I’ve uploaded a few photos I took of Apethorn Junction at the Macclesfield show to my Fotopic site.
This has got to be one of the best 7mm scale layouts I’ve seen on the exhibition circuit. It’s sheer size makes a big impression, and the whole thing just oozes atmosphere. It’s all DCC with sound chips on most if not all the locomotives, so the layout reverberates with the throaty roar of English Electric and Sulzer engines.
Even after far too little sleep, the after-effects of a little too much Tyskie, and still on a high from meeting some of my heroes, York railway station is still a magnificent place. Here’s East Coast Trains 91105 waiting to depart on a northbound service.
On the way back from Touchstone’s CRS Gig at Maltby (for which I really need to write a review), I decided to break the journey at Edale. I’ve travelled the Hope Valley line many, many times over the past few years, and seen this beautiful line in all seasons, from spring green to autumn colours to snow-covered, but I’d never taken the local stopping train and got off at one of the intermediate stations.
You don’t get much freight on a Sunday, so I was surprised when the signals went off without a passenger train being due, and this came into view.
I’ve read bad reviews of the Sony Alpha 75-300mm Lens
By the end of the week I’d had my fill of narra-gauge kettles, and it was time for some proper trains again. I’d had Rugeley recommended as a good place for main line photography a few months back. It’s a local station on the four-track section of the Trent Valley line. As well as the procession of Virgin Trains Pendolinos, it sees a lot of freight; mostly intermodal from DB Schenker (Née EWS), Freightliner and DRS. And there’s a nice pub just outside the station supplying food (and real ales) when you get tired of watching trains.
Compared with Newport, where it’s all EWS 66s, Rugeley seems a variety of traction. This southbound Freightliner working has a pair veteran class 86s, still hard at work after 40 years. Other trains had DBS dual-voltage 92s, Freightliner 90s, and Freightliner and DRS 66s. One has to question why so much freight on this electrified route runs behind diesel traction.
The final weekend took me to my old home town of Slough, where my parents celebrated their Golden Wedding. This photo is from Saturday lunchtime, when the immediate family went to The House on the Bridge at Eton. There was a big party the following day at the church.
I don’t always stop to think how lucky I am that both my parents are still with is; especially when I think of the number of friends I have who are decades younger than me, but have lost one or both parents.
This last picture is one of those times when you see a good picture and just happen to have your camera with you. It’s the Thames at Windsor, where a huge gathering of swans had surrounded someone feeding them bread.
The second part of my holiday took me to from South Wales to the north of the country.
The first day was spent on the Welsh Highland Railway. I’d ridden the line three years ago, when it was open as far as Rhyd-Ddu, just short of the summit of the line. It’s now extended beyond Beddgelert through the famous Aberglaslyn pass to Hafod-y-Llyn, just a few miles short of the ultimate destination of Porthmadog.
The climb from Waunfawr up to Rhyd-Dhu is spectacular enough, but the descent down to Beddgelert is even more spectacular, as the line twists and turns Swiss-fashion to lose height. The final section is the most spectacular of all, as the line heads through the steep-sided valley of Aberglaslyn pass, with it’s unlined rock tunnels. Decades ago, on a wet family holiday, we walked along this route, though the long-abandoned tunnels. Amazing to ride through them on a train.
The WHR has come in for some criticism for not making any attempt to recreate this spirit of the original undercapitalised Colonel Stevens line, instead building a modern tourist railway suitable for the needs of the 21st century, using powerful ex-South African Garrett locomotives rather than the underpowed tank engines of the original line. But I think what they’ve built is a magnificent achievement.
There’s no forward connection from Hafod-y-Llyn, which is a temporary terminus in the middle of nowhere. So you have to ride the train back through Aberglaslyn pass to Beddgelert, where there’s quite a long wait for the bus for Porthmadog. Still, there are far worse places to spend a couple of hours, in the midst of some spectacular scenery.
Next morning, after a hearty breakfast at the Queen’s Hotel, I headed off for Harbour Station for a ride on the famous Ffestiniog railway. This is one of the longest established preserved railways, celebrating more than 50 years in this form. The locomotive for the day was double Fairlie David Lloyd George, not technically a preserved locomotive at all, since it was built as recently as 1979, albeit to a 19th century design.
Then it was the scenic Conwy Valley line to Llandudno Junction. This is one of the most scenic routes on the National Rail network, and really deserves to promoted better as such. I’d love to see a timetable that makes sensible connections with the Ffestiniog at Blaunau, using heritage rolling stock with windows that open. Not neccessily using steam; I think some first generation diesels would do just as well.
Breaking the journey at Bettws-y-Coed was probably a mistake. It’s a beautiful setting, but the place is an appalling tourist trap, full of tacky gift shops selling nothing but tat, and restaurants serving chips with everything. It’s the sort of tasteless commercialism of which I’m sure that Ayn Rand would have approved.
If you’re based in the north-west, this makes an excellent two-day trip – although it I was doing it again I’d probably stay overnight in Beddgelert and get the bus to Porthmadog in the morning, then take a later train on the Ffestiniog.
Been a while since I’ve blogged about anything much – been too busy doing things rather than blogging about them. So we’ll go back a few weeks to my week’s holiday in mid-September.
The week started with a gig, Panic Room at their home town in Swansea. On the previous tour I’d managed to get to several of the shows, but other commitments meant that this one was the only one of their short tour I could get to.
The Milkwood Jam is a funny venue, a sort of glass box on the top of the building. The band were as tight as ever, with great performances from all five members, and the sound was as good as can be expected for a smallish club venue.
With their new album Satellite written and recorded, new songs made up the bulk of the set, interspersed with a few favourites from the debut album. When I say new songs, quite a few of them have been in the set for a while, with the likes of “Sandstorms”, “Black Noise”, “Go” and “Yasumi” already becoming live favourites. The band are moving more in the direction of shorter, more direct songs rather than sprawling prog epics, and this material comes over very well live.
I took quite a few photos, but the lighting, with low levels and all the light coming from the side of the stage, meant the results were disappointing.
Monday was trains day, and a chance to use my new Sony 50mm Lens
Newport doesn’t quite have the volume of freight traffic I remembered from previous visits in the 80s and 90s, but there was still quite a bit of steel traffic. EWS class 66s seem to be ubiquitous nowadays; there weren’t any 60s to be seen. There were, though, a couple of loco-hauled passenger trains; an FGW Cardiff-Taunton top-and-tailed by a pair of 67s, and Arriva Wales Cardiff-Holyhead, complete with first class and a dining car, allegedly subsidised by the expense accounts of members of the Welsh Assembly (me, cynical?)
As with the Panic Room gig, I’ve uploaded some of the photos to my fotopic site.
While I was in Leicester on Saturday morning after Breathing Space’s gig the night before, I went for a walk around the city, and saw the famous bowstring bridge on the west side of the city.
This bridge is one of the last surviving bits of the Great Central’s London extension in Leicester. It’s scheduled for demolition to make room for an expansion of De Montford University’s sports department.
As chronicled on Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog, there’s been a strong local campaign to save the bridge, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Big Money and sports jocks are going to trump preservation of Britain’s victorian industrial heritage.
On Friday morning I got up a few minutes early to photograph the steam-hauled Scarborough Flyer on it’s way from Crewe.
I was expecting the advertised loco, A4 pacific 60009 “Union of South Africa”. But what turned up was LMS No 6201 “Princess Elizabeth”.
There were a lot of people on the station with cameras. I think I was probably the only one under the age of 65. I was certainly the only person wearing a DEMU “No Kettles” t-shirt.
So they’ve finally announced the decision to electrify the Great Western Main Line. And they’ve going right through to Swansea rather than stopping at Cardiff, which is a sensible decision. No mention of Plymouth or Penzance, although keeping the wires up on the sea wall might be an engineering challenge!main
While I have to applaud the decision, I do have to ask why this wasn’t done 20 years ago. The last major electrification project was the East Coast Main Line, which British Rail completed in 1988. So why did they disband the electrification teams rather than carry on with the next project.
In retrospect, the answer is simple: Privatisation happened. Because of the ideologically-driven need for short-term profits, it was no time for long term investment projects. So Britain continues to lag behind the rest of Europe, with a significant proportion of main line trunk routes operated by diesels.
The other electrification project announced is the George Stevenson’s Liverpool to Manchester line, opened in 1830 as the first main line in the world. At first glance this is an odd choice; the only trains using it’s entire length nowadays are a handful of local trains; even the Liverpool to Manchester expresses use another route. But at Newton-le-Willows there are connections both north and south with the main London-Glasgow line. These connections will enable electric to run directly between Liverpool or Manchester to Scotland, and serve as a diversionary route between Liverpool or Manchester to London when the more direct routes are closed for engineering work.
So hopefully we’ll see the end of the class 185 “Lardarse Express” diesel trains operating under the wires for 90% of the journey on Manchester to Edinburgh services. Although seeing Virgin Trains using diesel Voyagers 100% under the wires between Glasgow and Manchester doesn’t exactly convince sceptics of the value of electrification. Neither does the percentage of freight on electrified routes hauled by diesels.
The train company formerly known as EWS seems to have got itself in a bit of bother over noisy coal trains.
The Falkirk West SNP member said analysis carried out by Falkirk Council showed the night coal runs by freight company DB Shenker were creating a substantial vibration problem.
He said the average vibration level for DB Schenker trains was 0.075 millimetres per second and could reach up to 0.091 mm per second.
That is in contrast to Freightliner Limited trains who also use the route to transport coal to the Fife power station. Tests revealed they created a vibration level of just 0.025 millimetres per second.
Mr Matheson said the different readings could be attributed to the speed of the trains and the different coal wagons used by the companies.
The DB Schenker (ex-EWS) trains use coal hoppers delivered shortly after privatisation to replace life-expired wagons dating from the 1960s. EWS, charismatic leader Ed Burkhart decided to ignore decades of rail experience developed for European conditions in favour of doing everything The American Way. So these new wagons had ‘more economical’ American-style heavy cast bogies rather than the lighter designs favoured up to then in Britain and Europe for a very different rail environment. He didn’t take into account the extra punishment they inflicted on tracks that carry heavy passenger traffic. And I wonder how much environmental noise was ever considered – after all, in America the rails always run though the worst bits of town inhabited by poor people whose opionions tend to be ignored.
Freightliner’s more modern wagons use far more technically sophisticated bogies designed to minimise track wear. And they also seem to be a lot quieter.
Latest Twitter Updates