20/21 May 06 - Tyseley

Work is well underway on the fitting of OTMR to the loco, the bright orange 'Black Box' is sitting in it's packaging (Click here) ready to be fitted once the necessary sensors, cabling & conduit has been installed. Whilst there is some downtime for the OTMR fitting it's been decided to examine all the pistons on the loco. All the pistons will be re-ringed as a matter of course. You can see in this picture (Click here) that one of the rings was a bit worse for wear. A boiler washout was also started on the weekend. Our resident water treatment guru Martyn taking the chance to examine closely the solids from the boiler (not just because he ended up wearing most of it - click here). In this picture (Click here) Kevin Blake works on painting some of the platework from the front end while yours truly makes a pig's ear of trying to get some of the washout plugs out.

Some railtours for later in the year have been announced. October see's the loco heading back into Cornwall with a trip to Penzance from Taunton returning the following weekend. Past Time Rail will be promoting those excursions. On the 16th December the King will haul a circular tour for Kingfisher Railtours from Bristol down the Western mainline towards Reading before turning for Newbury and up the Berks & Hants, returning to Bristol via Trowbridge. Details for all these trips are available from the promoters via links on the left.

13 May 06 - Welsh Marches Express

The engine is now in Tyseley after another excellent rail tour for Past Time Rail hauling the Welsh Marches Express (or The Royal Welshman or the Cambrian Coast Express). Departing Bristol Temple Meads the climb of Filton bank completed with speed held at 30mph all the way up. The water stop at Magor and subsequent pathing stops at East Usk and Maindee North Junction were protracted affairs owing to the amount of traffic heading to Cardiff for the FA Cup Final. Once away from Maindee though the loco put in a sterling effort on the climb to Pontypool Road and over Llanvihangel bank before calling at Hereford for water. The weather took a turn on the damn side as we headed onto Shrewsbury but this didn't hamper the climb to Church Stretton and we were soon into Shrewsbury for the servicing stop. The departure from Shrewsbury towards Birmingham was a personal triumph for one society member, who with grateful support from Network Rail & EWS had managed to get the loco passed to travel on this section of line once famous for the Cambrian Coast Express. So, with the appropriate headboard and reporting number, 6024 lifted her 12 coach train away from platform 6 swinging left in front of the 180 lever Severn Bridge Junction signal box and on towards Birmingham. The climb up through Wellington was a sight/sound to behold, the loco roaring up the grades and with whistle wide open in express fashion raced through the middle road of the station.! All too soon though this brief return of the Cambrian Coast Express was over as we pulled into Bescot yard to be detached from the train. With the stock heading back to Bristol, 6024 left for Tyseley via a roundabout route through Coventry & Leamington Spa before running tender first up Hatton Bank and back into Tyseley.

This link is to a video clip of that run through Wellington station. It's in a .vob format so should be saved to your hard disk and played with a DVD player. Many thanks to Jeremy English for the footage. (Click here).

09 May 06 - News

The engine is still at EWS's Barton Hill depot in Bristol in readiness for this coming weekend's Welsh Marches Express. Once this run is completed the loco will return to Tyseley for fitting of OTMR equipment and some general fettling. Tickets are still available for this train, so if you fancy a great day out including some new territory for the loco from Shrewsbury to Birmingham then contact Past Time Rail (link on the left).

Once this work has been completed the loco will move to the Severn Valley Railway for the 6024 Preservation Society members day aswell as some public trains and private work. The move to the SVR is expected on the 16th June with the society's members days on Saturday 17th June. The engine is expected to work the 10:30am & 14:15 departure from Kiddermister and the 12:35 & 16:40 trains from Bridgenorth. Currently it's planned that the loco will work the 10:30 & 14:40 departures from Kidderminster and the 12:15 & 16:05 trains from Bridgenorth on Sunday 18th June.

After this the engine will move Light Engine to Old Oak Common for several charters from the capital to Bristol. No doubt the highlight of these trips will be a private hire for the Institute of Chartered Engineers, hauling the VSOE pullman stock on the 5th July.

On the 9th September the loco will again haul a private train for the Betjeman Society. This link from their website show's we're going to be having some famous guests along for the day too. (Click here).