"Britannia" - Bath Spa Express 17 Aug

[moonrakerz]

Does anyone know what happened to Britannia yesterday at Warminster ? It arrived and stopped (unscheduled) in a huge cloud of steam. The crew seemed very interested in what was happening under the cab. As it came into the station they were leaning out and looking down - and on the video they can be seen doing the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDi7FFpDhY

Due to the lengthy stop (I presume) the fire brigade then turned out to provide additional water.
Eventually a Class 59 came out from Westbury (luckily there are some cross-over points here) and pushed and pulled it to the other line and then towed the whole thing backwards to Westbury.
The line to Salisbury was blocked for over 2 hours from about 4:30 pm !!

 

[IanPooleTrains]

Not sure unless it had some kind of failure but I would like to say that that has made a mess of....over there

EDIT: Apparently just found out off of another forum that my brother is part off that she "dropped a plug" at Warminister

 

[dorsetman]

Yes, it ran short of water. Fire Brigade called urgently, but too late - it dropped a plug. Long delays to FGW services.

 

[IanPooleTrains]

Yes, it ran short of water. Fire Brigade called urgently, but too late - it dropped a plug. Long delays to FGW services.

Well who's silly idea was that?

To make engine move, we need steam and heat plus water = steam!

Jeez, who'd be a fireman these days?

 

[moonrakerz]

I find that "it ran short of water" to be a bit strange. Surely the crew knew how much water they had. They knew they had Upton Scudamore Bank in front of them, then another 20 miles to water in Salisbury - and they had only come from Bristol - 33 miles !

Perhaps that's why the crew weren't very talkative !!!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
It now appears that they had a problem with the injectors and the crew decided to "draw stumps" at Warminster.

Don't know if this actually did lead to dropping a plug or not.

 

[Bittern]

Maybe she had a bladder infection.

 

[moonrakerz]

This gets better !

According to Google forum:
1. It ran out of water, OR
2. It dropped a plug, OR
3. It didn't drop a plug, OR
4. A boiler explosion was prevented by the local fire brigade, OR
5. They had injector problems and NONE of the above happened...........

No reports of UFOs yet !

 

[kennethw]

I was looking for what happened to the Bath Spa Express on that day, having waited to photograph it, and gave up at 2030hrs an hour after its scheduled time. I was told that it was suffering wheel slip, and thought this is what happened to the class when it was first built, the wheels shifted on their axles, not very good for the motion. Thanks for the info

Further info suggests water problems, not dropping a plug. The engine was loosing water so the crew failed it