,chairman of the Rail Passengers' Committee for Wales, welcomed the developments: "I'm glad things are progressing at Bangor because we have been fighting as a committee for changes there for some time now. We have evidence of people driving from Bangor down to Crewe to take the London train because it's such a problem travelling from Bangor and finding somewhere to park. Hopefully this work will change that. It's about time some investment was made on the service in North Wales rather than in the South - but Bangor does need more,like a coat of paint and better on-station facilities. This is a step in the right direction."

Cllr Dafydd Iwan, who leads on transport matters for Gwynedd Council, saw the improvements as an important step forward for both the city and the area. He said: "This scheme is essential as we improve the provision for buses and trains in the area. The council is committed to improving public transport and this scheme will further develop the network in the area and improve amenities."

Arriva Trains Wales took over the Wales and Borders franchise in December and was allocated £1.63bn over the next 15 years to oversee the service. Among plans announced at the takeover were improved bilingual services and a train-bus ticket scheme for Bangor, which it is hoped will be in place by November next year.

It should be noted that none of the £1.63bn mentioned is allocated to station improvements, so the Welsh Assembly and other 'stakeholders' will be expected to pay.  - 14 January
Class 508 movements - by George Jones

The haulage of two Class 508 electric units for refurbishment at Eastleigh from Birkenhead North via Bidston and Wrexham was reportedly due to happen on the afternoon of 12 January. At 15:00 on 13 January 47 812 was found in Croes Newydd loop at Wrexham with two units attached. It was still there at 17:00 when a class 60 was reported approaching. Seems it could have been stuck there forsome time. The two units were finally seen on the move at Wrexham North on the evening of 14 January with 47 776 in charge and waiting for the single line section north at 16.15. The consist is reported as having had brake problems hence the 48 hour stop over!

Any more information about this delay, and advance notice of any further workings,  would be welcome. - 14 January

Mid-Cheshire empties again - by Chris Mills



A dull day, but nonetheless I stretched my camera's sensitivity to get a shot of 47 773 The Queen Mother running west through Greenbank this morning at 09:50 on the Manchester Piccadilly - Crewe. The movement does seem to be running 10-15 minutes early to the timings published here on the two occasions I have observed it.

I'm waiting for better weather to try and get a decent shot of the working crossing Northwich Viaduct where there are a couple of decent shots in the making. Also Delamere Forest should provide some good chances particularly in the spring. - 14 January

Not many ferries about - by Dave Sallery

When First North Western ran the North Wales services, their timetable contained a handy summary of the Holyhead - Ireland ferry services.  Arriva have discontinued this feature and now show only arrival times of ferries in Ireland (in their absurdly small typeface).  However even this basic information would be of little use to travellers in the present situation.  Incidentally don't bother looking in the Virgin timetable for sailing information - Holyhead is strictly the end of the line for them.

As reported on The Serco site , Stena are not operating a foot passenger service until 11 February.  Although they run a "Superferry" they do not, for reasons best known to themselves, allow foot passengers on it. What is not reported by Serco is that Irish Ferries have also withdrawn their fast ferry, the Jonathan Swift, until 27  January.  So, of the eight connecting ferry services to Ireland shown in the timetable,  only two are actually running at the moment.  These are the Irish Ferries services at 02:50 and 14:50.  Oh and by the way, should you wish to travel on either of these services, don't expect to travel on the "world's largest ferry" Ulysses as this is also undergoing annual refit.  The service is provided by the back up vessel Isle of Inishmore. 

Somehow I don't think that Ryanair or the other budget airlines would consider withdrawing 80% of their services in January. Wose still, the following now comes to light:

IRISH FERRIES AMENDED SAILINGS

Due to essential maintenance on the shore ramp in Holyhead Irish Ferries have amended their sailings of the Isle of Inishmore on the Dublin/Holyhead route from Wednesday 14th January to Tuesday 20th inclusive. The Inishmore will be using the Stena ramp in Holyhead.
dep Dublin arr Holyhead
11:30hrs 14:50hrs
23:30hrs 02:50hrs
dep Holyhead arr Dublin
05:00hrs 08:15hrs
17:00hrs 20:15hrs

The first amended departure. will be Dublin to Holyhead on Wednesday 12 january 23:30hrs.Normal service is expected to resume on Tues 20th 21:05. - 14 January

To the North Wales Coast Railway main page