2020 Cumbrian Mountain Expresses

Thought about doing a Kendalino video of the virtual tour but you could bet plenty wouldn’t get what my YouTube video actually meant sadly although I’m open to a said project if folk think it’s a good idea.

 

Anything is a good idea at the moment Steve .Go for it !

 

VDHP is notoriously difficult to estimate being virtually any figure you care to choose but I have estimated the edhp values if the train had actually run as loaded and at the speeds I suggested.

60009 Shap (MP31.5 to MP37.25) Average edhp around 1500
46115 Ais Gill (MP275 to MP259.75) Average edhp around 1250
46115 Wilpshire (Whalley to Ramsgreave & Wilpshire) Average edhp around 1600

 

On 12 May 2018 35018 hauled the CME, @1020 Shireman posted a log of (exceptional) times and speeds. Using Graham's info; MP275 - 60.2mph, MP259.75 - 52.9mph and a time between the two points of 16m 53s gives an average edhp of around 1850 (using the RPS spreadsheet as Al mentions). With our virtual train (lighter) and running slower to just hold 50mph at the summit 46115 would have had to produce an average edhp of almost 1600; this would be greater than the loco could sustain for the 17-18 mins that the climb would take. With a full boiler, full pressure and a good fire SG might just have been able to sustain 1600 for the much shorter time required to climb Wilpshire - but only just and probably not.

 

As promised 60009 & 46115 on the CME . Not perfect but you get the idea.

 

Lovely stuff, like the engine and coach move at the start.

 

Continuing the recent 'fantasy' theme, a view of 35018 and 46115 actually running around an hour apart, but appearing to be using the same 'path' over Shap on the busy West Coast route.

 

LOL sure Peter can "relate" to that

 

The camera cannot lie, the cameraman however...

 

I like your theory of ‘relativity’ Henry!

 

And some of us who should have known better were taken in for a while.

 

Not quite the same but there wasn’t much distance between 45699 and 70000 on Shap this day.

 

The sound from the Britannia sequence definitely took me back to my childhood, thinking ' I wish I could...I think I can...I knew I could!'

 

The other strange thing about this day of course (apart from us seriously delaying the Brits ascent of Shap) was that as we were not allowed in to Carlisle due to ECML diversions and our water stop at Sellafield was in the loop not the platform, so most of the CCE passengers got to see more of the Brit (when we watered next to each other in Upperby Yard) than they did of their own loco. Long day on the train if you were a Euston passenger, around 16.5 hours I think.

 

At Salterwath before the Brit eased off

 

Think on hindsight I should’ve done Shap Summit as the sound must’ve been fantastic as one passed the summit and 70000 barked away towards the summit