The Dorset Coast Express 2023

DCE times now on RTT, as last year includes a path for the U.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...6/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=WR

Plus the extra LE return to Swanage in the evening

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U54906/2023-07-26/detailed

Hopefully may be damp enough in the New Forest for the U.

 

LE move from Victoria https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U54898/2023-07-26/detailed looks like it's banked up to Grosvenor Bridge as was normal with the DBC Belmond workings

 

No U on Wednesday I'm afraid

 

Too dry or unavailable? It seems to have been receiving a lot of engineering attention recently.

 

Not too dry, not unavailable.
Just that it apparently doesn’t fit through some stations that it was ok for last year….

 

You have to wonder if the U will ever used very disappointed

 

Any idea where the pinch points are? Unless it still fits via Yeovil, assuming it is towards London sort of makes it trapped by a rail move anywhere.

 

It probably fits just fine but if its gauging certificate has lapsed it will need regauging before it can go out on Network Rail again

Peter

 

If that is the case someone has failed to plan ahead. I was considering a last-minute booking if steam banking out of Weymouth was looking likely. I now know not to bother this time.

 

You may say that and it could be true. Equally likely is the fact that the the gauging request was submitted some time ago and is still in Network Rail's pending tray. I doubt that gauging a steam loco for a once a year outing is very high on their gauging priority list.

Peter

 

Peter I did wonder if it was down to paperwork as I seem to remember No 9 suddenly being out of gauge at P4 in Carlisle when there had been no track relaying. Somebody at the time mentioned that if things were not checked NR assumed a certain amount of movement each year and hence locos "fell out of gauge" although in reality they were not. Unsure if that was the case then or would be now.
DCE's seemed doomed, I remember back in I think 2017 I was stewarding on the 3rd of 5 which were all No 9 trips and when we arrived at Basingstoke NR said the loco was too heavy for a bridge between Worgret Junction and Wool, which of course had been crossed four times previously that season. After much use of phones the rest of the years trips had a TSR (I think a 5mph) restriction over the bridge. Quite how you end up with a decision like that half way through the outbound leg is shall we say "curious".

 

You're not the only one. I had even got as far as contacting RTC, telling them I would like to buy a ticket once they could confirm that the U would be used on the return leg. One can but hope that it's not too late to sort this out in time for one of the later DCEs. Given that 31806 began life as a "River", a class of loco designed for the South Eastern & Chatham Railway which was notorious for its many tight clearances*, it's hard to believe that a U can't go somewhere which is passed for a Jubilee.

If only 76017 would come steaming out of Southall complete with AWS, TPWS, all the other electronic gubbins and a suitable gauging certificate to save the day!

(* Although Tonbridge-Hastings was probably too tight; I think that only the three cylinder moguls were allowed on this line.)

 

As a colleague used to say to me: the trouble is you're trying to apply logic to it.

 

So far, apart from it's ML test run from Weymouth, 31806 has only made it onto a top and tailed SD excursion with 61306 from Portsmouth in 2021.
I would also be very tempted to book a DCE if the U was going to make an appearance.
I did also wonder if 76017 was going to make an appearance on the DCE's at some point but it just seems to be using up it's boiler ticket sitting at Southall

 

There was also a GB appearance in 2018, top and tailed with 45212 from Yeovil Jn-Weymouth-Swanage.

 

And very impressive it was too.

 

Very many thanks for posting this. Like some others on here I was about to book, would have been beyond frustrating to have found out on the day as has happened in numerous similar situations in the past!

 

Agreed.
My video from that day:

 

What do you think, Alan? Of course I'm speculating. I was replying to @MellishR's post speculating that someone had failed to plan ahead by suggesting (speculating) that there could possibly be an alternative explanation. Nothing I've stated have I claimed as fact and I fail to see how you can read that I am casting aspersions on anyone or any organisation.

Sorry if none of this was clear to you

Peter