Shred`s Northern French Trip.

[shredder1]

UK to Northern France. London to Calais, (Day 1). Friday 3rd March 2017.

A long weekend was in order as I wanted to get over to Sotteville, to see the large locomotive dump, a pilgrimage and piece of history in the making, with hundreds of locomotives stored and awaiting their fate. I was very fortunate in being offered a trip out there by a long standing Facebook friend Charlie, who had very kindly offered to take me with his friend Gary; I was in excellent and well informed company, because Charlie is a retired southern driver and Gary a current driver, both of whom had encyclopaedic railway knowledge.

I travelled down from Manchester on the Friday morning, catching the 09.35 Virgin Pendolino to London Euston followed by a short underground ride to London Victoria and then the Gatwick Express to Gatwick Airport where my friends picked me up.

Travelling in Charlie`s all singing and dancing Land Rover, it took no time at all to reach Le Shuttle at Folkestone, a first for me, I`ve only travelled on Eurostar in the past, so Le Shuttle was a new experience.

Driving on to the top deck, we sat in the vehicle for the 30 minutes journey until we reached the French side of the tunnel at Coquelles. A few quickly grabbed photographs of the Shuttle locomotives, not easy really and the depot on the French side was near on impossibly to get close too.

After driving off the Shuttle we made our way to Coquelles yards, but only one class 66 was on the stabling point. With a few more behind the high double fencing, so we drove round to Calais unit depot for a few more photographs as the daylight faded.

Checking in at the Ibis Le Club Accor Hotel, before going for a meal and a few beers in the Cite Europe Mall. Lots of police were parked up in the hotel car park, because of the migrant problems, with large double fencing now all around the railway yards, but the hotel was excellent and after watching a thunderstorm from the room window, I slept well.

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[shredder1]

UK to Northern France. (Day 2). Dunkerque, Haubourdin, Sotteville, France. Saturday 4th March 2017.

I was up early at the Ibis Hotel, showered and down for breakfast, I do like my full continental breakfasts, and this one was up there with the best of them, with a good selection of meats, cheeses and pancakes, Charlie and Gary joined me later. It was a wet morning as we climbed into the Land Rover and the first stop was Coquelles stabling point again, but the same loco was still parked up. Driving up to Dunkerque and checking the yards out, only two tractors were seen, a far cry from my previous visit in the 1990`s.

We next drove over to Caffiers station siding, but that was empty. A few more road miles saw us in Haubourdin, where we found 4 loco`s in the yards, the rain was coming down heavy at times, but by the time we drove down to Rouen and Sotteville, we were blessed by a break in the weather with the sun actually showing through at times. After taking a number of photographs from the bridge, I just had to get down amongst the loco lines, I`d been told that around 800 plus were in the storage yards and it certainly looked like it.

Someone had cut a square hole in the security fence, under the overbridge at the side of the main road, being an opportunist, I was in there like a ferret down a drain pipe, only however to fall once inside the fence and impale myself on a roll of razor wire. Nasty stuff, some stuck in my leg and another bit into my lower back, and that stuff isn’t easy to untangle yourself from, but after tearing a bit of flesh, and mopping up the blood, I was through it and in-between the lines of loco`s, it was awesome, and I made good time running up and down the lines and snapping away at everything I could, an amazing place.

Returning to the Land Rover, Charlie drove us across all the yards, where we found easier ways into the storage sidings. We lastly visited Sotteville TMD before driving back to Rouen and locating our hotel for the night, the Campanile Rouen Sud, another good hotel. We took tea and had a few beers to round the day off, it had been another great day and we`d been very lucky with the break in the weather. After failing to find an English channel on the hotel television, I gave up and went soundly to sleep.

Sotteville Loco list.

Road 1, 25683/25686/25684/25641/25534/25691/25608/25614/25618/25674/25633/25680 25647/25629/25628/25675/25620/25662/25624/25649/25667/25635/25668/25619/25651 25644/25661/25646/25645/25678.

Road 2: 7378, 72035, 69420, 69199, 67553, 7313, 7279, 63932, 64715, 64815, 7329, 7386, 7381, 2 * 85xx, 18 * 72xxx.

Road 3: Wagon, 6 * 72xx, coach, Y, 63xxx, loco, 64703, 66xxx, 10 locos, Y62xx, Y51xx

Road 4: 67491, 16044, 16055, 16028, 160xx, 16033, 160xx, 16758, 16753, 67306, 4 * 673xx, 3 * 66xxx, 10 * 63xxx, 4 * 66xxx, Y, Y, crane.

Road 5: 26028, 66270, 7418, 25543, Y, Y7482, Y7660, Y7670, Y, Y7807, Y7687, Y, Y, 22 locos, 16003.

Road 6: 26022, 69419, 26111, Y7523, 69242, 69293, 67592, 67588, 67531, 23 * 675xx.

Road 7: 63796, 29 * 63xxx, 63967

Road 8: 26132, 16572, 9247, 16047, 16628, 9222, 9240, 16603, 16773, 16742, 9279, 32 locos.

Road 9: 68539, Y8459, 66721, 66725, 66732, 66704, 66004, 66727, 2 * 66xxx, 66110, 19 * 66xxx, 9 * 685xx.

Road 10: 67349, 67352, 67372, 67346, 67418, Y8436, Y8425, Y8469, Y8406, Y8405, Y8403, Y8409, Y8416, 67492, 67508, 67595, 4 * 675xx, 67335, 10 * 673xx.

Road 11: 2 * 72xxx, 685xx, 27 locos.

Road 12: 66273, 66113, 66231, 66xxx, 3 locos, 27 * 66xxx.

Road 13: Y7855, Y7531, Y7657, Y7878, Y7604, 64033, 67355, 66308, 8515, 8507, 67443, 67302, 66184, 66111, 67375, 25688, 63585, 7222, 7376, 72xx.

Road 15: 63710, 17011, 4 * 17xxx.

Road 21: 17074, 17096, 17082, 17056, 17014, 4 * 17xxx, 72xx, Y51xx, 17101, 17027, 17015, 17045, 17019, Y, 12 * 17xxx, 4 locos.

Road 23: TGV 23116/23171.

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[shredder1]

Northern France to UK (Day 3). Sotteville, Alizay, Caffiers, Calais, Gatwick, Kings Cross. Sunday 5th March 2017.

I was the first up and showered again and made my way to the breakfast room, a great selection and after stuffing myself rotten, (I like to get my money`s worth), I was just about full up for the day. The weather however wasn’t good, with the rain coming down again, and heavy at times. Once Charlie and Gary had taken breakfast we returned to Sotteville depot to see if anything new had appeared, but the same locos were on shed, so we next went out to Alizay depot.

Alizay was locked up with no one was on site, it was a Sunday and we should have realised it could be closed, we could only managed a few photographs from over the fence in the rain, a large collection of stored class 58`s were to be seen at the top of the yard. These were 58001/4/5/6/7/9/10/11/13/18/21/26/32/33/34/35/36/38/39/40/42/46/49. Class 66`s, 66010/028/072/210/211/239.

Caffiers was the next location, first we located the quarry and then visited the stabling yard and found 3 Class 66 loco`s and another one working through the station. We next drove over to Coquelles and found two more class 66`s in the yard. Returning late afternoon on Le Shuttle and the drive back to Gatwick where Charlie very kindly dropped me off. A big thank you to Charlie for allowing me to join them on this fantastic trip.

I caught one of the new Thameslink class 700 directly to St Pancras International low level station and changed here for Kings Cross and then took a service up to Sandy, my second home, as I was staying at my son`s for the night and decided to travel back to Manchester on the Monday. Great to catch up with the family after a fantastic trip to France, I had a late supper at my son`s and slept like a log.

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[shredder1]

Northern France to the UK. (Day 4). Sandy, Peterborough, Doncaster. Monday 6th March 2017.

After a restful sleep at my son`s house in Sandy, I decided to make my way back home to Manchester. My favourite breakfast café, “Chunky`s” was closed, I was devastated, and had to settle for a bacon barm on Sandy station instead.

Leaving Sandy on the 10.07 to Peterborough, I spent an hour or so on the platforms, before taking the single car Sprinter DMU up to Doncaster, as I wanted to travel on the section of track between Peterborough and Sleaford through Spalding; it was a pleasant ride up to Doncaster and took two hours fifteen minutes. I spend some time on Doncaster station before taking a TPX service directly into Manchester, it had been a great 4 days away and a very satisfying one, many thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the photographs.

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[Kite159]

Apart from the issue with the razor wire sounded like a productive few days in northern France

 

[shredder1]

Apart from the issue with the razor wire sounded like a productive few days in northern France

Thanks very much, yes it was great, the scars are healing well

 

[Cowley]

Razor wire, nasty. That looked interesting Shredder1 (is that how you got the name Shredder?) I must say 23 class 58s in one hit is pretty impressive. What sort of state were they in? That's nearly half the class!

 

[shredder1]

Razor wire, nasty. That looked interesting Shredder1 (is that how you got the name Shredder?) I must say 23 class 58s in one hit is pretty impressive. What sort of state were they in? That's nearly half the class!

Thank you very much sir, yes its a bit tricky to untangle yourself from razor wire, nasty stuff. The Shredder comes from a nick name, a guitar shredder, . The 58`s were a very sad sight, they looked in poor condition just left out to rot, I expect it would have to be a lucrative contract to bring them back into service, even the newer French locos are having little use at the moment. It was unfortunate that the depot was closed on our visit to Alizay, I would have loved to get a closer look, must try to get over there again.