"The Atlantic Coast Express" Sunday 7th.April 2013.

That's as maybe including myself. But people still might have difficulty in expressing themselves on paper, we are not all superbrains. Perhaps not the right expression, but some people are thicker than others.
You shouldn't put people down because they don't have an IQ of ten million.

 

Just back from a day at the office and allow me to follow my comment about the diesel failure.

It all happened when we pulled into Chard Junction for water. driver Peter Roberts walked back from the 34067 and, as I often speak with Peter, we had a chat and I said "Peter, are you enjoying the "stroll through the park?" And it was at then that he said that on the initial climb of Semley bank, the diesel failed completely, leaving Tangmere "out of the blue" to take train and dead diesel over the summit and beyond and with water low in the glass and pressure down, it was a close run thing. In the meantime, the diesel driver made a call to a contact who was able to help him sort out the problems and by Chard, the diesel was back in action so much so that the climb of Honiton bank was crazily quick!

On the way back, there was a superb run especially non-stop Basingstoke to Woking on the up fast and close to a record I would suggest although a brief "yellow" near Farnborough caused us to brake for a while. Dave Hewson on the regulator.

On leaving Woking I can confirm that the diesel seemed to just idling and probably fed up with pushing for the day.

So not a perfect day, but an interesting one and it was great to see some of the "old" familiar faces again after so long.

Nick

 

I did enjoy the day despite the challenges, and it was good to meet up with one or two familiar faces. I was in the last coach, and can confirm through the ear muffs that it did a fair bit of pushing that day, but remembered feeling a jolt at one point whilst still on the move, so that might have been the point the 57 cut out. Can't remember hearing it at all on the return, and though nearly asleep, I was hazily thinking at the time that if it was steam doing all the work, the evening run back to Waterloo from Basingstoke was something special. I'm glad to have been confirmed correct in this assumption. So as I said in one of my previous posts, the best was made of a serious set of circumstances.