70013 'Oliver Cromwell'. London to Bristol. 24th July, 2014

Here is the new oil fired class 4770000 "Oil-iver Cromwell" departing Addlestone. The first steam to pick up there since 1964, it was chaos. There were 3 BTP PCSO's , and 4 Surrey Police PCSO's in attendance, someone from Nitwork Rail, three guys form Southwest Trains, and none of them did a damn thing to stop the hoards balancing on he platform edge despite the fact the engineering train was due through in the other direction. IN fact one of them entered a restricted safety related area to take pictures on a phone. Funnily enough they parked the 4770000 hybrid class across the crossing in busy Addlestone high street causing traffic chaos that lasted for over 30 minutes.

 

No diesel means it was absent Film confirming same available on up platform ,Winchfield ,this evening.

 

So why and how and where did they split that out of the consist?

 

I'm confused, Are you saying the '47 had been removed from the consist before it got to Winchfield? Cant see where that was done looking at this schedule

2810Addlestone [ASN]11008101510121012½2E
2913Addlestone Jnpass1018No report2
307Byfleet & New Haw [BFN]2pass1023pass1021¼1EDS3
3129West Byfleet [WBY]3pass1026½pass1023½2E
342Woking [WOK]5103410361033½1036½RTS
3437Woking Jnpass1038pass1039½1LS
3754Brookwood [BKO]2pass1042pass1042½RTDSDS
3923Pirbright Jnpass1044pass1044RTS
4239Farnborough London Endpass1047½pass1047¾RTDSDS
4272Farnborough (Main) [FNB]2pass1048pass1048¾RTDSDS
4613Fleet [FLE]2pass1052pass1052¾RTS
4941Winchfield [WNF]2105611091056½1109RT

 

Whoops .Oh dear so it WAS there behind the engine. Wishful thinking and narrow camera angle misled me . Nice sun on engine though.

 

Definitely had a class 47 behind the tender at Southwood between Farnborough and Fleet and I've got pictures to prove it! Two shots now on Flickr and this is the first one in the Photostream :

RD9793. 70013 and 47237 passing Southwood. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the other one.

 

This may help you both. <BJ>
http://www.specsavers.co.uk/offers

 

Made me feel sick to the stomach watching that for obvious reasons! No disrespect to mrKnowwun. Glad I wasn't anywhere near the box driver, especially on the train!
There again I'm not mug enough to book on these SO CALLED steam farces.

 

I'm on the run next week so not holding my breath but it certainly isn't worth booking in advance in July and August. Certainly my last summer booking. However, I'm sure plenty of 'ordinaries' will take up the slack. Difficult for the organizers of course.

 

Weymouth that is of course. See above.

 

As our resident barrack room lawyer, why don't you start a test case? Oh hang on a minute, you're not on the tour.

 

I think thats a bit of an over reaction. I am glad I was their to film such an event, and I pleased to say there were a lot of passengers who took advantage of that boarding point and as you can see a lot turned up to see the event. I think most were peeved it stopped across the other side of the road. To be fair, I think WCR and NR did the very best they could tucking the diesel in behind, and driving with one eye on fire risk.

 

Please see the last sentence in my last post! Unlike most on this forum it seems, I don't have more money then sense.
Also, I defy anyone on here to identify any other part of the leisure/travel industry that gets short changed like steam tour punters.

 

So you're not going to champion the cause of the short changed rail tour passenger then? Thought not.

 

June last year. ''A cruise down the Rhine from Cologne to Basel, Switzerland''.
The Rhine closed during the cruise due to flooding and so we wasted day after day on coach trips.
Not good. No refund. <BJ>

 

On time departure 17:36 from BTM. <BJ>

 

A couple of quotes from the terms and conditions on a pair of tour operators' websites. Several weeks of dry weather and resultant dry lineside is outside of their control, and probably counts as adverse conditions, as much as snow and flooding does. Good luck bringing a case against them.