Welsh Borders Tour - 15th Feb - Loco ?

Approaching Leaton Crossing:



Following loco service at Abbey Foregate Carriage Sidings:



Climbing away from Shrewsbury up Battlefield Bank:

(I may have been guilty of taking a pair of bolt cutters to the over-head plyon cables here)

 

Galatea returning past Hadnall with some rare sunshine

And seen earlier outward in less pleasant conditions at Woolascott

 

Galatea back on form !

 

Nice footage
Almost too well for 13 ..... and a box?

 

Lovely pictures Mr Cooper,
thank you,
i may even bother you for one of those.

The melter

 

A short video of Galatea passing Prees Station:



Chris

 

45699 Galatea at Prees this afternoon:


45699 Galatea by Lewis Maddox, on Flickr

Thanks,
Lewis

 

shot of the Jube passing Preston at a fair speed this evening

 

Ridiculous load for a Jubilee. I hope that is not the future for RTC excursions.

 

At this time of year, and with a route going up Gresford Bank, the options would have been double heading, a much shorter train carrying far fewer paying passengers, which probably would have run at a loss, or what they chose ̶ diesel on the back. So I think that choice was perfectly reasonable.

Can anyone report on how much of the run the diesel was assisting for?

 

Except that this was not an RTC train. After last week (and the fun & games of the current dire weather) no chances taken.

JS

 

Had no trouble with Gresford on Oct 5 last year also with 13 on the hook and then it was offbeat sounding like a V2.
This run seemed to have a much cleaner fire than last week.
Seems to me she is settling down nicely.
Well done West Coast.

Cheers Dave

 

Assisted on the outward leg up Gresty, but was just ticking over for it's run up Battlefield. Take a look at my video above for your own opinion.

 

Seen at Shrewsbury Station, a fair number of people out to:

 

More my fault than yours! I take the point made by MellishR above but I would far rather pay a bit more to travel on a train with a sensible load and no diesel. I note that the WCRC website has, " Departing St Neots around 0630 (Peterborough around 0700 and Doncaster around 0830) with a diesel locomotive in charge we make our way across country to the railway hub at Crewe where we detach our diesel in exchange for steam traction.". With 13 coaches the diesel support was inevitable.

 

I suspect the diesel that brought the train into Crewe was detatched. ....before then running round and reattaching at the back whilst the steamer screwed on the front.

On the run down to Shrewsbury as it came through Leaton the 47 was clearly only just on tick-over, I don't think its engine could have run any slower without stopping, but then the line is one great long downhill into the town. On the climb up past Battlefield I felt the 47 was sitting at slightly high revs than in the morning, but it still wasn't doing any shoving. Perhaps they'd turned all the heaters on in the carriages?!

To be fair to West Coast, it's not been unheard of for them to send a diesel down shadowing the main charter train a short while behind if an addition loco is needed for shunting etc, so sticking the diesel on the back isn't always their automatic solution.