When the 'Gerald' was first introduced in December 2008, the maximum permitted speed on any part of the route was 90 mph. The introduction of the class 67s permitted an improvement in hill-climbing performance on the steeper gradients, such as Abergavenny-Llanfihangel (Northbound) and Rossett-Gresford (Southbound). Now that they are now being used with Mk 4 stock on some of the Manchester services, they can exploit the 110 mph line speed between Sandbach and Stockport.
The 67s were introduced when the Mk3s went push pull, prior to that they ran top and tail. Unless the 57s could be made to Work push pull and with Mk4 stock including bell-buzzer and crew-loco communications then its a non starter, even ignoring the top speed.
Ah, yes....sorry, I had forgotten that!
On the Night Riviera they're working one very generously timed service a day, it's not a particularly taxing life. I suspect if they were on the TfW diagrams day in day out they'd find things a lot harder.
I'm pretty sure that when it was worked with MKIIs they were limited by breaking capabilities to 75mph anyway. Switching to MKIIIs and 67s increased the maximum permitted speed to 110 - there was nowhere on the Cardiff - Holyhead route they could get over 90, but they did occasionally hit 110 when the formation needed turning and was sent Crewe - Warrington - Manchester - Crewe. Now with the MKIVs they have regular booked work to Manchester and can reach those speeds daily.
so the 67s really need to have some major tlc to get them running reliably again as nothing else comes near it.
However superior acceleration would more than compensate for lack of 110mph ability.
It’s not major TLC. Just DB doing basic maintenance with the requisite attention to detail.
Even with their more relaxed workings, though, there are still more issues with the 57s than could be hoped for - it’s not unheard of for the Night Riviera stock to be substituted by an 80X. GWR are looking to replace them in the medium term as a result.
A 68 would be better in pretty much every way - except it would require a lot of money spending on mods and training.
110mph isn't really needed unless running late anyway. It only effects the Crewe - Wilmslow stretch and it's very generously timed. And before anyone asks, no there's no point tightening the times, there just aren't the paths.
It wasn’t top n tail with 57s. The trains were booked via Crewe in those days to avoid reversal at Chester. 67s and Mk3s enabled them to go push-pull and run via Wrexham, thus serving more Welsh towns.
Thought they'd been diverted via Wrexham whilst still 57s but obviously mis-remembered that.
I was on HD02 on Sunday from Manchester until it failed at Abergavenny with a door release problem. Took an hour and more to shift it minus passengers, who had to get the following 197 service.
Why would they spend an hour at Abergavenny trying to offload the passengers who then would have been a double load on the 197? Surely, most passengers were heading for Newport & Cardiff? Could they not have pressed on south and then off loaded the passengers?
No, the way the fault was dealt with necessitated all the doors being locked therefore passengers can't be carried as there's no way off the train.
Many thanks for speedy response.
That diagram hasn't been planned to run all week. There's only 3 sets with HD01 and 03 on exams/extended and HD05+06 both tyre turning that diagram has been uncovered.
Ah ok. I saw it didn’t run yesterday but it was still showing as having first class when I checked at 0630 (joining it from Swansea). Fingers crossed the 1630 from Manchester tomorrow is running!
Unfortunately the systems don't update in accordance with the plans when there's no set. Would be nice if it could really.
1 (HD03) which hasn't been in service for over a year with HD01 currently at Crewe being done.
No set came down this morning as 1V31 was cancelled.
Slightly irrelevant, but HD06 certainly needed that tyre turning! There was a huge wheel flat when I went on it last week, possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. Do you know what caused it?
It had had at least one for quite a while which progressively got worse while waiting for a slot on the lathe but it did end up getting a lot worse.
The best UK service train interior Ive come across for some time
Thanks for this info, very useful.
No, it was after the Mk3s started. 67s actually worked with the Mk2s for a short while.
There may have been a few occasions when they ran top n tail but it was not the norm (usually to allow running via Wrexham, from memory). A search of Flickr shows more instances of pairs with the vast majority of trains solo.
The 0849 from Cardiff and 1230 from Manchester ran as a 197 rather than the planned HD06 but it should still be out later working the end of the diagram, the 1649 from Cardiff to Get back to 4 sets running from then instead of this morning.