The Great Britain Saturday 11th

No chance!!...they are all to busy having a pop at each other!!

Highlander.

 

Kyle on Saturday. Magic.

[attachment=0:13rttif4]20090411-loch_gowan1.jpg[/attachment:13rttif4]

 

Super shot (as always) Paul - well done =D>

 

Thanks, there are many more to follow from 'GB II' once I've had time to sort through all the shots. The weather was way beyond expectations on all days and the performance of the locos was absolutely magnificent, the sound of the engines climbing the various highland gradients will stay with me for a very long time.

 

My gradient profiles must be wrong. I never would have thought it, I mean fancy Shap being 1 in 50 after all these years. Come on now folks, enlighten me please, who else didn't know this?

 

In order to reduce the load for the Kyle trip (which was an optional trip, so some passengers did not travel on it), the "Club Car", a Pullman and an FO were removed from the basic 10 coach formation and there waths no support coach.

 

Given that The Marquess struggled to make it to Ravens Rock with 7 on, I think the full 10 would've been impossible ;-) I don't believe there's a 20mph restriction at the foot of Shap followed by 4 miles of 1 in 50 including many sharp curves. It's the same with Beasdale bank, it's the gradient combined with sharp reverse curves that makes the climb notorious.

 

Given that The Marquess struggled to make it to Ravens Rock with 7 on, I think the full 10 would've been impossible ;-) I don't believe there's a 20mph restriction at the foot of Shap followed by 4 miles of 1 in 50 including many sharp curves. It's the same with Beasdale bank, it's the gradient combined with sharp reverse curves that makes the climb notorious.[


We don't know what the K4 is capable of since it appears to have had little difficulty once the contaminated railhead had been dealt with. A hyperactive flange pot/lubricator can make a mockery of the attempts at adhesion of any locomotive regardless of its origin. As for the little mogul, it has handled 530 tons on the S & C, though this is a far easier route than that to Kyle and it would be interesting to see it with 11 on over Shap, I don't believe we will see it tested out any time soon. A tour promoter might prove me wrong though.

 

That is probably one of the daftest suggestions I've heard in a while. Yes, the K4 is a strong engine, and I have little doubt that it could make it up Shap with 11 on, but it would do so at a plod. To give the K4 that kind of load given the sustained high speed running required on the WCML, you're asking for trouble when you've got 100mph+ electrics. I'm sure the tour promoters and NR will also see sense. I thought 8 over the WHL a couple of years ago was a pretty good (and realistic) test?

 

The load limit to Kyle has always been seven. Eight was tried last year and failed spectacularly so the reversion to seven this year is merely the norm.

At a Century+ for the 130 miles return I'm not really surprised that all the stock was not needed anyway.

 

I was on it last year and enjoyed the day a lot. I wouldnt say the failure was spectacular - and have no doubt that had it not been for coming upon a flange lubricator tender first when we did the tour would have run fairly well to time.

 

A couple more from Saturday's run.

Loch a' Chuilinn at the top of the 1-in-50 from Lochluichart:
[attachment=1:36nthutc]20090411-loch_a_chuilinn2.jpg[/attachment:36nthutc]

Badicaul, shortly after leaving Kyle of Lochalsh on the return:
[attachment=0:36nthutc]20090411-badicaul.jpg[/attachment:36nthutc]

 

Very nice

STEVE

 

Not a truly serious suggestion just a notion of an interesting test. Not sure why you think it would plod though, not based on the performances in Feb and March of 1990. Check them out.

 

Thanks Martin. As well as being a great place for a photo, it's also a fantastic place just to watch the train, as you see the smoke trail coming all the way up the valley and then going away around the loch and along the glen towards Achnasheen. All in, the train must be visible for over 10 minutes. On this occasion, I'm guessing the good light was due to my close proximity to a certain sun god

 

Fantastic location, but rare for steam sadly!