THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE
BOARD
Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd
hysbyseb
The tide is high as 47 805 crosses the bridge over the
Clwyd, soon after leaving Rhyl, on the Manchester - Holyhead working on
13 January. This was one of the highest tides of the year.
Picture by Dave Sallery
This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and
supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.
Edition of 16 January 2005
That Christmas Puzzle
Time to fish out the answers to our Christmas picture puzzle. There
were
sixteen stations we wanted you to identify from these snippets from
pictures published on the Notice Board in 2004. Here's the array
again (I'll avoid calling it a hexadecimal array again as the first
time we got several emails pointing out that to be 'hexadecimal'
they should be labelled 0 to 9 and a to f ... )
Here are the Answers: 1: Crewe. 2: Chester (infamous failed
monitor) 3:
Llandudno. 4: Sandbach (with diverted Voyager). 5: Llanfair PG. 6.
Llandudno Junction. 8. Holyhead. 8: Runcorn (with Mr J. Hobbs)
9:.Valley. a: Manchester Oxford Road b:Holywell Junction. c:Rhyl d:
Wrexham General (175 Clearance test). e: Tanygrisiau (new building) f:
Bangor (wilderness) g: Prestatyn (award-winning garden.)
Special mention to Deiniol Williams who sent in his answer
about an hour after we published the page on Christmas Day, and scored
13 out of 16, but the overall winner is [effects - drum roll] Dave
Sallery with 14 out of 16. Well done Dave! - 16 January
Three hours late
Another farce with the Arriva loco-hauled diagram transpired on
Saturday 15 January. 47 805 came to a stand a mile short of
Runcorn East station while working the 10:03 Manchester -
Holyhead. There it stayed for over three hours until the
train was eventually taken on to Chester by Riviera Trains loco 47
847 Brian Morrison / Railway World Magazine. Dave
Skipsey was at Runcorn East to take these four pictures for us
showing the rescue. Above, 847 runs through the station from the
Chester direction having come from Riviera's depot at Crewe. The direct
Crewe - Warrington line was closed for the weekend for engineering
work, which did not help the situation.
Crossing over to the wrong line at Norton signalbox nearby....
... and setting off 'wrong line' towards the stranded train. If anyone
knows why all this took so long, and why a loco from the EWS depot at
Warrington a few minutes away was not used for the rescue, we'd be
pleased to hear from them. Could it be that there were no drivers
available with the required route knowledge, or alternatively that
Arriva did not wish to pay the (allegedly) £2000 EWS would have
charged to hire a loco?
Some time later, the train goes on its way. Somewhere behind
would have been the 10:16, 11:16 and 12:16 Manchester - Llandudno
services. According to reports on the Class 47 group website, 47 805
had run out of fuel
- how this could have been allowed to occur we cannot say. It is
perhaps significant that the train spends the night at Chester where
there are no fuelling facilities, although it does spend over an hour
each morning at Longsight depot, Manchester.
On arrival at Chester the train was terminated and the locos and stock
parked in the sidings after being turned on the triangle. This
shambles comes in the same week as the problems chronicled in our special report
as a result of which 47 839 was sent to Holyhead to act as a
standby loco. Bad choice of location from Arriva's point of view as it
happened, although it was used to drag a failed 57-390 cavalcade back
into Holyhead from Penmaenmawr, as Virgin's shiny new equipment has not
been free from troubles either.
Wouldn't it be nice if the railway could run the same trains each day
without these kinds of problems? - 16 January
East Anglian 47s
Thanks to Ralf Edge for pointing out that the Arriva Trains
Wales
loco-hauled turn in North Wales is not the only surviving booked
passenger work for Class 47 locos, contrary to the impression we may
have given here. There is a Monday - Friday through train between
the seaside town of Great Yarmouth and London (Liverpool Street) which
is hauled (complete with electric loco) by a 47 over the
non-electrified Norwich - Great Yarmouth section. The locos used
are hired by the oddly-named 'one' Railway (which operates all services
in those parts) from Cotswold Rail.
5V01 05:24 Norwich - Great Yarmouth (empty stock)
1V01 06:22 Great Yarmouth - Norwich (continues to London)
1V06 19:05 Norwich (ex-London) - Great Yarmouth
5V06 19:58 Great Yarmouth - Norwich (empty stock)
It would be interesting to receive a picture and/or traveller's tale of
this train. - 13 January
Floods modern and ancient
Alan Roberts writes: 'More flooding at Llanrwst, this time between the
two stations at Llanrwst. This area is prone to flooding due to
drainage and not the River Conwy as with the other locations at
present. The worst of the damage at the moment is south of Llanrwst
travelling towards Betws-y-Coed at a new flood relief culvert installed
after last year's flooding. This time there was so much water flowing
under the new culvert and it wouldn't take it, hence water flowed over
line and washed the top ballast away leaving the track suspended in mid
air once again.' (see pictures in our 8 January issue.)
Speaking of floods, We are re-posting the following item from the uk.railway newsgroup:
'Has anyone come across any reference to an accident on the
Amlwch
branch of the North Wales Coast line. Possibly it was late nineteenth
century or early twentieth. Apparently
a mill dam upstream of the branch failed in a cloudburst and the
resulting torrent washed away a bridge with the result that the first
train of the morning fell in with the death of one or more of the
crew. I have been told that it was a very short goods; loco, one
or two
wagons and a brake, and that its primary purpose was to get a loco to
shunt through the day at Amlwch and then back to the shed at night.'
The Lein
Amlwch website refers to an accident in 1877 at Caermawr Bridge.
Does anyone know more? - 16 January
Reader queries section
Mike Dunning writes: 'I have just been looking at the Railcar
website www.railcar.co.uk
and there is a section in there about accidents. What I wanted to
ask was, there is mention of an accident at Connah's Quay in 1965
involving a 6-car DMU that caught fire, When I was a kid I remember a
line of DMUs that were burnt out just alongside of the Hoole bridge
opposite Chester railcar depot. They were there for a long time; could
they have been from this accident or where they from the accident in
1972 when an oil train ran into the station?
And this from Graeme Occleston: 'I'm about to undertake a
OO gauge modelling project, the subject of which will be Penmaenmawr
station and ballast sidings, roughly based around the early 80s, but
with the scope to run later-80s and even 90s locos and stock. I would
be very grateful for any info / pictures of Penmaenmawr you
might have as it would really help matters. I've got hundreds of pics
from North Wales, but very few of Pen, as it wasn't really a place to
alight and board my favourite class of loco, the Class 40s....!'
Answers and pictures welcome at the usual website address: we'll pass
them all on and publish the most interesting. - 16 January
Brush pictorial
Here's a selection of the week's view of the 47-hauled diagram,
on days when it actually managed to run. Above, 47 805 in Virgin
colours heads downhill towards Abergele at 14.33 with the 13.35
Holyhead-Manchester on 12 January. (Larry Goddard)
47 805 heading towards North Wales with 1D37 on 13 January running
right time
after its earlier 28 minute late start on 1H43 when the Empty Coaching
Stock from Crewe
was late. (Dave Bramley)
47 805 running round at Holyhead after working the train shown in our
previous shot on 13 January (Rowan Crawshaw) - 16 January
Marine doings
The Ville de Bordeaux arrived in Mostyn on 14 January to
collect another wing for the new jumbo airbus A380. She is seen
here passing Prestatyn on the inward journey. - 16 January
Freight Gossip
We hear that a test run of a timber train from Aberystwyth (or is it
Machynlleth?) to Chirk will take place on 7 February, using a pair of
Network Rail 'MPV' units as motive power. Further information welcome.
Interesting news about the planned slate waste traffic from Blaenau
Ffestiniog is that there are actually three paths each way for these
trains in the current timetable (one to Brindle Heath stone terminal
outside Manchester) and that most of the funding is now in place for
the traffic to commence ... once the line is open again, anyway. -
16 January
