NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY:NOTICE
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Rheilffordd arfordir gogledd Cymru: Hysbysfwrdd
19 June 2012
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Forthcoming events
June 2012
Sat / Sun 23 - 24 June Llangollen Railway Heritage Railcar Gala
Sat / Sun 23 - 24 June Welsh Highland Heritage Railway Slate industrial exhibition
Saturday 30 June Excursion to North Wales Compass Tours 'Snowdon Mountain Ranger' Skipton, Keighley, Shipley, Wakefield Kirkgate, Huddersfield, Denton, Stockport, Altrincham & Knutsford to Betws-Y-Coed & Blaenau Ffestiniog
July 2012
Saturday 7 July Excursion to North Wales UK Railtours 'Chester and the Pennines' Stevenage, Potters Bar, Finsbury Park to Chester (break) and then through Wigan, Blackburn and Accrington to Copy Pit Summit, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd before descending to Wakefield and finally joining the East Coast Main Line to head homeward.
Sunday 22 July Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Crewe, Wilmslow, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 15:10 dep 17:45).
Sat / Sun 28 - 29 July Llangollen Railway 1960s weekend
Sunday 29 July Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Liverpool Lime Street, Broad Green, Warrington Bank Quay, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 14:30 dep 16:30).
Tuesday 31 July Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'The Welsh Mountaineer' Preston, Warrington Frodsham, Chester to Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog (arr. 13:15 dep 16:10)
[Note: again this summer there will be no steam trains on the Cambrian Coast line due to the rail industry's continuing inability to adapt the new ERTMS signalling for use with a steam locomotive.]
August 2012
Sat / Sun 4 - 5 August Talyllyn Railway Tom Rolt
Steam & Vehicle Rally
Sunday 5 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Crewe, Wilmslow, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 15:10 dep 17:45).
Sunday 12 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Crewe, Wilmslow, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 15:10 dep 17:45).
Tuesday 14 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'The Welsh Mountaineer' Preston, Warrington Frodsham, Chester to Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog (arr. 13:15 dep 16:10)
Saturday 18 August Steam in North Wales Vintage Trains 'The Welsh Dragon' Tyseley - Blaenau Ffestiniog (Steam loco 5043 as far as Llandudno Junction; Class 47 diesel to Blaenau)
Sunday 19 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Liverpool Lime Street, Broad Green, Warrington Bank Quay, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 14:30 dep 16:30).
Sat / Sun 25 - 26 August Llangollen Railway Classic Transport weekend
Sunday 26 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'North Wales Coast Express' Liverpool Lime Street, Broad Green, Warrington Bank Quay, Frodsham and Chester to Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Bangor and Holyhead (arr 14:30 dep 16:30).
Tuesday 28 August Steam in North Wales Railway Touring Company 'The Welsh Mountaineer' Preston, Warrington Frodsham, Chester to Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog (arr. 13:15 dep 16:10)
Saturday 31 August - 2 September Llangollen Railway Autumn Steam Gala
September 2012
Sun / Mon 1 - 2 September Llangollen Railway Autumn Steam Gala (continued)
Saturday 15 September Excursion Cheshire Cat Tours Aberystwyth - and stations to Crewe - to Carlisle.
Saturday 22 September Llangollen Railway Diesel Day
October 2012
47 854, now named Diamond Jubilee, heads through Abergele with the Scottish Railway Preservation Society excursion from Glenrothes to Llandudno, 16 June. 47 270 Swift brought up the rear. Picture by Roly High.
Shorter than usual version this week die to holiday: back to normal next week.
Picture miscellany
Stavros Lainas made the most of a sunny early morning on 14 June and headed to Bunbury, Cheshire to photograph 67 001 passing at 07:20 heading to Cardiff with the express from Holyhead.
57 316 brings the London - Holyhead Pendolino into Colwyn Bay, 9 June (Darren Durrant).
Llangollen news - by George Jones
The weekend of 16-17 June saw the visiting Class 141 railcar undertaking driver and guard training in preparation for the railcar gala weekend; it also offered 'driver experience sessions', eagerly taken up by some. The picture shows the 141 at Llangollen station on Sunday with a Corwen destination board.
The Class 37 loco 6940 also operated the second train turn, and with the last train of the day is seen preparing to run round at 17:30.
More about the forthcoming Railcar Gala: The annual two-day event scheduled for Saturday-Sunday 23/24 June has a special visitor, making a first appearance of a second-generation diesel railbus unit on the Dee Valley line. The star of the show is a class 141 two-car unit as built by British Rail Engineering Ltd / Leyland Bus in 1984 to replace the then ageing diesel multiple units dating from the 1950s.
The visiting unit No.141 113 has been in service on the Weardale Railway in North Yorkshire and is stopping at Llangollen en route to its normal base at the Midland Railway Centre, Butterley in Derbyshire. It is unusual as having been fitted with Cummins engines and Voith gearboxes to replace the original Leyland/SCG layout. With its red and cream colour scheme it makes a startling contrast with the older units in their traditional green or blue British Rail liveries.
Contrasting with the diesel units will be the popular vintage steam powered GWR auto-train with the Pannier tank locomotive. During the gala event trains will operate west of Carrog to provide the first diesel passenger services on the new stretch of the line between Carrog-Plas Bonwm.
All the trains offer passengers the exceptional ‘all round view’ of the line. The driver’s view of the way ahead on the new 1.25 mile track extension, as part of the projected route through to Corwen, will be of great interest to visitors.
The South Clare Railtour - report by Stephen Hughes
I headed across the Irish Sea from Holyhead for the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland 'South Clare Railtour' on the weekend of 12/13
May.
This was my third RPSI railtour, but unfortunately this tour suffered problems even before the start, as the booked locomotive, ex D&SER Class K2 No.461 had proved to be very temperamental since its return to steam last year, and therefore two days before the weekend tour it was decided to replace 461 with the ever-reliable J15 No 186. However, 186 could not match the timings that had been agreed with CIE and therefore the tour was to be diesel-hauled from Dublin Connolly to Athlone on the Saturday, and from Ballybrophy to Dublin on the Sunday. 186 therefore would work Athlone - Athenry - Ennis - Limerick - Nenagh - Ballybrophy, with the overnight stop at Ennis.
GM 201 class No. 230 provided an enjoyable fast run to Athlone with a load of five coaches of the Cravens set and the ubiquitous Generator Van, where 186 was waiting.
The journey then continued at a sedate pace along the Galway main line to Athenry (above) where we joined the recently re-opened line to Ennis and Limerick, 186 as usual producing copious amounts of dark smoke. This line, mothballed since April 1976, was only reopened in its entirety in March 2010. Sadly, passenger figures have been low, possibly not helped at all by an upgraded motorway that runs alongside the line in many places and has significantly cut the journey time by road from Limerick to Galway.
Short photo-stops were allowed at the intermediate stations and a
bus was put on for those photographers who wished to 'chase' the train. A pleasant evening was spent in Ennis and the following morning I walked the mile or so to the station for a reasonably early 08:30 start.
With 186 chugging away again we continued along the branch to the terminus at Limerick (above), where another 201 class was able to release 186 from the buffers. Continuing tender first, the train headed up the Nenagh branch, following the course of last years 'Silvermines' Diesel tour, reported on this site by Alan Crawshaw. The tour made a brief stop at all stations, at Nenagh (see heading picture) about 50 local people turned out, but this was surpassed at Cloughjordan, the site of Ireland's first eco-village where I would estimate a crowd of 100+, producing a wonderful atmosphere - and freshly cooked sausages. It appears that announcements had been made at local events about the visit of the tour and the locals turned out to show their support, see the video on the village website.
All too soon, the quiet country station of Ballybrophy (above) was reached, quiet only when the Dublin - Cork expresses were not racing through. These are 201 class diesels with Mk 4 stock and a DVT. Again 230 coupled up to the front of the train and made a fast run back to Dublin, arriving at the scheduled time at 15:30, once again it had been a wonderful tour, friendly as usual and helped by supplies of Hildens and Porterhouse real ale.
As I had some time to kill, I took up the recommendation of fellow
passengers and made a trip on the DART to Bray (never having been further than Dun Laoghaire previously) - a journey recently showcased by Michael Portillo - and also wandered around the smart village of Dalkey. Home on the Irish Ferries 'Ulysses' at 20:55.
As a postscript, 461 was heading back to Belfast on the Monday with the
remaining tour participants, but got no further than Dundalk where it was
stopped with a hot big end. Hopefully the problem will be resolved at the
RPSI headquarters at Whitehead.
Tram news - report by Greg Mape
Ballast stone from from Penmaenmawr quarry is much in evidence at Manchester Metrolink's station at Oldham Mumps, which opened for business on 13 June (the date of these pictures) as terminus of a service across Manchester to St Werburgh's Road, Chorlton. This station is on the site of the former National Rail station, the line beyond towards Rochdale is also being converted to a tramway which is planned to open next year. A year later, the station seen here will close, replaced by stops on a new route through Oldham Town Centre.
Tram 3027 is on a service to Oldham at Manchester Victoria.
On the original Metrolink route at Altrincham station, weeds decorate the platform lines as 3009 prepares to leave for Piccadilly.
A visit to Swanage - with Richard Putley
The Swanage Railway, Dorset on 28 May Outside the loco shed was Isle of Wight Class O2 0-4-4T W24 Calbourne had visited over the weekend
of Friday 25 to Sunday 27 May.
Also stabled at Swanage was the 'Devon Belle' observation car, with resident GWR 0-6-2T 6695 next to it.
'West Country' 4-6-2 Eddystone was also on view.
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