The Midday Scot 19th March 2016

Both the Network Rail fleet and GBRf fleet based at Tonbridge can use the 3rd rail as well as their MTU/Cummins diesel engines.

However GBRf's sleeper fleet differs from their sisters down south, lacking the high level air pipes and having a higher ETH rating and a different cab desk.

It has also been suggested they are diesel-only despite having shoes, however the cab has 'diesel mode' and 'electric mode' buttons so the jury seems to be out on that one.

 

I think we should be very grateful for the brilliant effort in getting the Duchess over Shap with only 160lbs pressure. Far from being inexperienced, this would suggest the complete opposite. We have weeks and months ahead of us with a dearth of mainline steam possibly including the Jacobite and Great Britain and so we should celebrate what the DB(C) crews do out there and yesterday seems to be a fine example of their excellent skills.

 

And here are three of them albeit not involved yesterday but more likely on the Belmond Pullman!!

 

Whatever happened on that footplate, it's 100% certain that without DBC's involvement there would have been no tour so we should all be grateful for that.

 

We set off on time. We arrived on time. Any issues were professionally dealt with by all concerned. Having the option to miss the Quintinshill Loop and rectify the coal and fire at Carlisle was inspired thinking by EVERYONE involved. An absolute credit to every company. This was one that everyone pulled the stops out for.

As others have said, lean times are ahead but let's hope those times are short.

 

At Kirknewton, returning to Crewe on 20th March 2016.

Spring surprise by newshot., on Flickr

 

It was a day to be out on the rails, and as mentioned, we got from A to B on time. It was a workmanlike performance, and I look forward to the next DB-crewed trip with 46233.

 

A good climb of Beattock would be 6234 Duchess of Abercorn’s test train on 26/02/39 hauling 20 coaches for 610 tons. Carlisle start to pass the summit in 56 mins.
46233 did it in 58 mins start to stop, load 11... (the latter time is from RTT, so may be wrong.)

6234 was hardly thrashed to achieve this time with this load. Cut-offs ranged from 20% to 25% to Beattock and from there it was 30% to 40% to the summit, all with full regulator and boiler pressure from 250 down to 245 psi near the summit. Nothing too drastic there, unless you call 25% 'thrashing'. That’s what a Duchess could do and with a single fireman. (Source: C.J.Allen, British Pacific Locomotives, data from official sources.)

 

I wonder how the SR class 8 they are pictured with would have done with "bad coal"?

 

These comparisons are all well and good but would be irrelevant if the tour hadn't run. Can't we just be happy that it ran at all?

 

Good though Tornado's run was, it's not 20 for 610 tons. ;-)

 

It's not. However Tornado and everything else today is constrained by a 75mph maximum and coal that probably isn't up to the best of what was available in the past. A dash downhill from Castlemilk and through Lockerbie to Nethercleugh at higher than 75mph would certainly assist in the climb to Beattock. And that's not meant to take anything away from Duchess of Abercorn's run - it's just putting it into context.

 

True, 80 was reached at Nethercleugh but that's not an exceptional burst even today. Av speed Gretna to Lockerbie was 58.3 and up the 1 in 200 to Beattock station speed was 60 and finally 30 at the summit.

 

I'm intrigued about the coal taken on at Carlisle. Was one tender-full expected to be insufficient to get from Manchester to Edinburgh? Or was the fresh coal rustled up at very short notice?

 

I doubt whether any was, chances are she had a large quantity of good quality coal in the tender when she arrived at Carnforth, where there would have been a top up back to full, with 'their' usual variable quality stuff, which would have just about been used by Carlisle, then, just a matter of pulling the good stuff forward during servicing ready for the big bank.

 

Indeed!
Good to see a Duchess still doing the business, however, 'good' today is not what the loco can do, or is even capable of; good that it's still running but far and away from what a good Duchess and a good crew with 'good' coal can do....Re, the test run, it was planned as a 'let-see-what-she-can-do' under ordinary conditions, no special measures were taken and a 2 hr turn-around was all that she got at Glasgow and the return proved to be even better!

 

Beattock one of my favorite subjects. I hope a second Stanier Pacific gets a run at the grade this year.


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Climbing towards Scout Green, as has been reported the coal wasn't the best