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Aberdeen to Penzance

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Brubulus

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221128 is leading, coach A first.

Coach B seems to be running with its engine off and the rear set doesn’t have any reservations. The engine in Coach I has a horrible vibration.
Been in coach B the whole way, the engine was definitely on in the morning, at least as far as Birmingham, after that it hasn't been on. Not been as busy as I was expecting.
 

Banham7

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Not bad at all really, my attempt arrived into Penzance a mere 40 late!

Those for the sleeper will have made the connection though .. apparently the fire alarm has gone off on it so it's sat there still!
 

MrJeeves

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Those for the sleeper will have made the connection though .. apparently the fire alarm has gone off on it so it's sat there still!
Yes, we left about an hour late after fitters came to assist.

Apparently the coaches had been reshuffled and supposedly something might not had been connected properly afterwards.

Only affected Coach G, who were forced to sit in the lounge car for the hour to avoid the incessant beeping.
 

Magdalia

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BBC website has a report here:


It is a route which has operated for more than 100 years, but for the UK's longest direct train service linking Aberdeen and Penzance it is finally the end of the line.

The connection - first established back in 1921 - is 775 miles (1,247km) long.

However, the packed train from the north east of Scotland on Friday morning was the last to run the route, and arrived in Cornwall more than 13 hours later at 21:40. Operator CrossCountry said the decision to end the service was aimed at a "more efficient timetable".

One passenger, Aimee Smith, 40, had made the journey to Aberdeen specifically so as she could join the final trip south and be part of rail history. "All good things do come to an end," she told BBC Scotland News.
 

43096

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Magdalia

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And it is misleading. The implication from the piece is that this service has been running continuously for over 100 years. It hasn’t. There have been periods of time when it hasn’t been a timetabled service.
In the 1970s Edinburgh-Plymouth was the longest on the NE/SW route.
 

s491

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In the 1970s Edinburgh-Plymouth was the longest on the NE/SW route.
1980's through to early 2000's it was Dundee to Penzance HST service (1V49). There was also Aberdeen to Plymouth HST and return. The Aberdeen to Penzance running now only started with Voyagers - can't recall if VT ran it or whether it was an Arriva invention.
 

hexagon789

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1980's through to early 2000's it was Dundee to Penzance HST service (1V49).
Dundee/Penzance started in 1983 as a marginal time extension of the Edinburgh/Penzance, but was cut in 1984 as part of the NE-SW service reappraisal and HST reductions and didn't resume until ~1991 when HSTs freed up from the ECML electrification allowed most of the original 1982 NE-SW HST service to be restored.

There was also Aberdeen to Plymouth HST
Not in the 80s, there was the loco-hauled (Elgin/)Aberdeen & Glasgow to Penzance from 1984; the Cornishman HST from Edinburgh/Glasgow QS in 1988.

The Aberdeen to Penzance running now only started with Voyagers - can't recall if VT ran it or whether it was an Arriva invention.
2008 rewrite for the present service but an Aberdeen to Penzance via WCML existed for a brief period in the early 2000s under Virgin XC.
 

bleeder4

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And it is misleading. The implication from the piece is that this service has been running continuously for over 100 years. It hasn’t. There have been periods of time when it hasn’t been a timetabled service.
To be fair, it does say that in the article.
 

s491

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To be fair, it does say that in the article.
Unless I missed a bit, it just notes Covid - where most trains in the UK were up the wall. As discussed above there is a good period of 30+ years where there was no Aberdeen to Penzance, which is over 30% of the 100 year period touted at the top of the article. I suspect there maybe more before the 70's but I'm not old enough to know.
 

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