SRM 93 - Southall to Brentford 18 and 19th October

Keep open, show that you are worth taking interest in and give it time, lots of time.

 

I was on the bridge at Southall, the queue for the RailMotor, and the bus stop often intermingled. I engaged with a few of the locals and to anyone from the indian sub continent over the age of 30 steam was not heritage, its a far too recent motive power for them to be interested in. Also the sights and sound from that buss stop of steam rocking in and out of Southall shed is pretty common place as well.

 

Chatting to one local and he wanted to know where was the steam engine. I pointed out that it was inside the railcar. "No, no" he said, "a proper steam engine pulls carriages" and off he went.

 

I got a milepost seat but didn't have to fight for it. Max going out was 22.3 at Trumpers Xing. Good climb up into Southall on the way back with sustained 10.7 on the 1 in 150?

Don

 

I smell Plandampf ...

It might be counter intuitive though... having a Std 4 tank and 10 coaches, including first class and dining carriages replace a 2 car class 165.. the public might rebel and insist the swap becomes permanent.... what would Didcot be if it were a shed full of preserved class 165's where as Reading was full of 2-6-4ts...

 

Wonderful. Why not Maunsell Moguls as well to share the load plus of course a selection of Halls to please the copper cap brigade (of which I am one, but don't tell the Yeti)

Don

 

Large prairies would seem more appropriate. Pathing on a very busy main line would be tricky, so you might want to keep the load down to three or four coaches, to get similar acceleration to a DMU. You've still got the problem of getting the stock and loco back out of Paddington, so maybe seven coaches with top and tail prairies?

Next year sounds good, before Crossrail's EMUs take over. Then again, once Crossrail does start, getting in and out of Paddington will be less busy.

 

Only problem is the shortage of appropriate locos'.. only tank loco's are two Brummie locked Panniers that have little chance of escaping a West Midlands postcode.

with the mainline pool at the moment, closest for that kind of job would be 4965 and 4936, however as 4965 is under more parental control than a teenager its doubtful it'd get permission to wander so far from home for such a long time either.

So it'd end up being two black fives.. or more likely a 47 and a black 5.
The of course is the usual scares of impact on real service trains, disabilities, ethnicities etc.. so it'd end up being routed round the Greenford loop instead with 10 minute station stops.
Of course on the day engineering work would get in the way and so it'd be diverted from Basingstoke to Woking instead.

We could dream however, my dream would be a Castle going express Paddington to Reading, stopping at Maidenhead... Tyseley's panniers running to Bourne End, with the Railmotor running to Marlow... however without 6 digits in the Euromillions there's little hope of that happening.

Quite how Marlow keeps a viable train service I don't get.

 

286,000 passengers a year is how.

 

For at least some of last weekend all trains through Southall (not counting the Brentford shuttle) were on the relief. So a normal Sunday service with both main and relief available should leave some paths free to fit in a steam shuttle between Reading and Paddington. In the absence of tank engines the LE turning movements at each end would need further paths, round the triangle at Reading and round the Greenford loop, but again those should be possible. Local passengers happening to turn up would have the choice of the regular services at the normal times and fares or paying extra for the specials; or perhaps just the normal full fares.

How about VT doing it with a Castle and a Hall? Double-headed from Moor Street via Didcot in the morning; drop off one loco at either Didcot or Reading to turn, with the other continuing to Paddington; one or two Paddington-Reading and back trips, then back to Moor Street in the evening via Park Royal and High Wycombe for a change.

And BTW, this is another theme that deserves to be hived off into a separate thread.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it) I wasn't support crew on this trip. Someone had to be back at Didcot fixing other locos!
However, one thing that's noticeable is the orange vests in the driving end in everyone's photos. In the post event review, we'll try and make sure it's minimized next time.
It was sad that the trailer 92 wasn't allowed out as well, but this was beyond our control and these things happen. Very disappointing for us as a lot of practical work hours were put in, as well as behind the scenes negotiating. This is the main reason for putting in the extra trips to cover the fewer seats available.
However, there are some other ideas in the pipeline and hopefully next time there may be more seats available.

 

TBH. The hi viz doesn't bother me. My snaps are pictures of the rail motor running in 2014, something that should be celebrated; not an attempt to pretend they are the rail motor running 100 years ago.

 

The Donkey calls at Cookham and it's heaving on the platform, even for the first train of the day. School kids use it big time.

 

Better to plan it ahead to get the right locos, rather than just using what is available. Plenty of working 41XX, 51XX locos and, 6106. 1501 and 9466 to remove empty stock from Paddington. Hall and Castles already available.

 

Exactly. My videos are all about the fact that in HST obsessed 2014, we in the UK manage to doff our caps, smile, salute and revel in the fact we have time to allow our heritage out to play on a real live working railway. If I wanted scenes of yesteryear (they have their place) I would film on the preserved railway. (not allowed to say toy railway anymore). Trouble is most lines that have been preserved never looked that good when they were working lines!

Not only the glimpse of a hi viz normally gets you a whistle!

 

But - how many have all the mainline gubbins? How many could keep up a decent speed with a commercial load?

The options are a loco at each end, as per HiWy - Marylebone shuttles a few years ago, or three locos: one hauling the train, the others turning at either end on the Reading West triangle or the Greenford loop, with a double-header at the end of the day back to Pad, and the final ECS to Southall with one on the front and 2 on the back, just to shot-blast the roof beams properly!

Although the current residents of Southall at the time would be the obvious choices, don't discount the Tyseley locos too quickly. Although they don't normally stray far from home, they've been to the S&C, Plymouth and even Edinburgh in the recent past. If Bob, Ben & Co can be convinced that there won't be a big impact on Mon-Fri work in the workshops, and it looks like a fun weekend, they might just go for it.