CathEx to Gloucester, 5th Oct 2016

Few days after the event but here's the climb at from Sapperton tunnel

 

Lizzie is apparently in steam at Gloucs now

 

Saw her about half 1 today and a fire was slightly smoking with one west coast operator looking after her, move today or is that a pre-warm up before a move tomorrow maybe

 

Returning 5Z62 11:53 GLOUCESTER SIGNAL 423 - 17:08 SOUTHALL WCR running on Thu 13/10/2016

 

Hello all. This is my take on the trip.

This was supposed to run in early May; l booked our tickets back in March when WCR were still very much on (this year's) naughty step. I was more motivated to book as l noticed adverts for it had appeared in the ticket office windows at my local station. It was more than a week to go to the original date when the trip was postponed due to no locomotive being available. I did prefer this scenario rather than being fully diesel hauled. The trip had always been advertised as being hauled by 6201, with diesel between Horsham and West London and return.

We arrived at Horsham station to see 47580 "County of Essex" sitting at the county end of Platform 1. As an aside: looking through a book, Class 47s were infrequent visitors to Horsham in the 1980s with diverted Manchester etc. stock. Apparently they could not go further south due to being overweight.

We departed Horsham on time behind the portable pollution machine known as 37706. This was my first time behind a Class 37 so l was not complaining. Standard was at the front of the train and we were in the first of these. The only thing of note regarding the journey up to West London was that - for the first time going from Horsham l believe - the electronic train information boards were displaying the destination as "Gloucester" and being a "West Coast Rlwy service", calling at the appropriate stations.

Swapping the locomotives at the front did not take too long and we were away from Willesden S.W. Sidings about on time. There was a gradual increase in speed as 6201 took the lead. An announcement was made, the gist of which that everything is now ‘square’ between Network Rail and WCR. This was my first time behind a Class 8 locomotive and it sounded effortless as the mid-sixties were reached on the way to Reading. Although we did not need to be too rapid, we were always ahead of time from there to the water stop at Challow. This was our only booked stop with steam, and it turned out to be so in practice. It was not until after diverging at Swindon (where the travelling populace were entertained by a short blast of opened regulator) that the noise level increased combined with smooth acceleration.

Speed was in the high 60s when we began to break quite hard to about 12 mph for some reason (unlikely to be signals). The reason was soon shown - as we rolled through Kemble - to be an obvious gauging speed restriction. Now Sapperton: accelerating away from Kemble the speed increased gradually with one clearly detectable slip to enter the tunnel in the high 30s. I enjoyed the scenery for the rest of the way, reaching Gloucester a little over time. After a good few minutes of photograph time the train was pulled back out the station by 47580 (which had remained at the rear). I did note that there were two members of Clan Line’s support crew (shown on their hi-vis) there. No comment: just unexpected. Whilst at Gloucester, the newly painted ‘Intercity’ HST power car swept past.

We meandered our way to the docks and had lunch in a pub. Whilst we were in the pub we found out from a fellow passenger that 6201 had been declared unfit due to the failure of the blower and that the fire had been removed. I am not going into the details of how he knew save that he had a telephone call with his company just before he joined us. We had a quick look in the cathedral before returning to the station to see 47580 completing the stock run-around and in the background a forlorn looking - and lifeless – 6201 (see picture).

The train had been turned around so Standard was again at the front. After boarding l noticed we had been coupled close to 47580 as the carriage was gently vibrating. For those who care we topped Sapperton at about 38mph. After that, we really got going: topping out at 91 mph before having to wait to enter Swindon. After Swindon there was announcement saying that due to unexploded ordnance in the South Wales area we will probably be kept to the path as there was a queue developing behind. So we stopped at Wantage Road (after some more high 80s), but were out of the loop early. We departed Didcot Parkway after the local train so there must have been a series of checks until Reading. I cannot remember where but at some point we were switched to the Up Main (again into to the 80s) to then be switched over so to enter Hanwell Bridge Loop where something was added to the rear (l could not be bothered to look at Horsham). Again, the electronic boards were showing the actual train (see picture taken at Clapham Junction). The path was a bit on the slow side getting back to Horsham, where we were a few late.

The weather all day was fantastic. It was a shame about 6201. This was the first time for me that something has failed, though we did have some chocolate mints served to us by Marcus!

Cheers.
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A (final) note…

Received a letter from Steam Dreams which confirmed the problems with the blower and why it had to be taken out of service.

Glad to see 6201 out and about over the weekend.
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