From the guard's van

Those are two words we never thought we would see together, but Porterbrook have seen fit to refurbish a class 144 to see what could be done to bring them up to date. This has involved a toilet for the handicapped and new high backed seats. Not sure what they have done to ensure that the wheelchair could get into the train in the first place. This is bad news as it suggests that it is in someone's mind that these rattling "nodding donkeys" could have their lives extended even beyond their 30 years. But then this is only the North of England and not even a marginal constituency.  144012 stands at platform 8 in York station with a Harrogate train... under overhead line which is never used. 

Sir Nigel's wheels are back in York...

A few shots from a couple of hours spent on Esslingen station on the Stuttgart to Ulm main line. South bound train on the through road.  Local passenger train heading for Stuttgart.  Class 146 heading a southbound stopping train. A private centre cab diesel... can anyone identify it? Another class 146, this time propelling a north bound train out of the platform.  A Stuttgart bound train being propelled by a class 111. 

MSC liveried class 66/7 heads north through York station with coal empties from Eggborough Power Station. EWS loco no 66106 heads south with the morning rubbish train empties for Knowsley near Wigan.  Not the most exciting unit around but rarely seen at York is this Northern class 156 and in the new Northern livery.

When I left school (many moons ago) I looked at a number of engineering companies with a view to applying for an engineering apprenticeship, Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. was one of them. Their class 26, 27 and 33 locos, built between 1958 and 1962, were used successfully in Scotland and in the south of England. This class 27 is seen heading east from Arisaig station on the West Highland Line sometime in the mid 1960s. Here another loco enters Morar station from the south with a Mallaig train about the same time as the above picture.  While the class 33s were designed specifically for the Southern Region, in later life they operated trains through Crewe into Wales. This is one such southbound train in Crewe station. This 33 is heading north near Winchester with a fitted freight, probably in 1975. While this freight heads south through Winchester station in the same year. 

A recent trip to the museum's workshop found progress being made on the LNER class A4 -   "SIR NIGEL GRESLEY".  The centre cylinder has been re-fitted. A sketch from the Doncaster Works Drawing Office collection of the front end of a class A4. One of the locos in the works would fit on the bench. Boiler from the "ROCKET" replica undergoing repair alongside the A4. I would paint it if I could get the lid off this tin!!! This looks like one of those which got away. Another sketch from the Doncaster collection showing the outline of an A4 overlaid onto what appears to be an A3 with a long smokebox??

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.