The Royal Duchy 2021

The industry guidelines document for steam train lengths and loads issued by Network Rail shows load 8 for a class 6 power classification for GW108 Newton Abbot-Plymouth. (Reduced to 6 during the autumn period).

 

The guidelines are hardly adhered to. West Coast Jubes have taken 11 up Miles Platting, 12 over Shap and Thirteen out of Shrewsbury, I'm sure nine will be doable, Just !

 

Indeed. All depends how much risk you want to take with your delay minutes of course!

 

Let's not mention delay minutes.

I remember waiting in pouring rain for the first Royal Duchy when it was delayed by 108 mins at Taunton by a points failure. <BJ>

 

Loco change in Taunton station P1 this time so I understand.

 

Lol! Yes - slip of the keyboard....
(Fairwater on the return though)

 

Does the loco wait in platform 1 though?

 

This is what we've been waiting for. Timings now available. <BJ>

1Z90 outbound: Realtime Trains - 1Z90 0846 Slough to Par
0Z90 light loco: Realtime Trains - 0Z90 1107 Taunton to Plymouth
1Z92 return: Realtime Trains - 1Z92 1738 Par to Slough
0Z92 light loco: Realtime Trains - 0Z92 1828 Plymouth to Fairwater Yard

 

West Coast must surely have been tempted to put the diesel on the back on the steam legs to save a path. It's good that they seem to have resisted the temptation.

 

There are also these showing on RTT:

45596+POB to WSR:

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U13500/2021-07-31/detailed

and to get across from the WSR in the morning:

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U13503/2021-08-01/detailed

 

Wow 2 hours just to turn the loco on the Greenford triangle!

 

Dunno what was showing when you looked, but RTT now shows very little time there and apparently not turning but just reversing at the East Junction and heading straight back -- which doesn't make much sense.

 

I was looking yesterday at the planned times before it actually happened just short of 2 hours Southall-Greenford-Southall. Of course in the end it was 53 minutes early passing Southall heading west.

 

Really looking forward to tomorrow. Today's lateral flow test came back negative, will do another one first thing tomorrow morning before setting out. Facemask will probably be on all day as I'm in the buffet coach which I imagine will have a higher number of people passing through it than other coaches.

 

A serious check on the lower part of Rattery and Tigley at Follaton which put the Jube at a crawl. This has all the trademarks of a tresspass incident. The HST before was also down to a crawl too. The loco almost came to stand with numerous slips while trying to keep the loco moving, great driving from Andy Taylor, I assume ?

 

We came to abrupt stop just after Totnes, I thought maybe it was the driver missed the AWS the Jubilee dug in very hard on the climb. Nearly came to a halt at one stage but we made it.

 

Not sure - but being 4 mins early at Totnes she would have got checked by 1C77 in any event (which didn't pass Aish until 1254).

 

Not sure about standard practice - I recall that Ray Churchill used to have a "special arrangement" with the signallers to ensure that was what happened.