A1ST/(UKRT) Heart of Midlothian 01/05/17

Missed departure time from Newcastle and just arrived at Doncaster by the looks of it...pretty much on time from the original schedule. 30 mins recovered from Edinburgh?

 

Tornado just arrived Donny RT! Despite the 45min late arrival of the stock this morning, a crossing failure and a points failure which led to a 30 min late departure from Edinburgh so the pax got their promised time in the city. Nice work.

 

Mobile shot of her leaving York earlier.

 

Sorry Sheff didn't know you were on board, would have said hello.
Driver of Skip looked pretty cheesed off on arrival at York and went close to 100mph Northbound to Tyne yard.

UK Railtours... You're Coffee is simply awful

Return Journey disappeared off rtt breifly while a new path was being worked through prior to being reissued ( according to the folks next to us who appeared to have a live link to control)...
Noteworthy performance on the return - Edinburgh to Water stop S of Berwick in even time.
T 's new Path should have put her back on the original schedule by Thirsk but she was 10 down at that point, gained steadily and had a clear run into York.

 

Interestingly once the skip had arrived in Tyne Yard, it was shunted into a siding away from the main workings, shut down, a mechanic was waiting for it, Do Not Move signs added, and various bits in boxes headed towards it.

Wonder if it was giving problems, leading to late stock arrival???

 

May have been an air pressure problem as they seemed to come off a lot more slowly at York with the skip...

 

And here's how it unfolded from on the train ;-)

Tour was 44 late from Peterborough this morning due to issues with the 67

It was then 34 late arriving at Doncaster where issues with the brakes meant a 12 minute stop with an arrival at York 45 late where I joined

A decent run then meant a 35 late arrival at.Tyne Yard for the loco swap to Tornado with a 10 late departure with steam

Issues with a level crossing north of Morpeth delayed service trains which also.delayed us

Thus meaning we had to be looped at Crag Mill from 11:15-11:32 to allow 1S33, 1S06, 1P16 and 1S07 to pass

Arrival.at the Berwick water stop was 11:50 the time we were due to arrive. Despite a quick water stop we then had to wait until 12:41 for 1S35, 1F08 and 1S09 to pass

Arrival into Edinburgh was 13:41, 38 late

We were then advised of a departure from Edinburgh around 16:30

Meanwhile in the interim a vstp appeared on freight locate for a 1636 departure which was on.time

Having traversed Tweedmouth Reception road 2 for water we then took water again sat on the Up slow behind platform 7/8 at Newcastle

No issues with steam, just issues with.the skip this morning and a network rail level.crossing

Thoroughly enjoyable trip with some consistent 75mph running and almost a 60 mph start to.stop.average speed from Edinburgh to Tweedmouth

Looking forward to the Cornishman now at the end of the month

 

Just an aside, but Berwick fire service had a false alarm call-out when somebody saw all the smoke from the vicinity of the station and called in a 999.

 

I saw a Fire engine with lights flashing pull up to the water tanker as we pulled away from the first water stop on the return journey !

 

Just before the Heart of Midlothian disappears into the oblivion of Page 2 and beyond of the What’s Going On thread index, a few observations on a lengthy but engaging day’s railtour. Hopefully this will pull together some of the bits and pieces of feedback recorded in the preceding posts.

A 41L late start from Peterborough, attributed to coupling problems reported with 67024, should have been eroded by the smart running of the 67 between scheduled stops, which produced start-to stop averages of 76.7 mph Newark-Doncaster/ 68.6 mph onward to York/ 80.3 mph thence to Darlington, and finally 67.0 mph onwards to the first stop in Tyne Yard, having crawled from Birtley Junction. But dwell time at station stops- particularly, as noted up-thread, at Doncaster, together with a fairly “press-on” sort of schedule meant that all this energetic running had only reduced arrears to 33 minutes at the point of locomotive changeover. But cutting the change-over time from the 42 minute allowance to 23 minutes gave us a very decent head start in recovery of arrears - lateness had been shaved to just 11L shortly after the start of Tornado’s northbound leg from Tyne Yard.

But all this was to be thwarted by the variously reported level crossing and points problems around Morpeth. Signal stops at Plessey Junction (2 minutes) and again at Warkworth (20 seconds), conspired to increase arrears to 18L at Morpeth and 21L at Alnmouth. So it was hardly surprising (given the lowly position of charter trains in the food chain) that we then experienced protracted stops at both the Belford/ Crag Mill loop and then Berwick DGL (water stop) to allow two successive flights of ECML service trains to pass. With a restart 53L, Tornado then served up the first of five fairly brisk (and one modest) start-stop runs of the day, taking seconds over the even hour for the 57.3 miles to our destination. The descent of Cockburnspath saw the highest speed of the day, albeit only the usual whisker over 75 mph and quickly restrained to boot. So, 3 minutes outside even time, but gaining in the process 13 minutes on the booked time for this leg to our destination.

We were still, however, some 39 minutes behind our booked arrival time. All credit to A1SLT, DBC and NR that some additional time was won back for the stop-over in Edinburgh, deferring the restart to 16.36, some 27 minutes later than originally scheduled. Long enough, in my case, for a bracing yomp over the volcanic crag of Arthurs Seat with lots of time to spare to take in some great views.

With the promise of some kind of cumulative recovery back to the original timings being announced over the ear-piercing tannoy (Coach K), Tornado started well, with decent spells of running at or around 75 mph, particularly along the Drem–Dunbar section….to the extent that we were within one minute of even time on the northern approach to Berwick (57.6 miles); but with subsequent delays in entering the goods loop at Tweedmouth, we arrived at our first water stop one minute outside schedule and 5 minutes over even time. Speeds on the 4 miles of 1 in 96 on Cockburnspath bank tailed away to an average of around 33-34 mph on the approach to the summit at MP40, representing a workmanlike rather than a record breaking climb with Load 13. Representative, perhaps, of the kind of performance that would have been witnessed with service trains carrying this load in the 50’s and early 60’s. A benchmark for outstanding performance here would have been the Elizabethan run in July 2012, when Tornado topped the bank at a speed of no less than 48 mph!! And with Load 14!! But it was satisfying to see that, on this occasion, Tornado was meeting with seeming ease the demands of the schedule that had originally been set for this section.

More of the same on the Tweedmouth-Newcastle leg, allowed 70 minutes for the 65.7 miles, which we covered in 68m 40s to a dead stand at our water stop opposite Platform 7. Nothing spectacular, just steady progress over level or at most modestly undulating sections on this part of the ECML. A flying average of 67.6 mph pass-to-pass for the 44.2 miles from Goswick LC (4.8 miles) to the speed restricted passage of Morpeth (49.0 miles) characterised the overall standard of running, and we approached the northern outskirts of Newcastle itself still some 2 minutes inside even time at Benton North Junction, with only 4 miles to go.

So in summary, the two legs of the Edinburgh Newcastle section had consumed a combined running time of 132m 18s, including the time consuming entry to the Tweedmouth Yard. By comparison, Tornado’s 2012 run with the Elizabethan had managed a two-leg combined running time of 125m 44s for the 124.5 miles, so, good though our overall performance may have been, we were still some little way outside a Blue Riband performance for this stretch

We set off again over the King Edward Bridge with some purpose, covering the initial 13.9 miles out to Durham in 17m 25s. What had been planned as a seven minute pathing stop at Ferryhill was abandoned, and hence recovery of arrears back to our original schedule was proceeding in earnest. We averaged 73.4 mph over the 9.6 miles from Tursdale Junction to Aycliffe Junction and completed this leg to a Darlington stop in 38m 13s for the 36.0 miles. Excellent work!!

By the time we had departed our Darlington passenger stop at 20.06 and now only 14L compared with the original schedule, we were only 5 minutes ahead of the slightly late running 1M76 Newcastle-Birmingham XC service. By dint of an urgent 16m 44s start to Northallerton (14.1 miles), where we where we were turned off onto the slow lines, the service train glided past us just south of Longlands Junction But, as if to emphasise the problems of pathing where such sharp distinctions exist between the performance profiles of our respective services, the XC service lateness had increased from 4L at Darlington departure to 9L passing Northallerton, having been allowed only 9 minutes for that initial 14 mile section – nearly 8 minutes less than our actual time!

Meanwhile, we cruised along the 65/ 70 mph restricted up slow line south of Thirsk, averaging 66.8 mph over the 12.5 miles from Sessay (26.1 miles) to Beningborough (38.6 miles), and crossing the Ouse Bridge just north of Skelton Junction (40.9 miles) in a shade under 44 minutes from Darlington. So arrival at York at 20.56 was achieved in 50m 38s, 7 minutes inside a very leisurely slow-line based schedule and putting us now only 6L.

Onwards to Doncaster, Tornado’s final flourish of the day was an energetic dash over the flatlands of the Selby Deviation and the plain of the Yorkshire Ouse Basin. Although difficult to time in the dusk/ darkness that had by now descended, I recorded a time of 29m 03s from the York start to passing Arksey LC (30.5 miles), with Tornado blazing away across the Yorkshire Flatlands to deliver intermediate averages of 71.7 mph over the 13.8 miles of the Selby Deviation from Colton Junction Footbridge to Templehirst Junction and 72.1 mph over the ensuing 11.2 miles to Arksey LC. With a very slow/ checked run from there into Platform 8 at Doncaster, which rather took the shine off these lively proceedings slightly, we came to a stand in 35m 38s, just over 3 minutes ahead of the rather leisurely 39 minute allowance for the final 32.6 miles behind Tornado, and now only 4L.

And that was it….roundly 366 miles of Tornado haulage in its native ECML environment, delivering pretty much what A1 SLT’s Heart of Midlothian prospectus had promised, and in the end, fulfilling the prophecy of our man on the tannoy that we would arrive back at our destinations more or less per the original published schedule. “Did what it said on the Tin”? Yes indeed, in every respect.

Best moments of the day? For me, the sight of Tornado at rest on arrival at Waverley in the dappled light penetrating the overall glass roof, in all its Apple Green glory and perfectly matched by the “blood and custard” livery of the support coach. And the sight, from the 13th and rear coach, of the whole consist snaking ahead of us and charging up the curves of Cockburnspath bank. And last, but by no means least, that glorious chime whistle, back, it would seem, in all its full-throated spendour.

A long day indeed. Massive thanks to all the footplate crews (would love to give credits by name if anyone can help), the support team and to the genial, engaging professionals from the A1SLT who made up the stewarding team for the day. It was, as ever a pleasure to participate in this excursion and it seems a long time to wait to end of August for the next one that I will be able to join, to Great Yarmouth. But I’m sure it will be worth the wait.