35028 Clan Line to Exeter - now 10/08/19

Cheating but apparently Britannia did haul the Golden Arrow set on 6 May 1994 as part of the Eurotunnel celebrations,

34046 was quite a difficult loco for London spotters in the 50s being based at Brighton until it was rebuilt. I don't think it was ever shedded on the SE section. Locos which did work the Golden Arrow after the Brits were moved away included 34091, 34092 and 34100.

Did none of 35015, 26 and 27 operate all three of those trains? That seems a bit surprising.

 

I suppose if you want to be pedantic 35028 never worked the Arrow in rebuilt form and 70000 did work the first steam into Victoria in the preservation era renumbered 70004 complete with the Golden Arrow regalia. Who knows maybe Braunton will be renumbered as one of the regular Arrow light Pacifics

 

Depends on the period looked at - if the preservation era, then yes, 35028 has carried the regalia enough times to consider it THE regular Golden Arrow locomotive.

However, looking at the various photographs of the surviving MNs, it doesn't look as though any of them carried the Golden Arrow regalia in rebuilt form. The tell-tale is usually the bolts used to fix the shortened arrows to the deflectors. Unless I am mistaken, that makes only 34101 a true GA locomotive in its current/prospective BR condition. 34092 was attached to a cut-down tender - did it haul the train in this condition? That said, it's current format with reinstated tender raves is correct.

 

Yes, photographs of 35015 show the bolts on the smoke deflectors. Looks like it was the only one. Anyway, this discussion is for another place.

 

You are correct about the surviving MNs, the one I saw several times on Arrow in rebuilt form was 35015 Rotterdam Lloyd. I’m not sure about 34092. It was rare to see an MN on the train during the summer timetable when there were more heavy boat trains in the timetable. As 35028 is the only surviving MN to have a history on the train there is every justification for the title of Golden Arrow Engine.

 

Suggest mods move most of this to a new thread on potential wanderings, has naff all to do with the thread title

 

As has been written elsewhere, this railtour has been moved to 10th August for operational reasons.

 

The overall provisional timings aren't that different 18 years on.
Waterloo dep 0745; Rtn 2245, but this time back to Waterloo.
pu/sd Woking 0820; 2210
pu/sd Basingstoke 0845; 2145.

 

Looks like this is now up on the UK Railtours website: https://www.ukrailtours.com/product/the-atlantic-coast-express/

 

According to the Clan Line twitter feed on the 2/6/19 " Due to unforeseen circumstances, this is likely to be the only non Belmond trip that Clan Line will undertake for 2019 so dont miss out!!! ".

 

But last year, on top of the BP runs and the Torbays, Clan Line ran at least four trips with UKRT. It's a bit disappointing that there is only one this year. I was on the Chiltern & Downs trip last November and it was a superb run with what appeared to be a full train. From what I have read of the other three runs (two circulars running round Surrey and Hampshire plus the Sherborne trip in December), they were also full, so there is clearly a bigger market for non-Pullman trains hauled by 35028 than just one train per year. Hopefully, 2020 will be better.

 

But, even better, the First Rebuild is scheduled to work the Bournemouth Belle again, on 6th July, just like she did back in February 1956. Then she has another run on 9th July as a "Last SR steam" commemorative. Hooray for BIL!

 

I wonder why tour prompters would not want Clan Line? Big seller surely

 

I am sure a member from MNLPS can confirm but I thought I had read they were only happy for DBC drivers to drive it, which would of course prohibit some tour operators.
Although if that was true I did wonder what happened on the Torbay's when it got to Paignton.

 

Clan Line is only registered with DBC so not surprising it’s only their drivers that drive it on Network Rail. On the Torbay P&D drivers drive it on their tracks

 

Sorry John, I think you may find that CL is registered to run under "any suitable operator" so if the opportunity arose then it could quite happily operate a West Coast Railways train.

Clearly the Belmond contract is the MNLPS's bread and butter and rightly so takes priority. With it being in the hands of DBC they will clearly drive the loco more but lets hope one day that the right people from the MNLPS and WC can meet and who knows what may happen.

From a personal point of view, seeing 35018 haul a train one way then 35028 haul it back or vice verser would be something extremely special, now there's a thought!

Calm down gricerdon!