• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

1A40 Night Riviera Sleeper to London (22/1/12)

Status
Not open for further replies.

anthony263

Established Member
Joined
19 Aug 2008
Messages
6,518
Location
South Wales
At the moment there is only 57602, 57603 & 57605 (although thats supposed to be off to brush soon for repiars)

Not sure where 57604 is at the moment so FGW are really pushing the 57 fleet
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

TEW

Established Member
Joined
16 May 2008
Messages
5,841
57604 is on an exam, 57605 is still damaged after hitting a tree and although it has been reported working the ECS move from Paddington to Old Oak I seriously doubt it will be able to run to Penzance.
 

ainsworth74

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Global Moderator
Joined
16 Nov 2009
Messages
27,539
Location
Redcar
Not being technically minded, why can't 47's operate this service? There are enough of them still around.

Because FGW don't have any of them and their drivers don't sign for them any more. So you would need to find a FOC that was willing to lend you a 47, a driver who signed the route to drive the service and of course this 47 would actually have to be nearby to the area if the only 47 available is up in Carlisle that isn't going to be very useful for FGW that night! All of those factors add up to costing rather a lot of money therefore it's much better to make use of a pair of HST powercars that FGW already have at their disposal and that their drivers sign for.
 

The Crab

Member
Joined
7 Apr 2011
Messages
212
Well I guess that answers the oft posed question "Are HST's loco hauled trains?"
 
Joined
10 Oct 2011
Messages
128
Does anyone know if the HSTs are operating with the sleeper again tonight. I assume it would be the Paddington to Penzance direction this time.
 

Eagle

Established Member
Joined
20 Feb 2011
Messages
7,106
Location
Leamingrad / Blanfrancisco
According to an email on one of the Yahoo gen groups, it left Exeter with the HSTs still attached, so I assume they continued all the way to Paddington.

He means last night, the power cars went with the sleeper from Paddington to Newton Abbot, and the loco continued on its own to Penzance.
 

TEW

Established Member
Joined
16 May 2008
Messages
5,841
No, last night the HST powercars ran from Penzance-Newton Abbot before running back to Laira depot. 57602 worked the service Newton Abbot-London alone. 57603 worked the Paddington-Penzance service. Tonight if 57602 is unavailable to work the sleeper to Penzance a 57/3 will probably be hired in, HST powercars are only used when there is absolutely no other option as they aren't really designed to work as conventional locomotives. 47s can and have been used as recently as 2008, some FGW drivers did retain 47 knowledge but I have no idea whether they still do. The use of 47s stopped when Cotswold Rail finished though, as that's where the 47s were hired from.
 

JoeM

Member
Joined
1 Oct 2011
Messages
49
Do you think its likely that 67's might take over these workings as well? Are there enough of them?
 

TEW

Established Member
Joined
16 May 2008
Messages
5,841
Extremely unlikely, the current operation is entirely within FGW. Using 67s would mean hiring in locos from DBS which will be more expensive.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top