Hi all,
I've been a a member of this forum for a while now but have never posted, just really used it as something interesting and informative to read in quiet spells at work. However, reading the enjoyable reports in this part of the forum has brought to mind similar musings that I wrote down and posted on another forum many years ago and so I was thinking that if anyone was actually interested I might post them here.
As a taster, here's a report that I wrote about my first all-line rover, way back in 1989.
According to the properties on the Word document, it was last modified in May 2005! since then I've used it, and the others I wrote, as an occasional alternative to photos when I'm feeling nostalgic.
Anyway, enough of the waffling, if people are interested I can post more. If not, then I'll just keep them to myself.
So, back to 1989 when locos were what mattered, HSTs (TRAMS!) should be avoided unless there was no alternative and a unit was a unit was a unit. Bear in mind that "now" refers to 2005. My mates and I did all types of loco, but some were preferable to others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My first all-liner was in April 1989 and, as unbelievable as it seems now,
my mate and I thought long and hard about doing one because of the fact that
so many good haulages were no longer possible.
Although I had been an enthusiast for several years and had been doing
haulages for most of that time, I had never really gone much further afield
than the North of England, with a handful of trips to London and the South
West thrown in.
This was because I had been at school, then unemployed (well it was the
80s!) and had then had a couple of years train free.
Now I was back, had a job and wanted to get some serious thrash in
When we had first planned the move, the 37/4s held sway in Scotland, working
Glasgow - Oban/Fort William/Mallaig and Inverness - Kyle of
Lochalsh/Wick/Thurso services but we knew that these turns were supposed to
go over to sprinters in January 1989 and our rover was planned for the
April, so it was a case of "fingers crossed".
Unfortunately, the 156s started as planned and we sat down and discussed not
bothering.
Luckily we decided to go ahead.
The first day was Monday, 10th April and I started from Huddersfield, with
47424 being the first engine of the move.
My mate joined me at Leeds and we did the "Pennine" service throughout to
Newcastle.
Next we suffered a tram up to Edinburgh and then set to with sampling the
Edinburgh - Glasgow push-pull services.
Sadly, these turns had long since stopped being worked by 27s but they were
still enjoyable.
At that time it was a very strange experience being pushed by an engine.
We had 47702/709/710/712 & 716 on the "shove" diagrams and 47593 & 47636 on
other turns.
Next up was one of the highlights of the week.
We noticed that an Inverness - Edinburgh service was extremely late.
In those pre rail-gen days we had no idea what might be on it, but took a
risk and went to meet it.
Dreadful!
It was 37261
Hellfire indeed.
"Caithness" was duly enjoyed into Edinburgh and the first day was nearly
over.
We had decided to head for the opposite end of the country and, thankfully,
there were plenty of overnight services in those days.
47467 was had on a Carstairs "portion" and then 87001 took us to Birmingham
while we got some shut-eye.
I remember waking up at New Street with the guard doing a grip.
He woke the bloke in the bay opposite us and this fella had a young person's
ticket and no Y-P card.
Oops.
From Brum we went forward to the West Country behind 47659, which handed
over to 47653 at Bristol.
The 10th had given way to the 11th and we were in Exeter.
Looking back, it wasn't too bad a day but we weren't pleased at the time.
BR had recently added three 47s to the Waterloo - Exeter fleet in order to
compare their performances against the 50s.
At the time I had only had 6 Hoovers and was looking forward to bumping up
my numbers.
We covered six turns on the Waterloo route and all three of the dreaded
duffs (47473/47547 & 47587) turned up, leaving us just three 50s,
50018/50027 & 50041.
Of course, a 47/4 on a Waterloo - Exeter service now would attract
nation-wide attention among enthusiasts.
After arriving back at Exeter on 50018, we did 47609 to Plymouth and 47621
to Bristol.
Bristol at Night was an experience.
The buffet at that time was open 24 hours a day and was full of tramps who
would buy one cup of tea and then sit in there all night!
By this time in the week, we were getting very tired and we both dozed off
in the waiting room.
We were awoke by a loud "dubbing" noise.
Looking out of the window, we saw 50039 hauling a short rake of MkIs on a
Weston-Super-Mare to Bath turn, vice a DMU.
We weren't sure if we could get back from Bath at that time of night, but
that's part of the fun of bashing and so we leapt aboard
As luck would have it, we just made the last Bristol bound service of the
day, although we had to run!
The next move came in the early hours and was the down "Night Riviera",
which was powered by 47555 and done to Plymouth.
We then had to suffer our second tram of the week, this time to Exeter and
then it was back to proper trains and 50028 "Tiger", which was done
throughout to Waterloo and then it was one of those three 47s that were
haunting the route again.
47547 was done out to Basingstoke and then we did 47613 on a short thrash up
to Reading.
Another "Hoover" was then roped in as we did 50026 to Oxford and then we
headed to Brum on 47556.
At New Street, we had a parting of the ways. I put hygiene first and, after
being out for three solid days felt a bath, not to mention a proper meal and
a kip in a bed, was a good idea.
Not so my grubby pal who elected to head off to Scotland instead!
I did 47659 to Wakefield and arranged to meet him the following day.
I got up to get the 05:41 bus the next morning, god I must have been keen!
I then suffered some tram or other to New Street and then did GWR green
47500 "Great Western" to Reading, followed by a nice "Thumper" thrash to
Basingstoke and a reunion with my mate.
He updated me on his overnight adventures, he had done a spark to Carstairs
and then covered a turn that was apparently a "chuck out", i.e. a simple out
and back turn that used any suitable loco that was hanging around.
It had been 47210, which had pleased him, to Edinburgh and he had then come
back South overnight.
I hadn't had 47210, but I was clean.
We spent the rest of the day covering 50s on the Waterloo - Exeter runs and
also 33/1s & 50s on the Salisbury's.
33114/33118/50001/50003/50041/50048 & 50049 being the entertainment.
The last of those was "Dreadnought" which we did to Exeter and then it was
yet another HST to Plymouth for the up "Night Riviera"
It was the night of the 13th/14th April 1989 and the loco was 50040.
Once again, hellfire.
We intended to cover the inbound commuter trains and so we bailed off 50040
at Reading and jumped a DMU out to Pangbourne in order to get the first
Paddington bound loco.
This was the Glorious 50033 and we enjoyed a massive 5 mile run back to
Reading where we got off to await the next service.
This was our new found friend from a few nights previously, 50039, and we
did it to Slough.
We spent the next few hours knocking around the Paddington - Reading -
Oxford - Banbury stretch and reeling in 50023/50031/50032/50037 & 50046 as
well as the ill-fated 50025, not so "Invincible"
The only non-fifties were 47647 & 47665.
We had decided to nip up to Carstairs and see what the "chuck out" produced
and so off we went.
The loco between Reading and Brum was 47613, with 90008 taking us from New
Street to Carstairs.
At Carstairs there was a small crowd of local bashers that, apparently,
covered this turn every day and everyone stood at the South end of the
platform, looking out for the engine and discussing what Haymarket had sent.
It seems that 26s were not unknown and one lad said he had gen to suggest
that it was such a beast that had been seen heading this way.
Temperatures were raised.
Then we saw a flicker of light as our loco came round the curve from
Edinburgh.
A collective groan.
47644.
Somewhat disappointed, we took our seats and did the duff to Edinburgh and
immediately headed South again.
47578 was the power from Edinburgh back to Carstairs and this gave way to
87021 which we did to Carlisle.
At the time there were numerous sleeper services and this included the
Stranrar to Euston which had a couple of coaches added at Carlisle.
The beauty of this was that it involved a bit of gronkage
The coaches for this service where parked in the North bay and it was just a
case of getting on and getting a seat.
As I understand it this service was pick up only at Carlisle and the extra
coaches were often added to the train in the centre road.
Needless to say, this didn't go down too well with some of the local
enthusiasts who wanted to get the 08, then get off and go home.
This wasn't a problem for us, of course, so we grabbed a couple of seats
with impunity, after first viewing the shunter, obviously.
As soon as we made the first jolting movements, all the enthusiasts were up
and out of the windows
The 08 on our visit was 08784.
I used to enjoy a good shunt release.
We made our way up the WCML, changing at various stations en route.
Even though it was night time, there always seemed to be another loco hauled
passenger service not far behind.
We had 90019 Carlisle - Preston, 90008 Preston - Crewe and 86249 Crewe -
Birmingham, before switching to diesel power and doing 47527 to Reading.
Next on the agenda were a couple more 50s, 50024 Reading - Oxford and 50023
Oxford - Birmingham.
It was Saturday and so Birmingham seemed a good place to spend the day.
Some people prefer to sit and wait for a loco that takes their fancy but
neither my mate nor I are ones for long festers and so we just generally
piffled about the West Midlands all day, getting NSE liveried 47582 as well
as 47525, 85008, 86102/86204/86207/86225/86256/86430, 87032, 90004 and
90009.
The problem with Saturdays is that they turn into Sundays and even in BR
days, this meant engineering work.
We left Brum on Saturday night and went North behind 47822, at Crewe 85007
took over and worked as far as Carlisle where diesel was the order of the
day again, with 47597 taking us through to Glasgow.
Glasgow Central on a Sunday morning was desolate!
We hung around for ages with nothing going on and we even began to think
about heading over to Edinburgh and doing a tram South.
It was our last day and we needed to get home.
Eventually a rake of empty coaches arrived and 47617 buffered up to the
front and we jumped on board.
I don't know what service it was but it did Glasgow - Carlisle - Newcastle.
We bailed at Newcastle in order to do a "Pennine" home but 47617 continued
South on the ECML.
The loco on the Liverpool service was a fairly nondescript 47458.
The intention was to do this to Leeds, but at York I spotted a North East -
South West service with the required 47606 on the front.
This was going to Leeds and so had to be done.
I bailed off 47458 and ran over as 47606 was about to leave.
The run over to Leeds was done via Castleford due to engineering work and
that was my week over.
Nearly.
I had to get to Wakefield in order to catch my bus home and usually this
meant either a tram or a unit, nothing to choose between them so it was just
a case of doing the first thing.
When I got to Leeds, I noticed that the next Kings Cross service had one of
those buffer fitted tram power cars at the front.
I walked to the rear of the train and saw that brand new 91008 was on the
back.
At the time 91s were working occasional services to Leeds, indeed I had done
91001 a few weeks previously, but they were still unusual enough to warrant
a bit of an examination.
So we did the bizarre tram + 91 combination to Wakefield and headed home.
My first all line rover was at an end,it wouldnt be my last.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, anybody interested in any more?
Cheers,
55013
I've been a a member of this forum for a while now but have never posted, just really used it as something interesting and informative to read in quiet spells at work. However, reading the enjoyable reports in this part of the forum has brought to mind similar musings that I wrote down and posted on another forum many years ago and so I was thinking that if anyone was actually interested I might post them here.
As a taster, here's a report that I wrote about my first all-line rover, way back in 1989.
According to the properties on the Word document, it was last modified in May 2005! since then I've used it, and the others I wrote, as an occasional alternative to photos when I'm feeling nostalgic.
Anyway, enough of the waffling, if people are interested I can post more. If not, then I'll just keep them to myself.
So, back to 1989 when locos were what mattered, HSTs (TRAMS!) should be avoided unless there was no alternative and a unit was a unit was a unit. Bear in mind that "now" refers to 2005. My mates and I did all types of loco, but some were preferable to others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My first all-liner was in April 1989 and, as unbelievable as it seems now,
my mate and I thought long and hard about doing one because of the fact that
so many good haulages were no longer possible.
Although I had been an enthusiast for several years and had been doing
haulages for most of that time, I had never really gone much further afield
than the North of England, with a handful of trips to London and the South
West thrown in.
This was because I had been at school, then unemployed (well it was the
80s!) and had then had a couple of years train free.
Now I was back, had a job and wanted to get some serious thrash in
When we had first planned the move, the 37/4s held sway in Scotland, working
Glasgow - Oban/Fort William/Mallaig and Inverness - Kyle of
Lochalsh/Wick/Thurso services but we knew that these turns were supposed to
go over to sprinters in January 1989 and our rover was planned for the
April, so it was a case of "fingers crossed".
Unfortunately, the 156s started as planned and we sat down and discussed not
bothering.
Luckily we decided to go ahead.
The first day was Monday, 10th April and I started from Huddersfield, with
47424 being the first engine of the move.
My mate joined me at Leeds and we did the "Pennine" service throughout to
Newcastle.
Next we suffered a tram up to Edinburgh and then set to with sampling the
Edinburgh - Glasgow push-pull services.
Sadly, these turns had long since stopped being worked by 27s but they were
still enjoyable.
At that time it was a very strange experience being pushed by an engine.
We had 47702/709/710/712 & 716 on the "shove" diagrams and 47593 & 47636 on
other turns.
Next up was one of the highlights of the week.
We noticed that an Inverness - Edinburgh service was extremely late.
In those pre rail-gen days we had no idea what might be on it, but took a
risk and went to meet it.
Dreadful!
It was 37261
Hellfire indeed.
"Caithness" was duly enjoyed into Edinburgh and the first day was nearly
over.
We had decided to head for the opposite end of the country and, thankfully,
there were plenty of overnight services in those days.
47467 was had on a Carstairs "portion" and then 87001 took us to Birmingham
while we got some shut-eye.
I remember waking up at New Street with the guard doing a grip.
He woke the bloke in the bay opposite us and this fella had a young person's
ticket and no Y-P card.
Oops.
From Brum we went forward to the West Country behind 47659, which handed
over to 47653 at Bristol.
The 10th had given way to the 11th and we were in Exeter.
Looking back, it wasn't too bad a day but we weren't pleased at the time.
BR had recently added three 47s to the Waterloo - Exeter fleet in order to
compare their performances against the 50s.
At the time I had only had 6 Hoovers and was looking forward to bumping up
my numbers.
We covered six turns on the Waterloo route and all three of the dreaded
duffs (47473/47547 & 47587) turned up, leaving us just three 50s,
50018/50027 & 50041.
Of course, a 47/4 on a Waterloo - Exeter service now would attract
nation-wide attention among enthusiasts.
After arriving back at Exeter on 50018, we did 47609 to Plymouth and 47621
to Bristol.
Bristol at Night was an experience.
The buffet at that time was open 24 hours a day and was full of tramps who
would buy one cup of tea and then sit in there all night!
By this time in the week, we were getting very tired and we both dozed off
in the waiting room.
We were awoke by a loud "dubbing" noise.
Looking out of the window, we saw 50039 hauling a short rake of MkIs on a
Weston-Super-Mare to Bath turn, vice a DMU.
We weren't sure if we could get back from Bath at that time of night, but
that's part of the fun of bashing and so we leapt aboard
As luck would have it, we just made the last Bristol bound service of the
day, although we had to run!
The next move came in the early hours and was the down "Night Riviera",
which was powered by 47555 and done to Plymouth.
We then had to suffer our second tram of the week, this time to Exeter and
then it was back to proper trains and 50028 "Tiger", which was done
throughout to Waterloo and then it was one of those three 47s that were
haunting the route again.
47547 was done out to Basingstoke and then we did 47613 on a short thrash up
to Reading.
Another "Hoover" was then roped in as we did 50026 to Oxford and then we
headed to Brum on 47556.
At New Street, we had a parting of the ways. I put hygiene first and, after
being out for three solid days felt a bath, not to mention a proper meal and
a kip in a bed, was a good idea.
Not so my grubby pal who elected to head off to Scotland instead!
I did 47659 to Wakefield and arranged to meet him the following day.
I got up to get the 05:41 bus the next morning, god I must have been keen!
I then suffered some tram or other to New Street and then did GWR green
47500 "Great Western" to Reading, followed by a nice "Thumper" thrash to
Basingstoke and a reunion with my mate.
He updated me on his overnight adventures, he had done a spark to Carstairs
and then covered a turn that was apparently a "chuck out", i.e. a simple out
and back turn that used any suitable loco that was hanging around.
It had been 47210, which had pleased him, to Edinburgh and he had then come
back South overnight.
I hadn't had 47210, but I was clean.
We spent the rest of the day covering 50s on the Waterloo - Exeter runs and
also 33/1s & 50s on the Salisbury's.
33114/33118/50001/50003/50041/50048 & 50049 being the entertainment.
The last of those was "Dreadnought" which we did to Exeter and then it was
yet another HST to Plymouth for the up "Night Riviera"
It was the night of the 13th/14th April 1989 and the loco was 50040.
Once again, hellfire.
We intended to cover the inbound commuter trains and so we bailed off 50040
at Reading and jumped a DMU out to Pangbourne in order to get the first
Paddington bound loco.
This was the Glorious 50033 and we enjoyed a massive 5 mile run back to
Reading where we got off to await the next service.
This was our new found friend from a few nights previously, 50039, and we
did it to Slough.
We spent the next few hours knocking around the Paddington - Reading -
Oxford - Banbury stretch and reeling in 50023/50031/50032/50037 & 50046 as
well as the ill-fated 50025, not so "Invincible"
The only non-fifties were 47647 & 47665.
We had decided to nip up to Carstairs and see what the "chuck out" produced
and so off we went.
The loco between Reading and Brum was 47613, with 90008 taking us from New
Street to Carstairs.
At Carstairs there was a small crowd of local bashers that, apparently,
covered this turn every day and everyone stood at the South end of the
platform, looking out for the engine and discussing what Haymarket had sent.
It seems that 26s were not unknown and one lad said he had gen to suggest
that it was such a beast that had been seen heading this way.
Temperatures were raised.
Then we saw a flicker of light as our loco came round the curve from
Edinburgh.
A collective groan.
47644.
Somewhat disappointed, we took our seats and did the duff to Edinburgh and
immediately headed South again.
47578 was the power from Edinburgh back to Carstairs and this gave way to
87021 which we did to Carlisle.
At the time there were numerous sleeper services and this included the
Stranrar to Euston which had a couple of coaches added at Carlisle.
The beauty of this was that it involved a bit of gronkage
The coaches for this service where parked in the North bay and it was just a
case of getting on and getting a seat.
As I understand it this service was pick up only at Carlisle and the extra
coaches were often added to the train in the centre road.
Needless to say, this didn't go down too well with some of the local
enthusiasts who wanted to get the 08, then get off and go home.
This wasn't a problem for us, of course, so we grabbed a couple of seats
with impunity, after first viewing the shunter, obviously.
As soon as we made the first jolting movements, all the enthusiasts were up
and out of the windows
The 08 on our visit was 08784.
I used to enjoy a good shunt release.
We made our way up the WCML, changing at various stations en route.
Even though it was night time, there always seemed to be another loco hauled
passenger service not far behind.
We had 90019 Carlisle - Preston, 90008 Preston - Crewe and 86249 Crewe -
Birmingham, before switching to diesel power and doing 47527 to Reading.
Next on the agenda were a couple more 50s, 50024 Reading - Oxford and 50023
Oxford - Birmingham.
It was Saturday and so Birmingham seemed a good place to spend the day.
Some people prefer to sit and wait for a loco that takes their fancy but
neither my mate nor I are ones for long festers and so we just generally
piffled about the West Midlands all day, getting NSE liveried 47582 as well
as 47525, 85008, 86102/86204/86207/86225/86256/86430, 87032, 90004 and
90009.
The problem with Saturdays is that they turn into Sundays and even in BR
days, this meant engineering work.
We left Brum on Saturday night and went North behind 47822, at Crewe 85007
took over and worked as far as Carlisle where diesel was the order of the
day again, with 47597 taking us through to Glasgow.
Glasgow Central on a Sunday morning was desolate!
We hung around for ages with nothing going on and we even began to think
about heading over to Edinburgh and doing a tram South.
It was our last day and we needed to get home.
Eventually a rake of empty coaches arrived and 47617 buffered up to the
front and we jumped on board.
I don't know what service it was but it did Glasgow - Carlisle - Newcastle.
We bailed at Newcastle in order to do a "Pennine" home but 47617 continued
South on the ECML.
The loco on the Liverpool service was a fairly nondescript 47458.
The intention was to do this to Leeds, but at York I spotted a North East -
South West service with the required 47606 on the front.
This was going to Leeds and so had to be done.
I bailed off 47458 and ran over as 47606 was about to leave.
The run over to Leeds was done via Castleford due to engineering work and
that was my week over.
Nearly.
I had to get to Wakefield in order to catch my bus home and usually this
meant either a tram or a unit, nothing to choose between them so it was just
a case of doing the first thing.
When I got to Leeds, I noticed that the next Kings Cross service had one of
those buffer fitted tram power cars at the front.
I walked to the rear of the train and saw that brand new 91008 was on the
back.
At the time 91s were working occasional services to Leeds, indeed I had done
91001 a few weeks previously, but they were still unusual enough to warrant
a bit of an examination.
So we did the bizarre tram + 91 combination to Wakefield and headed home.
My first all line rover was at an end,it wouldnt be my last.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, anybody interested in any more?
Cheers,
55013
