Railways Blog

Getting from Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire to Barrow-Upon-Soar in Leicestershire is not one of the easiest rail journeys to make. The ticket clerk at Cheadle Hulme hadn’t even heard of Barrow Upon Soar, although it didn’t help when I asked for a ticket to Barrow on Soar, which obviously wasn’t programmed in the ticket machine

The journey involves no fewer than four trains, a local for one stop to Stockport, a Central Trains ‘City Link’ to Nottingham, then a MML Meridian to Loughborough, and finally another local one stop to the unstaffed halt at Barrow upon Soar.

The short hop from Nottingham to Loughborough was the first time I’d had the chance to travel in one of Midland Main Line’s new class 222 “Meridians”. These are derived from the class 220 Voyager, but with rather better interiors, with seating and general ambience resembling the classic Mk3. Unfortunately this was spoiled by noticeable vibration from the underfloor engines, worse than a Voyager, and far more intrusive than the 170 Turbostar on the Stockport-Nottingham leg. Don’t know if this is typical, or there was a fault on car I rode in.

Amazingly, with eight trains and six changes in the outward and return journey, I didn’t suffer a single missed connection. I did have one late-running train, the MML HST between Loughborough and Chesterfield on the way back, which lost 10-15 minutes because of a track circuit failure near Trent. But fortunately there was a 25 minute connection at Chesterfield.

Interesting loading levels on the trains. The Central Trains citylink train was a two car class 170s DMU, and was pretty full out of Stockport, although everyone managed to find a seat. I’ve travelled this way a lot, and it’s often been busy on this route on a Saturday morning. Many people got off at Sheffield, but just as many boarded, and there were people standing when it reached Nottingham, where it terminated due to engineering work further east. It actually reached Nottingham in time for a slightly earlier train than the one I was making for. But the two car 170 bound for Birmingham was pretty crowded, so I decided to wait for the train I’d originally planned to catch, the MML London train. This one, the four car 222 was practically empty; as a semi-fast to London, it would probably pick up passengers en-route at places like Wellingborough and Kettering, and arrive at St Pancras with a decent loading.

The last leg of the journey, of just six minutes, was on the ‘Ivanhoe Line’, a new local service shuttling between Loughborough and Leicester, serving several intermediate communities who has lost their rail service in the Beeching cuts on the 1960s. Only about a dozen passengers boarded the two coach class 156 DMU at the start of it’s journey, but I counted another eleven waiting at it’s first stop, Barrow upon Soar.

There’s an awful lot of whining on the ngauge and ngauge-modern mailing lists from people who ought to know better, complaining that Dapol are doing a class 66 locomotive instead of [insert class here]. One person is even claiming that it will be a ‘financial disaster’ for Dapol to go head-to-head with Bachmann’s own long-promised model.

For those whining “Why couldn’t it have been a 59 or a 58 or a 56″, all I can say is “When was the last time you travelled anywhere by train, or went anywhere near a railway line?”. 66s are everywhere. The odds are, if you see a freight train, it will have one of these locomotives on the front. They are now the second most numerous main line British diesel of all time, after the class 47. They’re going to be the backbone of freight haulage for the forseeable future.

The class is really the meat and potatoes locomotive of the present-day scheme. Other classes like 60s or 67s are just gravy. Unless you want a purely passenger line with a fleet of nothing but units, you cannot build a convincing contemporary layout set anywhere in the country without at least one 66. They run everywhere from Penzance in Cornwall, to Georgemas Junction in the far north of Scotland.

In my opinion, Dapol made a serious marketing blunder with their first non-steam model. The 73 is a ‘niche’ prototype with limited geographical appeal, and they compounded the error by choosing what must have been the least popular liveries for the initial release. Hardly surprising the initial sales have been disappointing. With the 66, it seems that Dapol have learned from their earlier mistakes, and it deserves to sell well.

Dapol dropped a bombshell at the N Gauge Society AGM with the news of their next models for this year:

• Class 66 locomotive
• Dogfish ballast hopper
• Six wheel milk tanker

Future plans include a class 150 DMU, which will be a very useful model provided it has nothing to do with their horrible OO model from a few years back.

There has been a lot of criticism on the Ngauge mailing list for their decision for do a class 66, on the grounds that Bachmann had announced one. But the critics ignore one obvious fact! Bachmann have been promising a 66 for years now, with no release in sight. Bachmann have announced all sorts of things, with release dates put back so many times that nobody takes them seriously any more. Some have even suggested the announce things as ‘spoilers’, to discourage rivals. Following on from Peco with the HAA coal hopper, Dapol have decided to call their bluff. Good on Dapol! Perhaps this will prompt Bachmann to get their finger out. The prototype 66 is in service with several operators with a combined fleet approaching 400. It’s the essential model for anyone wanting to model the contemporary British scene.

If someone had asked me for the ideal wagons for Dapol to produce, I would have suggested the Dogfish and the milk tanker! Both are very long-lived prototypes with a wide geographical spread, sellable to both diesel fans and boiler bunnies. Both tended to run in block rakes. Any British layout set from 1948 through to about 2000 could make use of a rake of a dozen or so Dogfish. Although there is an etched brass kit available, they’re a pig to build, and way beyond my ability to produce an acceptable model from. Any many layouts set from the 1930s to the 1980s can find a home for a milk tank or six, especially those much loved west country branches.

As reported by the BBC, South West trains have run the last Mk1 train out of Waterloo. The venerable 4-VEP and 4-CIG units have been a feature of south London commuter lines for something like 40 years. North of the Thames, and in the regions, slam door commuter stock has been history for a while, although the even more venerable class 101 DMUs lasted a good while on Manchester commuter services.

You haven’t missed your last chance to ride one; not only do Southern still have a few trains left in service out of Victoria, but SWT still retain a couple of units for the Brockenhurst to Lymington shuttle in Dorset.

These trains were a daily feature of my life for several years when I commuted to Virginia Water in Surrey, with the English Electric motors howling up the grade from Egham.

At least one unit really needs to be preserved, preferably in main line working order. These trains are every bit as iconic as any much-preserved class of locomotive.

Graham Eccles, SWT chairman and managing director wins the Donald Rumsfeld gobbledegook award with this quote:
“Although they have passed their sell-by date, they don’t owe anybody a living.”

Quite what that’s supposed to mean is an unknown unknown.

Today, May 12th, is St Pancras Day. Very little is known about St Pancras, except for the fact that it’s probable that he actually existed, which is more than can be said for some of the more dubious Irish saints.

His main claim to fame nowadays is because the the Midland Railway chose the Parish of St Pancras as location of the terminus of their London extension. In the sixties and seventies, the station was always associated with the Derby built class 45 locomotives, known by enthusiasts as the Peaks. These 138 ton behemoths with their massive 8-axle plate frame bogies were typical of the first generation of BR diesel power.

So to celebrate the Feast Day of St Pancras, my ostensibly Swiss layout of Wöminsee is visited by a couple of N-gauge models of the class

Both models are Ian Stoate Models resin mouldings on Graham Farish class 40 chassis. They’re actually slightly overlength (the 40s were longer than the 45s). Unfortunately the sixteen axle 1-Co-Co-1s balk at the 9″ radius curves that my Swiss Bo-Bo-Bos take in their stride, so sadly these locos are for display at present. My next British layout will have to have gentler curves!

Today was the first time for a long while I’ve been to a major train show (Derby) without buying any new stock at all.

Considered (but decided against) a square headlight Hobbytrain/Kato Re6/6 (a fourth one would be overkill), a Fleischmann DB BR185 (Not confident I can renumber it, so I’ll wait for Fleischmann to bring one out with a different running number from the one I already have), a Kato Re460 (Like I really need anotherRe460? I’ve already got ten of the things in assorted liveries!) a Dapol 73 (Since my British outline interests centre on Cornwall, which isn’t somewhere 73s tended to visit), and a Kato Japanese Class 9600 2-8-0 (Really don’t want to start buying Japanese stuff; who knows where it might end!)

Should I be worried, or am I doing the right thing by saving my money for the things I really *do* want? Such as the Wessex 158 and the forthcoming ATM Silver Bullets.

On the other hand, I have recently ordered a Freightliner 66 from CJM, maybe that’s my modelling budget accounted for for a while…

Some good layouts on display, though. I liked the minimum-space (5′x2’6″) Swiss layout who’s name I can’t remember. The 4mm urban “Farkham”, and the N gauge East German “Colditz Ost Brucke” were excellent; the latter is simple but effective, centering on a bridge carrying a double track main line over a broad river; no stations or yards, and the only structures apart from the centrepiece bridge were a couple of small cottages.

No, Mr Nose, I did not want to know that. No more Locomotive Porn for you! Those provocatively painted SD70MACs will make you go blind!

Reports are coming in of a squadon of maroon and gold pigs seen flying over central England. They were spotted near Telford in Shropshire, and other reports claim sightings of them taking off from Barwell in Leicestershire.

Roger Waters is quoted as saying that they have nothing to do with him.