Bath & Bristol 24th March 2012

[dcd]

44932 going well along Eastleigh-Romsey Line at Halterworth Crossing on a bright sunny warm day.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Great Photo, hope the whole trip went well?

 

[dcd]

Seems all did not go well. All passengers de-trained at Salisbury. 44932 stabled at Salisbury overnight before recovery to Southall. Not sure if related but Westbury Salisbury services delayed yesterday evening due to line side fire at Dilton Marsh

 

[pete.sykes]

Very unlikely to be related. I was on the train and 44932 performed brilliantly for most of the trip. I'm looking forward to hearing what actually went wrong but, judging by the way the engine was being examined at Salisbury I'd guess there was something fairly seriously wrong with the valve gear.

Anybody know for certain what was wrong?

 

[moonrakerz]

I saw 44932 "outbound" at Wylye and thought it was making a very loud banging noise, and it certainly didn't appear to running at line speed at that point.
I saw it coming up Upton Scudamore bank on the return leg and it was moving very slowly - although this could have been due to the delays on that line not enabling it to get a run at the bank in the first place. There is a video on youtube of the same loco/location two weeks ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqPqBDzsILo) - it was certainly running a lot better then !

 

[BestWestern]

The substantial delays to services between Salisbury and Westbury were down to a large lineside fire at Upton Scudamore, between Warminster and Dilton Marsh. Unfortunately the details do point to the steamer as being the likely culprit; the fire affected a large area of the bank immediately alongside the line, largely inside the boundary fence, in a rather remote and isolated area away from any other obvious causes. The geography of it was causing the fire brigade considerable difficulty in reaching and tackling it, and it was reported to be 150 metres across at one point.

It could have been somebody on the bank I suppose, not sure what the official outcome is so far. Either way I'd think there's little doubt that the finger will point squarely at the excursion whether it was the loco or the railfans gathering lineside which caused it.

Sadly not a glorious day for the railtouring fraternity :cry:

 

[Crawley Ben]

Very unlikely to be related. I was on the train and 44932 performed brilliantly for most of the trip. I'm looking forward to hearing what actually went wrong but, judging by the way the engine was being examined at Salisbury I'd guess there was something fairly seriously wrong with the valve gear.

Anybody know for certain what was wrong?

I read somewhere (can't think where now) that an AWS fault was the reason for the tour being 'caped'. I have seen a video on youtube which shows WCRC 47500 returning the loco & stock to Southall depot in London. Both the diesel & steam loco appeared to be working. Hope no major problems have been identified.

Ben

 

[pete.sykes]

I read somewhere (can't think where now) that an AWS fault was the reason for the tour being 'caped'. I have seen a video on youtube which shows WCRC 47500 returning the loco & stock to Southall depot in London. Both the diesel & steam loco appeared to be working. Hope no major problems have been identified.

Ben

It was announced on the train on leaving Bristol that there had been a problem with the AWS and that was the reason for the late departure but that it had been fixed. It seems that the failure was something to do with the motion.