NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY:NOTICE BOARD
Rheilffordd arfordir gogledd Cymru: Hysbysfwrdd
17April 2017
Share on Twitter
Tweets by @NWrail1
Contributions and comments are encouraged: see the Contributions Page
This list may be out of date if you are reading an archived issue. For full information visit our Calendar page.
April 2017
Monday 24 April RCTS Chester George Jones : Onwards to Corwen. George lives in Wrexham and for many years has been an important publicist for the Llangollen Railway and certain of its locomotives. He will cover the railway’s reinvigoration of the line to Corwen and look at its future prospects.
Friday 28 April Great Western Society North West Branch. The L&Y in BR days. Noel Coates.
May 2017
Tuesday 9 May (change of date) North Wales Railway Circle AGM and Annual Photographic Competition. The Annual General Meeting of The North Wales Railway Circle will be followed by the annual photographic competition. Members are invited to submit their work in three categories, prints, slides and video. Video to be kept reasonably short, approx. 5 mins. In line with Circle rules all work should have been taken in the last 12 months.
Wednesday 10 May Welsh Highland Railway North Wales Group Group’s AGM + John Ellis Williams - The Continuing Story.
Thursday 11 May Llandudno & Conwy Valley Railway Society A tribute to the late David Jones, by John Myers
Here's the 14:35 ex-Chester on 12 April on the new double track section at the site of 'Saltney Yard' - the Up sidings at Saltney Dee Junction where contributor Anthony Robinson once spotted Fowey Castle and many other ex-Great Western engines leaving with freights.
Premier express at Rossett - by Peter Neve
The 06:35 departure from Holyhead to Cardiff (1V91) approaches Rossett with 67 010 in charge.
With the power unit at the rear of the train, 67 010 prepares to enter the section of single track at Rossett. The Colas Rail depot created for the re-doubling work can be seen in the distance.
Tim Rogers Newsreel - part 1
Connah's Quay, 31 March
175 009 - 1H91 15:08 Llandudno to Manchester Piccadilly
150 257 - 1D39 14:36 Manchester Airport to Llandudno
Tamper 08-4X4/4S-RT DR73905 - 6J44 15:59 Gloucester Horton Road to Holywell Junction
66 305 and 66 304 - 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS).
3 April: Bagillt
158 825 - 1D39 14:36 Manchester Airport to Llandudno
37 602 & 37 606 with FNA wagons 11 70 9229 005-7 and 550037 - 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS). 4 minutes early
5 April Bagillt
158 841 - 1D39 14:36 Manchester Airport to Llandudno
37 069 and 37 606 with FNA 550040 and 550036 - 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS). 6 mins early
7 April: Shotton 37 069 and 37 602 with FNA 550049 and 550036 - 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS).
Wrexham - Bidston track relaying - report by John Brierley
The photo of Colas 56 096 at Upton in the 3 April Notice board is interesting, as it is not typical of the locos or numbers of stock on the nightly Engineering train. I live adjacent to the line just to the south of Neston and could hear and often observe the train going by at about 22.15. The
typical set-up would be Freightliner66 + 5 "Osprey" Track panel wagons +5 empty MLA (or JNA) empty ballast wagons + 8 full ballast wagons + Freightliner 66. 66 511 (above) and 66 419 were used on 9 February and other nights. The work for the night would be to replace 300 yards of. bull-head track on wooden sleepers, with continuous welded rail on steel sleepers.
Steam Notes - by Phil Clarke
60103 Flying Scotsman (above) passed through Hartford en route to the Bluebell Railway from the Worth Valley on 11 April.
I was also at Hartford on 6 April waiting for 46233 Duchess of Sutherland to come through on but she never made it. The move ran into problems and was terminated at Crewe where the loco was moved into the Heritage Centre.
Here repairs to broken / leaking stays are being undertaken. An added bonus for the Heritage Centre for a few weeks! These pictures are from 12 April.
Tim Rogers Newsreel - Part 2
10 April: Shotton
158 833 - 1G32 09:23 Holyhead to Birmingham International
67 020 -1D34 09:50 Manchester Piccadilly to Holyhead
10 April: Holywell Junction
175 105 - 1D38 13:36 Manchester Airport to Llandudno
Tamper, 08-16/4X4C-RT, DR73912 Lynx in the siding as 175 113 passes with 1H90 14:40 Llandudno to Manchester Piccadilly
37 609 and 37 218 with FNA 550053, 550057 and 550049 - 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS). 47 mins early.
12 April: Shotton
221 112 Ferdinand Magellan - 1A13 06:55 Holyhead to London Euston
66 430 and 66 301 with FNA 550049, 550029 and 550033 - 6D43 07:36 Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS) to Valley Nuclear Electric.
13 April: Mostyn
175114 - 1H90 14:40 Llandudno to Manchester Piccadilly
37 602 and 37 606 with FNA 550029 6K41 14:58 Valley Nuclear Electric to Crewe Coal Sidings (DRS). 47 minutes early.
[A report in a national magazine published on 12 April that the signalbox has been demolished was apparently a little premature.]
Thoughts on the North Wales layout changes - by Carl Wainwright
I've been reading all the recent changes to track layouts with interest on the website - I can't help thinking that the way they have positioned the crossover to the east of Mostyn is such that the turnout speed much be quite low and fact that they have one loop for both directions means that delays could be encountered in both directions in the future when used.
With regards to Abergele - again the loop was very badly configured such that it had a low speed - surely if the turnout had been further back and easier and then carried on further for an easier turn in the performance hit would have been negligible - it might even have been possible to have a high speed turnout similar to Cheadle Hulme with flashing aspects when modernised. I can't help feeling that loops like this should be retained for the future given the way services are improving to allow flexibility, albeit with an improved configuration.
Even if they still wanted to get rid of Abergele loop surely they could have waited until the signal box is gone and have an island platform. I think getting rid of Holywell loops is also a mistake.
Wings to Mostyn
A curiosity of North Wales is the movement of wings for the Airbus A380 airliner from the factory in Broughton to Mostyn Dock where they are loaded on to an ocean-going ship for the next stage of their journey to Toulouse where they will join the rest of the aircraft. Greg Mape took these pictures on 24 March.
A specially-made road vehicle is used to carry a wing from the factory ...
... to a loading point on the river Dee.
There it is loaded on to a custom made barge which will carry it down river and out into estuary to Mostyn, 15 miles away. At almost 50 metres long and 14 metres wide and weighing 96 tonnes on their jig, the A380 wings are too big to travel in the Beluga aircraft used to carry the wings of smaller Airbus models.
The port of registration of the Afon Dyfrdwy barge is interesting.
Metrolink news
6 April marked the 25th anniversary of the first Manchester Metrolink service, the line to Bury transferred from National Rail. The platform indicators showed an appropriate message on the day: this is Piccadilly, with 3116, one of the most recent units (the final fleet for now ends at 3120) on an Eccles - Ashton working.
St Peter's Square station on the same day, taken from the third floor of the Central Library; almost everything in the picture is new. The 'foxglove trees' make an exotic sight with their purple flowers preceding the leaves. There is cross-platform interchange in each directions between the Piccadilly Gardens route and the new 'second city crossing' via Exchange Square to Victoria.
Steam on the Dock 2017
Readers may be interested in the 'Steam on the Dock' event on 6-7 May at Albert Dock; Liverpool. The organisers are excited to announce the return of one the UK’s only inner-city steam rally, with over 30 steam engines, boats and even a train making the Dock their home on May 6-7 – that’s double the amount that visited in 2016.
Families and steam enthusiasts are guaranteed a free, fun-packed weekend of toots and whistles as we celebrate the grand machines of the industrial age. Expect more engines, more boats, more activities and much more fun!
So what’s new for 2017? Steam tug Kerne – a stunning, Titanic-era steamship – makes her Steam on the Dock début. Built in 1912, Kerne has a long history with Liverpool, in 1971 becoming the last coal-fired steamer to work on the Mersey. Since then she has been saved from scrap and preserved as an operational steamship, and is now the last remaining Naval, coal-fired steamship to have seen service in two world wars, still in operation today.
Much more about the Fun on the Albert Dock website.
North Wales Coast home page | Archive | Previous Notice Board