York Yuletide Express 26/11/22

I wonder if anyone took any photos of the Duchess taking water near Finedon last night. I know it was dark,but this is such a rare occurence {perhaps unique} that I would like to see some pictures. I am a little puzzled as to how the tanker got to the lineside, as it is only a narrow farm road between Great Harrowden and Finedon though.

 

As @The Man actually drives these things I would tend to think he knows what he is talking about.

 

He was actually driving this thing. There is nothing to stop steam going via Corby ‘over the alps’ . It’s the lack of a place to water. The only place is plat 1 at KET. Study the timetable and see if you can make it work. We’ve tried.
We come off STL then run via Dudding Hill to the MML. That’s about 80 miles. From a cold start, that is just too far. We used about 4K galls yesterday, even with Diesel assistance.
We can’t water at Finedon Rd on the Down, because you can’t run in the Down direction on the Up slow from Wellingborough.
I can assure you there is a good reason why things are done as they are.

 

The electric trains you saw before May were driver training route learners that ran some days and not others. The reason as I said the special ran into plat 4 was because there were no other trains about . On a normal Saturday it would have gone into plat 2 to let MML trains pass. In fact, there is a Nottingham train booked to stop in Plat 4 about the same time as Saturday's special, and a non stopper just behind it.

 

I'm assuming it was at Finedon station. I was at Harrowden for the Bahamas run and the steam in the distance at the stop appeared to be around that area.

Jon

 

Going back to the mid 1950s when Oakley(Just north of Bedford )water troughs were under repair ,all trains were booked to take/stop at Kettering for water.( 72 miles from St Pancras )One or two non stoppers per day, espec if double headered, went straight thro' to Leicester (99miles) .5X Jubilees and Class 5s were the motive power .