60163 Tornado to Kingswear 23rd March 2013

Good recovery from the TSR at waterside up over the two viaducts at Broadsands. Rat followed in path behind for shunt release at Kingswear.

 

No TSR at Waterside anymore, that was lifted after the SDR tamper did its stuff a couple of weeks back. All went well on the DSR section the loco working the train without the banker. D7535 was kept at Goodringto just in case, but not needed so we ran light between the special and service train in order to shunt the air braked stock at Kingswear.

 

Return timings:
Realtime Trains

 

Having recovered a lot of the lost time powers away from Aller Junc:

60163 Tornado Cathedrals Express - YouTube

 

Lovely video, quote and credits.

 

Travelled over to Reading tonight to see the last Saturday steam hauled service for a couple of years. Lovely blast on the whistle has Wayne opened up Tornado towards London. I know it is late but I was surprised there weren't more "enthusiasts" there to witness the event.

Not surprising I guess being a Saturday night, that a lot of drunk louts were on the platform, and one of them with a tall London Irish rugby hat on, decided to climb on to the footplate uninvited in an advance drunk state. He had to be dragged off the footplate in the end and inspector Geoff Ewans dealt with the matter very efficiently.

In the end it didn't spoil what is a sad day for steam at Reading. Roll on 2015 which seems such a long way off.

The final long blast on Tornado's whistle has it disappeared in to the distance heading for London was a poignant moment in time that I shall cherish for a long time.

 

Trouble is that you cannot get on to Reading Station without any form of ticket. Even worse now that the "old" footbridge is closed to non passengers, so you cannot go on there to have a view.

 

....maybe not the last........ !

David

 

My video from the Cathedrals Express is now online, captured at Bishopsteignton, Broadsands, Torre and Tiverton Parkway. The link is below.

Credit must go to the crew for getting 60163 back in action in just over an hour yesterday after the incident at Slough.

The link to my video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkggJt6j3fA

James at SVN

 

You are absolutely right that, unlike say Woking where they are very courteous and would never turn someone away, Reading is a different matter altogether to such an extent that I would accuse them of being over zealous, arrogant and very rude.

The way I overcome the platform access issue is to buy a ticket to the nearest station, Reading West, for £2.20, and no one can turn you away.

Last night, you would not have had a problem because the barrier staff had gone home and the gates were open when Tornado arrived!

 

Nice. The view from the roadside at Aller have been much improved now all the tress have gone to make way for the new road

 

How much! It's only just round the corner, about a 2 minute or less journey. What a rip off.

 

Most fares these days are a rip-off. But what would a bus have cost for that journey - probably not much less.

John

 

£1.80 which is a flat fare for the whole Reading area.
There again, I remember the days of the 2d platform tickets out of a large cream coloured machine. Valid for an hour in theory, but lost track of time??!!

http://www.railblue.com/pages/Related Rail Blue Info/platform_tickets.htm

 

Fail to see what any of this has to do with the topic?

 

08.03-05 and 20.14-21 on Tuesday 26th. Impressive getting a path up the Berks and Hants and through Reading in the middle of the morning peak!

 

Tornado yesterday morning at Iver

Dave Ryding Photography | 60163 Tornado - The Cathedrals Express 23.03.13. | _DSR4628

And video from my mate

34067 TANGMERE , & 60163 TORNADO , Sat. 23rd.March 2013. - YouTube

 

[video=youtube;q6V2puZQqcg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6V2puZQqcg[/video]

My footage from both Mayflower and Cathedrals Express tours yesterday, it wasn't exactly my most successful day out filming I'll tell you that!

 

There is always one who has to put a "downer" on things. Not worth trying to explain except to say how many threads don't go off topic on here?