THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE
BOARD
Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd
hysbyseb
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: A colourful scene at Holyhead on
20 June. With carriage siding gantry lights on, 47 830 prepares
to pull out of the sidings with stock and 47 828 Severn
Valley
Railway on the rear. Picture by Mark Lloyd Davies.
This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and
supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.
Edition of 21 June 2004
Down
the Coast by Class
37
Saturday 19 June saw Class 37 Traction return to the Coast in the
form of a Pathfinder Tours charter from Swindon. This had been
advertised as hauled by a pair of Class 33s, but in the event a
pair of Class 37s appeared instead, to the delight of many of our
contributors.
The outbound train at Chester Locos are 37 689 and 37 677.
37 667 is supposed to be withdrawn soon. (Tim E. Rogers.)
Departing Rhyl (Dave Sallery)
The return working at Llandudno Junction (Simon Pritchard). Note
that 690 is on the front of the train again: this happens because the
track between the release crossover and the buffers at Holyhead is ony
long enough for one loco, so they have to be uncoupled and run into the
loop one at a time.
Another view of the pair preparing to depart from Llandudno
Junction. - 21 June
Virgin events - report
by Tony Miles
Pendolinos are now tilting in passenger service - Taken on the first
day of tilt operation 390 010 heads southbound through Poynton
on the Stockport - Macclesfield section. (The tilting is actually quite
impressive, as you don't feel it at all - its down to some astute
looking at the horizon!)
87 001 Stephenson hauling the 'official' farewell
Virgin West Coast Mk2 set into Oxley depot on Tuesday 15 June after
it worked a special service from Birmingham International to
Wolverhampton. (I gather the set was used again, as the lease had
a few days to run, but this was the official ending.) Picture by
permission of Virgin Trains.
On the small gauge #1 -
by John Myers
In between taking 35mm shots of coastal 47s on 20 June, I used a few
spare moments to see what was happening at the 15-inch gauge Rhyl
Miniature Railway. Barnes Atlantic 101 Joan was
pulling the trains on what was a pleasant sunny afternoon.
The historic loco is looking very smart, having undergone an extensive
overhaul during the winter months, emerging with a new smokebox and
repainted in a lined maroon livery similar to that which it wore when
new in the 1920s.
Earlier this month, the line's other resident steam locomotive, Cagney
4-4-0 no. 44, together with a rake of coaches from Rhyl, was an active
passenger-carrying participant at the Railfest 2004 event at the
NRM. News of this and a number of other exciting developments, is
included in Friends of Rhyl Miniature Railway Newsletter No. 6, which
is likely to be available in pdf format from Simon
Townsend's website before long. - 21 June
On the small gauge #2 - by John Murray
On 19 June I had a very enjoyable ride on the 15-inch gauge tramway at
the Conwy Valley Railway Museum at Betws-y-Coed. I'd like to
thank the staff and volunteers for their friendly welcome and
assistance. The picture shows the tram as it turns round at the
southern end of the track. - 21 June
47 787 Windsor Castle brings the lunchtime
Holyhead - London train through Penmaenmawr on 17 June. We hear that
this loco is about to be withdrawn by EWS. (Tim J. Rogers)
We're back!
Some kind of return to normality for this site begins now! Just before
going on holiday we changed our email address, after the old one
became deluged by '000s of spams each day. Unfortunately, we then found
the password we had for NTL would not function, and we had to get
another sent to us. This then caused our NTL mailbox to fill up and
start bouncing messages while we were away. Luckily we did have the two
pages we had 'prepared' earlier and were able to copy them across using
the mobile phone from the Isle of Mull, so something worked OK.
Apologies for all the disruption, thanks for your patience, and 'big
up' to Deiniol Williams at Railhead who's
been doing his usual fine job getting the news out to everyone.
We travelled to Scotland by sleeper from Crewe, breaking our journey at
Rannoch to stay in the Moor of Rannoch Hotel, a plan I can heartily
recommend. The couple who run it are really helpful and friendly, and
will do you a superb breakfast when you arrive, and there's
something attractive about the sheer isolation of the little hamlet.
Not a 'cheap B & B' by any means, but a comfortable little hotel
just yards from the station with excellent food and drink. (They have a
website,
but at the time of writing it's missing due to the lightning strike
which has lost all the websites of the Easyspace company,
including
also our friend Dave Sallery's site ) It's also a fine place to
photograph the sleeper and its Class 37s! The up train calls
around 21:00, seen above with good old North Wales friend 37
421 on 9 June as your photographer gets eaten by midges...
Next morning at 08:38, the down Caledonian Sleeper approaches Rannoch
with 37 410 Aluminium 100 in charge, now with vinyl
sticker nameplates, presumably after one was stolen down in England
some months ago. The usual formation of the train is 2 sleepers,
lounge/buffet car, brake standard, but this day an extra sleeper was
added. It's great to hear the 37/4 growl again, I have to say. - 19
June
Virgin Class 47 news
Back in North Wales, the Virgin Class 47-hauled trains continue to be
the centre of attention, although reliability has not been too
wonderful, the most dramatic event occurring on 15 June when 47 750
suffered an electrical fire (generator flashover or similar?) between
Rhyl and Colwyn Bay while hauling the Crewe - Holyhead train. The train
was stopped at Colwyn Bay and the passengers evacuated on to the
platform, eventually being taken on by bus. Railfan Nick Green was
among them, and his pictures of the smoking loco can be found on the Todays
Railways fotopic site, very interesting indeed.
Some time later, the failed EWS machine was dragged to Llandudno
Junction yard (Tim J. Rogers' picture above from 17 June) where
it spent the next few days, being worked on by fitters some of the
time, but apparently to no avail. It has now been officially withdrawn
from traffic and is expected to be towed to the 'Component Recovery and
Disposal Centre' at Wigan by 20 June. Ian Furness's excellent 'End of the Line' website
makes the interesting point that when it arrives at the CRDC the former
D1667 Atlas (47 750) will be joining fellow erstwhile western
region namers D1665 Titan (47 779) D1666 Odin (47 778)
and D1673 Cyclops (47 624) at the CRDC where D1670 Mammoth
(47 085) has already been disposed of.
Trains with locos each end now seem to be a common sight, as these
pictures of the afternoon train to London taken at Llandudno Junction
on 19 June show. 47 830 is on the front (above) ...
... and 47 851 Traction Magazine being hauled 'dead' on
the rear.
A couple of pictures from 9 June taken by Darryl Thomas at
Shotton. Above, 47 826 Springburn 1A49 at Shotton.
47 787 Windsor Castle with 1D87 to Holyhead. - 20 June
Conwy Valley - a
traveller's tale
Great to hear from a railfan in Austria, inspiration for your
compiler's railway modelling activities. Christian Oitzl
writes:
'Please find enclosed a picture of the Network Rail weed killing train
at Blaenau Ffestiniog on 25 May 2004. (Above.) During my holiday end of
May in Llandudno I twice experienced twice bad service on the reopened
Conwy Valley line. On Saturday 22 of May we travelled on the 07:59
Llandudno - Blaenau. At 08:20 the train was still shown "On time" on
the Llandudno departure screen. At last we left Llandudno at 08:25, the
conductor told us, the train would go only as far as North Llanwrst, a
bus would bring us forward to Blaenau. After arrival at Llanwrst:
No bus! After an hour waiting for the bus we decided to go back to
Llandudno. The train was formed by two Class 153, 153 312
+ 313.
'On Tuesday 25 May we tried once again to travel on the 07.59 to
Blaenau. The train was once again late, we arrived at Blaenau at 9.35,
the bus to Porthmadog was already gone. The return journey was also
heavily delayed. To my surprise at around 17.10 the Network Rail
weed killing train arrived at Blaenau, the following passenger train
arrived not before 18.10 and was formed by a single class 153 no.153
353. Due to the late running the train was cancelled between
Llandudno Junction and Llandudno, the DMU headed immediately back to
Blaenau. Not really a good start for the reopened line and of course
for Arriva!' - 20 June