Golden Arrow Statesman 15-Jun-2013

The 4th one of these excellent Statesman Rail Pullmans is running on Saturday. Starting point this time is Peterborough and the changeover to steam is scheduled for Willesden Sidings. Unfortunately, Tangmere's great run of no failures since November 2011 ended yesterday ( 09-Jun-2013) with valve gear problems and Tangmere is at Norwich depot.

Will it be available to haul the Statesman Pullman? If not what is available and powerful enough to haul the Statesman? Clan Line. Like to see Clan Line on the West London Line. What else if MNLPS say no?

 

Tangmere is at southall

 

UKSteam has posted the timings for this run still showng Tangmere as motive power, and no hint of any problems on the Statesman website. Perhaps Tangmere could be fixed in time if it's already at Southall.

 

These changes can be very last minute. A week ago today we all thought Bittern would be hauling The Cheshireman but on the day before we learnt it would be Union of South Africa. Have to keep an eye out on UK Steam right up to late tomorrow night.
Barry

 

Not quite true - first suggestion that No 9 may be on The Cheshireman appeared on this forum on 2nd June - 4 days before the trip (but we still don't know why Bittern was not available).

 

Just looked at UK Steam web-site. Some doubt as to whether Tangmere will be available for Statesman. Now says 34067/TBA. That makes me doubt that Tangmere will be hauling The Swanage Belle tomorrow. Hope Tangmere can haul the Canterbury Statesman on Saturday. Tangmere looks so good with the Golden Arrow regalia.

 

44932 is reportedly coming south to take charge of the Swanage Belle, but should be moving to Bristol on Saturday, Barry.

James at SVN

 

Isn't statesman mk2 set all air braked ?, certainly the 57 hung on the back is.
That would remove 44932 from the plan.

 

Still showing 34067/TBA on UK Steam and 34067 on the Statesman Rail website. It would be pretty impressive to see Tangmere back to health in less than a week, but (a) not much has been released regarding how bad the valve gear problem is, and (b) the preservation movement can do quite amazing things when they pull the stops out.

 

Fixing a valve problem in 3 working days, and then getting the FTR and other preparations done, is perhaps a big ask, so no surprise that 44932 went to Swanage. Fixing it in 5 days is much more do-able. Without knowing what the problem actually was, and what else the fitters were working on this week, one can't say anything for sure, but I'd guess the chances of Tangmere working the GA Statesman tomorrow are better than 50/50.

 

As described to me, the problem with 34067 at Norwich was that it couldn't to placed into forward gear, so I guess it might just conceivably be an issue with the steam reverser ? But I have no definite info on this.

 

Nothing in steam at Southall tonight.

 

I understand that Tangmere has been repaired and declared fit for tomorrow's Statesman train.

David

 

That's im

That's impressive work. Thanks for letting us all know, David.

 

Many thanks David. Good news.

But my eldest daughter is over soon as an advance party for Fathers Day. And following a chat with her yesterday about my hopeful recovery from a kidney infection she will almost certainly fail me on my FTR exam, so I shan't be going out to watch Tangy pass by. From comments she made I think she will arrive with a large red "NOT TO BE MOVED" sign that will be slung round my neck!

But there is a positive side to that. I shall continue to prattle on and on here about superlative Bulleid performances from the 1960s. LOL!

 

Prattle on about this performance then, the boys at Southall done good, Tangmere storming along here.

 

Been told there was a signal failure at Canterbury West. The return will probably be late.

James at SVN

 

About an hour late leaving Canterbury, reduced to 30 odd minutes by Willesden (as per RTT) so unlikely to require coaches/cabs to get passengers home unlike the trip from Derby earlier this month!

 

Hiya! Was 48 minutes down at Orpington. My 2 clips of the day.

 

Very nice film Jeff. However, as you don't like prattle I suppose I am unlikely to get a comment from you on my Orpington clip where I caught Tangmere also going pretty quick? be nice to hear from you. Barry