Innehållsförteckning för September 2024 från Rail Express

LABOUR’S plans to renationalise the UK’s passenger railways took a step closer with the introduction of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill to Parliament on July 18. A second reading took place on July 29, and it is expected that the Bill will clear its remaining stages in the House of Commons on September 3. If passed, operators will gradually be taken in house. There had been speculation that Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains, which have contracts due to expire in September 2026 but which have clauses allowing them to be brought in house from this September, would be first, however there needs to be a three-month notice period and these have yet to be triggered. Rail Express sources suggest it’s more likely that operators will start to…

GREAT Western Railway is set to take a fleet of 11 two-car and 16 three-car Class 175 diesel multiple units for use in the West of England. The fleet (Nos. 175001-011, 175101-116) was built by Alstom in 1999-2001 at Washwood Heath and was withdrawn by TfW Rail last year following the introduction of CAF Class 197 DMUs. Currently, the ‘175s’ are undergoing various handback repairs at Landore, while others are stored at Potter Group, Ely. The DMUs, owned by Angel Trains, were refurbished between 2019 and 2021. An internal GWR document seen by Rail Express states that the ‘175s’ would be used regularly on the Exeter St Davids-Penzance, Exeter St Davids-Barnstaple and Exeter St Davids-Okehampton routes. Diversionary routes would be Taunton-Castle Cary and Castle Cary-Exeter St Davids. Occasionally they would…

JULY saw the introduction of additional Class 730 Aventra workings on West Midlands Cross-City commuter lines between Lichfield/Four Oaks and Bromsgove/Redditch, enabling more of West Midlands Railway’s Class 323s to be stopped. As of late July, 14 Class 730s were diagrammed for weekday use on the route. Making their debut workings in revenue-earning service on July 2 were Nos. 730040/041, their first working being the 2P03 06.06 Birmingham New Street-Lichfield Trent Valley, which they operated as a pair. Meanwhile, Nos. 730029/039 made their first passenger runs on services into/out of Euston on July 9 and June 24 respectively. Eight ‘730/0’ sets continue to see use on the southern part of the West Coast Main Line, pending the introduction of five-car units later in the year. Hauled from Doncaster Belmont Yard…

A four-day gala dedicated to the Class 14s has, once again, proved to be a success. Emulating the 50th anniversary event held at the East Lancashire Railway in 2014, the ‘14s@60’ event at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway on July 25-28 showed the popularity of these locomotives, which ran in British Rail service for less than four years. Already, it has been suggested that a 70th anniversary could be held in 2034. The event generated a profit, although costs were substantially increased when the contracted haulier was unable to move some of the planned visiting locomotives. The organisers wish to place on record their thanks to Reid Freight, which stepped in at short notice to undertake movements; without the firm’s efforts, the event would not have been able to go ahead…

OFTEN referred to as the Track Recording Train (TRT), the essential car is the Track Recording Vehicle (TRV), in the form of a 73 Tube Stock (TS) trailer, (514), obtained from a spare Piccadilly Line unit in the early 1980s. Now renumbered TRC666, it is piloted around the network by two 60 TS Driving Motor (DM) cars (Nos. 3901 and 3905). For much of 2023 and early 2024 the unit has been replaced by a seven-car 72 TS unit. This may have suggested that the TRT was imminently destined for scrap. However, instead Transport for London has since prepared a notice for a contract to undertake work on armatures and compressors across rolling stock used on the Bakerloo, Central, Jubilee, and Piccadilly lines, as well as Rail Adhesion Trains and…

TT GAUGE 1:120 scale LAST MONTH, Rail Express Modeller examined the brand-new ‘TT:120’ scale Class 50 in some detail. Being a completely new tooling in a new scale and gauge for UK-outline modelling, it certainly attracted a lot of attention from modellers. How well did it look like a real Class 50? Well, we certainly thought it captured the visual character on the locomotives well. In this feature, we take a look at another dimension of the Hornby Class 50, and that is sound delivery from the factory installed Bluetooth TXS decoder. Decoder set-up A sugar cube speaker is fitted to the model alongside a TXS NEXT18 decoder loaded with Hornby’s Class 50 sound files for ‘TT:120’. The model is supplied with a comprehensive instruction leaflet, squeezed into the box along…

A NOTABLE ‘first’ has been secured by UK Railtours, with a tour to the former Ministry of Defence site at Eastriggs. ‘The Eastriggs Eloper’ runs on Saturday, September 14. The location of this former secret site is near Gretna Green, hence the train name. Watford Junction is the originating station, with pick-ups to Carlisle. GB Railfreight is the operator and is supplying a Class 57/3 for the main journey to Carlisle, where a Class 66 will be added to facilitate top ‘n’ tail operation at Eastriggs. Besides obtaining permission to enter this secure site, UKR is planning to traverse other non-passenger lines in the Carlisle area. Although not specified, the attraction of lines within Kingmoor marshalling yard does seem on the cards. The Standard fare is higher than normal, no…

ROYAL Mail plans to cease its rail freight activities from October 10, according to DB Cargo UK. In a letter sent to staff on July 10, DBC CEO Andrea Rossi said: “This decision represents a major U-turn by Royal Mail, which had previously committed publicly that it would increase its use of rail freight to help meet its own Net Zero targets. “Today’s decision is therefore a blow for DB Cargo UK and our many dedicated colleagues who have worked incredibly successfully over the years to meet Royal Mail’s demands regarding reliability and punctuality.” He added: “Royal Mail has made it clear that its decision is purely down to the increasing costs of electric traction (EC4T) and the high investment needs of its ageing 325 fleet. In fact, it has…

SANDBACH Commercial Dismantlers Ltd (SCDL) has cut up Nos. 90022 and 90027. They were two of the eight Class 90s acquired from DB Cargo UK in a tender announced in September 2023 and are the first members of the 50-strong class of electric locomotives to be disposed of. Nos. 90017/022/023/027/030/032/033/038 were moved from store at Crewe International Electric Maintenance Depot (IEMD) to SCDL’s Middlewich site between April and May this year (RE337), while Nos. 90025/031, which are also destined for final component recovery and scrap, headed to European Metals Recycling’s facility at Liverpool Alexandra Dock. There was a reprieve for the other pair of ‘90s’ that were sold at the same time, as Nos. 90018/040 were acquired by Freightliner and are both on the road to reactivation at Crewe Basford…

WITH its Mk.1 rolling stock still unable to be used on main line passenger workings owing to a lack of Central Door Locking (CDL) equipment or any derogation, West Coast Railways (WCR) has borrowed a number of blue/grey Mk.2 air-conditioned coaches for use on both charter trains and its Jacobite operation between Fort William and Mallaig. On July 2, newly-overhauled WCR No. 47760, together with No. 57010, hauled nine Riviera Trains vehicles – First Open (FO) Nos. 3278, 3314/25/40/45/64/86/97 and Brake Standard Open (BSO) Nos. 9526 – from Burton to Carnforth in preparation for their use on Saltburn Railtours’ annual weekend trip, which ran from Saltburn to Bath on July 5, returning three days later. The rake was augmented by a pair of WCR kitchen cars (Nos. 99316 and 99712)…

THE new Belfast Grand Central station will be the terminus for the jointly operated Belfast-Dublin ‘Enterprise’ service when its rail element opens “this autumn” according to Translink. The actual opening date remains unknown because, while August 25 was initially quoted as being the planned date, the alternative, October 7, may now be more realistic. Translink is required to await the commissioning of the infrastructure and the completion of train crew route familiarisation and staff training to allow the station to open for rail services and the transfer of the ‘Enterprise’ service from Lanyon Place. Iarnród Éireann (IE) included an interim timetable for the service, valid from August 25, in its systemwide timetable alterations (RE339) should the change of termini not occur, while Translink offered a bus-only option from Belfast for…

00 GAUGE 4mm:1ft 2006-present ERA EWS ACQUIRED the first batch of 68 HOA bogie aggregate hopper wagons which were finished in a neat cream livery with maroon stripes. They were used on sand and aggregate traffic for a short time before being transferred to Cemex aggregate traffic from Peak Forest. A number were repainted in Cemex livery for this traffic for a while. Further orders brought the fleet up to around 200 or so wagons with VTG/ Mendip Rail (MRL) and Emerwa/Tarmac being the operators. In the meantime, the EWS wagons started to be painted in DB Schenker colours around 2014 whilst the remainder became patched and tagged with graffiti. The EWS batch carried traditional six-figure TOPS numbers as Nos. 320000-320067. The introduction of international number sequences and the application of…

D&E FILES IN HIS BOOK An Approach to Model Railway Layout Design (Wild Swan Publications Ltd. 1990), Iain Rice explains the value of including a degree of ‘challenge’ in layout design, to maintain operational interest. He worked operational and shunting puzzle wrinkles into the deceptively simple single-track layout designs in his book to challenge operators. Double track main lines are popular in layout design because they allow intense levels of operation. How is it possible to introduce an operating wrinkle in double track plans which primarily supports continuous operation? One answer is the double junction where a secondary double track line diverges from the main, and a good example of a layout with a double junction as the central feature is Fairwood Junction built by Steve Jones. Operational challenges Immediately,…

TEN additional Class 345 electric multiple units ordered by Transport for London for the Elizabeth Line (RE338) will be delivered in the financial years 2026-2027 and 2027-2028. The timescales were confirmed in a letter from the former Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on June 14, and which was published by the Department for Transport on July 12. In the letter, Mr Harper writes: “TfL will proceed with the procurement very shortly with an expectation that these trains will be delivered in financial years 2026-27 and 2027-28; that the new trains will be manufactured by Alstom in Derby so as to fully coordinate with TfL’s existing Elizabeth Line Class 345 fleet; TfL will confirm to my senior officials the build strategy and location…

DB Cargo UK’s Stoke-on-Trent wagon maintenance facility will rebuild a further 30 BYA covered steel coil carriers into the distinctive open ‘Stegasaurus’ configuration for the carriage of hot and cold coils. This follows two previous batches of 30 and 40 vehicles that were similarly modified in 2021-2022 (Nos. 964018/33/5/49, 966002/4/7/9/11/7/40/7/50/79/97/100/17/44/5/59/61/71/201/5/9/10/33/44/7) and 2023 (Nos. 966025/9/31/6/41/3/4-6/58/62/7/82/4/5/93/6/111/8/25/9/36 /8/43/9/54/8/60/8/76/81/5/216/7/37-9/53/4/8) respectively, as well as the recent completion of 30 slab carriers earlier this year and around 30 examples that visited the former Marcroft Engineering workshops for the removal of their characteristic ‘Nissen Hut’ sliding hood sections in 2022-23. The final example of the previous slab carrier batch was completed on June 24, No. 966022 departing Stoke for Arpley and an eventual return to South Wales steel workings. The other 29 wagons in this series are…

CLASS 33 Preserved No. 33012 Lt Jenny Lewis RN had the London Transport 4-TC set in tow when forming a UK Railtours’ special to the Dean Forest Railway on July 27. The outward leg ran as the 1Z65 07.44 Basingstoke-Lydney Junction routed via Woking, Herne Hill, Virginia Water to Reading and then Swindon and the Golden Valley. On the return journey to Clapham Junction, GB Railfreight No. 66793 was attached at Basingstoke. The following morning the diesels top and tailed UK Railtours’ Waterside Wanderer special, running initially as the 1Z33 09.01 London Fenchurch Street-Harwich Town, later heading to Ipswich, Clacton-on-Sea, Thorpele-Soken, Walton-on-the-Naze and Colchester Town. CLASS 37 Warm weather and a steam locomotive requiring a boiler washout resulted in West Coast Railways Type 3s operating the afternoon ‘Jacobite’ service on…

THE long-awaited deployment of the Beacon Rail Class 18 locomotives to Network Rail infrastructure yards managed by GB Railfreight, finally commenced in mid-July, with two examples leaving Wolverton Works. First away on July 15, was No. 18012, which was taken to Whitemoor Yard, March, where pioneer No. 18001 was previously utilised for 12 months from February 2022. Next to leave Wolverton on July 17, was last-built No. 18015, this arriving at Eastleigh East Yard the following day after spending the night in a service area on the A34. Before the hybrid shunters can enter regular service, a period of crew training is required at both locations, and preparations for this were under way as this issue of Rail Express went to press. Ultimately, the Class 18s will replace the Class…

00 GAUGE 4mm:1ft 1998-present ERA IT’S HEAVY! Tipping the scales at 700g, there is little doubt that Accurascale’s new Class 66 will be more than capable of managing 30 or more bogie wagons. Its weight is the first impression one will have of this superbly detailed model which has won critical acclaim across the board. Consequently, writing this review was all the more enjoyable knowing that the positive observations made during six weeks of testing are the correct ones. Accurascale has taken what was already a good model and transformed it into a high quality product. The untidy, low cost, low maintenance appearance of the Class 66 is captured to perfection with a good balance between moulded and separately applied components bringing out this character in the model. There are a…

00 GAUGE 4mm:1ft 1956-1980s ERA IT IS NOT common knowledge among UK railway modellers that Oliver Bulleid of Southern Railway fame became the Chief mechanical Engineer for Corás Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) in February 1950, and a period of modernisation and standardisation on the Irish railways followed. One project was to replace numerous older and non-standard freight wagons with a new, then modern design. Bulleid developed a standard chassis (underframe) which was based on a frame formed of a welded triangular structure for strength. Notably, the wagons did not have continuous solebars. Instead, the angled frames met the headstocks at the wagon corners with a middle solebar section in the middle of the wagon, to which the axleguards and the drop side door hinges were attached. Whilst this review covers the brand-new…