From the guard's van

We don't get many new trains in the north of England.... this one is 31/32 years old now... but we do occasionally get new liveries on your old trains. This does not increase the comfort or reliability of course but it's the best we can expect on our local trains for the moment. Was there something about a Northern Powerhouse... or has that been quietly forgotten? The new Northern livery on an old class 150/1 on a Harrogate line train at York. 

The Pendolino sets have been the mainstay of the West Coast Main Line's long distance services for many years now. Here are a few shots of them in Cumbria. The first few are in Carlisle station.  Alongside a class 220/221 This is an up train passing Eden Valley up goods loop. The class 60 in the loop is heading a train of empty hoppers for Hardendale Quarry.  A down train at Greenholme just south of Scout Green. 

It is not very often we see a country station with token exchanges, a level crossing, semaphore signals and a train which stops to collect passengers... but here at Poppleton on the York to Harrogate line we have all of those things plus a signalman who operates the gates manually. The signalling centre at nearby York station may operate everything at York and Leeds and who knows where, but Poppleton still has "real" signals and a signal box of its own.  The Harrogate bound train passes over the level crossing and onto the single line.  Here we see the down platform starter, level crossing and signal box.  Commuters travel to the station using all sorts of transport. The lady who left this on the platform  was probably heading for Harrogate. Approaching its last stop before York the driver of the class 150/1 gets ready to hand over the single line token to the signalman. After collecting the token and resetting the signals the signalman opens the gat

I first met up with the class 90 electric locos when they were new. I found 90004 in ex works Inter City Livery at Carlisle station and have liked them ever since. We don't see enough of them, especially on the ECML. Here are a few of my favourite shots (and liveries). Loco no 90129 in German DB Red livery. This was one of 3 locos painted in European railways colours in 1992. It is seen here on an up train of tanks in the middle road at Carlisle station.  Loco no 90037 in EWS livery heading an up postal train in York station.  Loco no 90024 was painted in GNER blue livery in 1998 and used on their ECML trains while the class 91s were overhauled. Here it is seen on a down charter passing Darlington South Junction.  Loco no. 90034 takes an up postal train out of Darlington station in the early years of the new century,  Loco no 90125 heads north through Lichfield Trent Valley station in the early 1990s with a down freight train. Loco no 90024 passes R