Castle Over Shap - Sat 20 Jun

been reading O S Nock's book, Stars,Castles and Kings, Appears 7029 passed Scout Green at 38mph and cleared the summit at 42mph in 1967. Can they beat that this time I wonder. load was 7 bogies.

 

46236
I very much doubt it with 10.But time will tell.

 

Just attempted to book on this and it is now a sell out, bar 3 premier dining seats. Given that i've only just got myself into a position to be able afford standard class it looks like i'll be missing out! Hope everyone who's travelling enjoys themselves, should be a cracker.

 

This needs a few words of caution, the timing point in 1967 was likely different from MP37.25 that we use today. This is confirmed by the fact that Nock list "Shap Summit" as 49.2 Mile from Garstang. A clear reference is MP9.5 which is 21 Miles from Garstang, so assuming MP9.5 hasn't moved this puts "Shap Summit" at 37.7 miles, i.e. almost 1/2 mile beyond the summit and on the level section. So it's likely the increase from 38mph to 42 was acheive on this section. Tebay was passed at only 56.5mph after a pws between Gragrigg and Tebay.

So we’ve covered the northbound climbs, has anybody got the times for 46115 southbound to Penrith and on to MP37.5?

 

Time to 37.5 was on 9/may/09 36.49 and to Penrith 23.07

 

And for the record the best time to 37.5 is as follows,
60532 10/385 10th July 1999 to Penrith 21.10 and to 37.5 34.43.
And finally the fastest from Penrith to 37.5 is 12.46 by 60532 on 12/475 13 Sept 1997
Thats yer lot.
Good luck on Saturday.

 

I'm going to have a 'chase by train' day for a change Hope to catch it at Preston/Carlisle/Oxenholme/Lancaster. Nice day out if the weather stays fine and no pendo/voyagers get in the way !

 

Hmm,six pages and there isn't even a fire in her yet.
I look forward to my Sunday morning read with great anticipation.

 

Kevin

You are not correct on this. EOME had a warming fire lit in her firebox yesterday, a gentle warm through before leaving for Crewe tomorrow morning.

Chris

 

I knew that Chris.
Just wanted to wind 'em up and watch them run. \/
Now I'll have to get another ID and start again. :-#

 

I'm glad they lit the warming fire in her firebox. Would hate to have seen the mess if they had lit it elsewhere. #-o

 

Clun Castle in 1967 was by no means the first Castle to tackle Shap...

In Cecil J. Allen’s book The Locomotive Exchanges, there is an account of the loan of 5000 Launceston Castle to the LMS in 1926. This includes a log of a run from Crewe to Carlisle on Nov. 16th with a 57-axle train of 415 tons gross. On this occasion driver William Young achieved a time of 157 minutes (sched. 165 minutes) “without any undue exertion of his engine” and without exceeding 79mph at any point. Grayrigg was topped at 26.5mph, Tebay passed at 66mph, Scout Green at 32mph and Shap Summit at 20mph. Several other Crewe-Carlisle runs were made with loads up to 450 tons gross (in a furious westerly gale and heavy rain) without the Castle ever failing to keep to schedule. As Allen observes, “Launceston Castle and her crew, covered with glory, then returned to their own system”.

Interestingly, one of the outcomes of the 1926 GWR / LMS loco exchange was the decision by the LMS to abandon designs for a new Pacific loco and instead build the Royal Scot class. As Allen further observes, it was apparent from the outstanding performance of the rebuilt Royal Scot class locomotive in the 1948 Locomotive Exchanges that “The lessons of the 1926 exchange by now had been learned and applied with a vengeance!” The recent superb performances of Scots Guardsman further underline this point.

I’m on Saturday’s trip, and am hoping that Earl of Mount Edgcumbe will produce a performance to remember. The comparison with Scots Guardsman will indeed be fascinating. Great to hear the trip’s a sell-out!.

 

As I understand it, the LMS need for a new express passenger loco was very urgent. Fowler asked Collet for a copy of the Castle design, but was turned down. At the time, the Southern had just introduced the Lord Nelson class, with a slightly higher tractive effort figure than the Castle. Fowler asked Maunsell for a copy of the LN design instead, and Maunsell agreed. In many ways, Lord Nelson was closely related to the Castles, especially in the design of the "front end". At least one senior member of Maunsell's design team (can't remember his name off-hand, sorry) had recently come from Swindon, and brought useful knowledge of Churchward's development work with him, so Fowler got the design knowledge he wanted, though by an indirect route. The resulting Royal Scot class was a three-cylinder version of the LN chassis paired with a Fowler boiler. Meanwhile, Swindon and Paddington had been sufficiently goaded by Lord Nelson's power figures to let Collet build the Kings. And, of course, Gresley and his team were learning similar lessons, comparing Flying Scotsman with, I think, Pendennis Castle.

Of course, each of the three "cousins" were improved by the designer's successor: the Castle with extra super-heating and a double chimney by Hawksworth, the Royal Scot with Stanier's Swindon-inspired taper boiler, and the Lord Nelson by Bulleid with Lemaitre exhaust and other improvements to the front-end

I wonder if the good people at Vintage Trains would like to organise "Lord Nelson Over Shap", perhaps next spring, using the same rolling stock and timings?

 

The Earl passed through Sutton Park at 15.40 this afternoon on its journey to Crewe.
graham

 

Forecast is intermittent light rain - perfect rail conditions then ! :-$

 

Hopefully myself and Kieran will be going up to Shap Wells for her tomorrow, am i right in thinking that you head up towards Shap summit, park on the edge of the road then walk down towards the bridge over the railway line although before going down towards the fence / gate you go through to the bridge do you turn left and head down the hill as though your heading down to the line where you should find a bridge at the bottom which you go through to the right and then up through the woods? Am i along the right lines?

 

If you want Shap Wells, you will find a minor road junction from the Orton road leading (and signposted) to the Shap Wells Hotel. This is about half a mile south of the track leading to the footbridge. You will go underneath the railway on this road which as stated leads to the hotel. The footbridge is actually Shap summit cutting.
Hope this helps.

 

5043 was in usual Tyseley pristine condition today on her way to Crewe for the run over Shap on the 20th. A couple of pics here.

http://michaelsgallery.fpic.co.uk/p59049065.html

Rods down too \/ \/ \/