Galatea 45699 on the Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express

Galatea gave us a nice trip Saturday February 17th 2018, breasting Shap at 31 MPH on GPS, 81 mph on the flat with ten coaches and steam heating. Faultless smooth Jubilee traction climbed the Long Drag at above 50 mph. 86259 Les Ross on at Farington Junction, with warm electric carriage heating, gave usual faultless performance at 90 mph maximum for on time at Euston. Well done to the hundreds of hardy souls and rail fans watching on a cold sunny day. Thank you RTC, West Coast Railways, 86 Group and Network Rail for enabling us to play with your big train set..

Engineer said:

Galatea gave us a nice trip Saturday February 17th 2018, breasting Shap at 31 MPH on GPS, 81 mph on the flat with ten coaches and steam heating. Faultless smooth Jubilee traction climbed the Long Drag at above 50 mph. 86259 Les Ross on at Farington Junction, with warm electric carriage heating, gave usual faultless performance at 90 mph maximum for on time at Euston. Well done to the hundreds of hardy souls and rail fans watching on a cold sunny day. Thank you RTC, West Coast Railways, 86 Group and Network Rail for enabling us to play with your big train set..

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Sounds like it was a great day.

Did you have a diesel on the back?

gazthomas said:

Did you have a diesel on the back?

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No, the Jubilee took it all on her own.

Engineer said:

Galatea gave us a nice trip Saturday February 17th 2018, breasting Shap at 31 MPH on GPS, 81 mph on the flat with ten coaches and steam heating. Faultless smooth Jubilee traction climbed the Long Drag at above 50 mph. 86259 Les Ross on at Farington Junction, with warm electric carriage heating, gave usual faultless performance at 90 mph maximum for on time at Euston. Well done to the hundreds of hardy souls and rail fans watching on a cold sunny day. Thank you RTC, West Coast Railways, 86 Group and Network Rail for enabling us to play with your big train set..

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Performance was even better than you suspect, as I'm pretty sure it was load 11, not 10.

And clearly your GPS speed recorder has a software issue, reading 81 when the speed was 75

I did hear she had to slow in the region of Penrith though...

Yes you are right, eleven coaches including the support coach I forgot. We checked mileposts on Shap climb as well as GPS, some timers said 31 MPH or 29 MPH. Flat speed run we missed the mileposts, but maybe loco crew can confirm actual recorded speeds for us.

Engineer said:

. .butmaybe
loco crew can confirm actual recorded speeds for us.

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"We never exceeded 75 gov, honest"

I won't say what speed Leander got up to on the Salopian Express in 2015..... When in fine fettle a Jubilee will really fly.

Spartacus said:

I won't say what speed Leander got up to on the Salopian Express in 2015..... When in fine fettle a Jubilee will really fly.

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The Jubilees are/were interesting locomotives: obviously not the biggest, or most powerful - but they were, perhaps by luck, or perhaps not, the last 3-cylinder, express passenger locomotive in service with BR, which must mean something.

I've never seen a reliable record of one doing 100 mph or more though. I think on the LNW there was little chance - heavy-ish loads and no place to do it. Nor on the Bristol=Sheffield run. The only places would have been down Sharnbrook Bank and somewhere on the long decline from MP 34 towards Bedford. But I think the highest speed I've seen claimed is 97 mph - although, to be honest, with a manual stopwatch, I don't know how anyone can be too sure once you get about about 90 mph to within 5 mph.