big jim

I left humberstone road loop on saturday light engine on the fast towards mountsorrel and only in notch 4, i soon caught up with and overtook the 156 that had passed me on the slow a few minutes earlier!!

Not got any time to do one!

its not that i'm back in work, i've just not been home at a reasonable hour or for long enough to update the thread!

a few more pics from last week, went down to westbury to be passed out on 70s, worked it to eastleigh with the colas kirow crane and back again with 10 loaded side tippers just incase you had any doubt as to where i was my take on the 70 in wesbury photo having an A exam some class 59s.... and into eastleigh then last night i worked my forst 70 from mountsorrel to didcot with the redland self dscharge train which was bound for kemble, nice load, 2000 tons, 42 wagons!!

i doubt it but you are bound to get the odd driver who will want a 6 week refresh of the route to get out of doing his own work!! as i put on a previous post there is a signalling brief out for the section between dawlish and teignmouth regards extended block working, basically trains will enter the "block section" at dawlish warren then pass a number of bagged up signals before leaving the section at teignmouth, i've been sent it (as it went out to all drivers at colas) even though i dont go down there, the brief is actually a fgw one so i should imagine all their drivers who go over the route will have been sent it or been briefed on it by a manager before going down there

when they are idling they are really quiet, especially in the cab when they get going they are noisy, but not in a 66 way, its the traction motors that whine, last night i had 70804 from westbury to eastleigh with 350 tons (kirow crane) which was fairly quiet under load but coming back i had 70801 (turkish delight) with 1100 ton (2 rakes of loaded side tippers) and that whined like crazy under load at 60mph be interesting to see how 70802 sounds later when i have 2000 ton behind it!

quite probable, its not relevent to me but i've saved it on my ipad for posterity!!

ive just recieved details of the temporary signalling arrangements for when the line reopens, extended block working with damaged signals bagged over and others modified to suit the situation

only worked it once (so far), it has to run as an "X" train as its an exceptional load and you are restricted in a few places to where you can go, the only one on my route was at hatton you cant go through the main platform face northbound so have to so through the "stratford" platform (i was going south so it didnt effect me!)

ooh! 60s eh, that'll be fun

whoops! its back in action now though

There should have been at least one there around 17:00ish which is when the service to eastleigh departs, the other 2 that arrived early on 6V46 must have left on another job I'm in westbury on thursday on the eastleigh train being passed out on 70s with any luck

now i have, passed the locos in bescot while on the M6 this morning i believe they are both going in the consist of 6v46 tonight with 70802!

ive still not seen 803 yet!

mick (newbryford) will be happy with you picture flamingo, you can see the difference between the yellow ends on 701 and 704 nicely!!

i may finally be getting passed out on them this week as on friday i've got one on a bescot-mountsorrell-hinksey job, if i can't get passed out i will be conducting on it instead

your "scotsman jibe" irritation must be the equivalant to my "class 70s going on fire" comment irritation, the 'jokes' get a bit thin after a while!

you may well get one on the colas redcar - llanwern coke turn at some point, again its a case of getting the drivers trained up at present the coal wagons do bristol-ratcliffe-bristol monday to friday then saturday morning they leave ratcliffe and head north to redcar with the same loco (66848 this week) so logistically when a 70 appears on the circuit it will also stay on throughout too

Just one from this morning, did a loco swap on the sinfin tanks in crewe station, swapped 56078 for 56087 Annoyingly i just missed getting a shot of 6k05 departing the south yard with 3 x 37s and 20 with a single flask!! The caledonian sleeper came into the platform just before we started the run round move and failed which messed us up a bit, the 'box said they were struggling to find a replacement loco for the train so i 'hinted' that the 56 i'd just taken off was only going back to the electric depot so possibly could be available if required, and it was seriously considered before they found a spare 90 on the ETD! That would have been fun, a 56 on the sleepers, the 90 looked to still be providing power (ie pan up, lights on) so it probably would have worked!!

i think they are going to trial a 70 on it but again the problem is getting people trained and passed out on them (and sparing a 70!) each daily log 'circuit' requires 3 drivers, carlisle-warrington, warrington-chirk-warrington and warrington-carlisle and at the moment there is only one driver class 70 trained who can do either one of the carlisle-warrington turns, so even if say i signed them to do the chirk bit we would still need a third driver trained up it can be done using 2 drivers but only at the weekend when the train recesses overnight in chirk but its a heck of a long job on the sunday for the 'chirk guy' i.e saturday isnt too bad with warrington-chirk-lodge/home but then sunday its out of lodge/home-chirk-carlisle-home/into lodge which i have done a few times and its a full 12 hour shift, i go and stay at my dads in ellesmere when i do that thurn, 8 mile drive from chirk as opposed to 40 home to crewe

not seen rail express yet so im assuming its the bescot and ditton class 70 pics payment for pictures varys depending on size anything from £15 upwards i believe, front cover is the best payer apparently! gary H, it is quite unusual to fail with a 66 but the good thing is when you do the computer tells you what the problem is and a lot of the time you can try to rectify it from the drivers seat, ie tripping out the traction motors, isolating bogie power etc captain kernow: i've got no intention of going anywhere near brizzol, if i end up going there i'll get stung for more jobs, i'm constantly on the coal at the mo as only 3 of us sign didcot to toton and ratcliffe throughout via all midlands routes (ie via burton or leicester and all diversions such as leamington-coventry-bescot-sutton park etc), all of us ex fastline as it happens, im the north west lead driver but havent worked a train there for months

another long day today due to a loco failure.... the day started with a taxi to leicester where my trainee and i prepared the train we laft there the day before which got stopped tdue to problems in the powerstation, got it all brake tested up and into the power station for 04:00, discharged it, back out to toton where my trainee got off and i headed back to birmingham with the train got just past burton upon trent and had an earth fault which prevented me taking more than 1000 amps of power, tried all sorts on the move, isolated traction motors, complete bogies but to no avail, spoke to the box who asked me to try and make it into elford loop (6 miles away!) which i did at between 5-10 mph, thankfully the margins i had we didn't hold TOO much up in the 45 mins it took to get to the loop!! i then had to sit in the loop and await assistance which came in the form of 56096 on its maiden voyage since being reactivated (earlier that morning!!), so there i was sat in elford with nothing better to do than take a few pics while i waited tried to use the manual setting on the camera this time and played about with F settings, some pics were sucessful, others not so but quite pleased with what i got 66848 lots of cross country units kingsbury tanks with 60040 and 60062 some weird ohle planting contraption en route from high markham to swindon bescot to toton departmental and along came my rescue engine, 56096 in europhoenix livery!! it ran upto burton upon trent to change ends before returning to the front of my train you can see why its 15mph out of the loop!! and onto the train passed rmwebber 21Alizard while waiting at washwood heath and onto the reception siding at washwood heath where we removed the locos and took them up into the workshops for repair from there i found me a van and headed home, i should be in tonight at midnight but as i need 12 hours rest between jobs that isn't happening, the coal is not running anyway and i have a nice little on my doorstep job tomorrow after rest even though i had a very very long day today it really flew by as it was something interesting to do, protect my train, deal with failures and i had a good opportunity to just sit back in the sun and take some pics as there was all else i could do!!

2 colas 70s made it to dawlish warren today!! http://www.robertajsherwood.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=190502593

better get that spare 67 painted up mick....... just spotted this in leicester, notice that the dvt has a camera on the nose, only managed a couple of shots as i was waiting for my train over the other side

for once i actually got a job that worked out nice for me! i think it was being left there for training purposes