From the guard's van

You have seen the locos... hired from DRS but painted in TPE livery.  Now we have the complete trains. Just a reminder... the class 68 locos. This one is standing in the north facing engineers siding in York station.  The Driving Trailer.  The complete train as it leaves platform 3 for the south. 

After a break of a few days the TPE class 68s are back although they did not seem to be doing their usual trips to Scarborough.  The Colas engineers' train was hauled by the usual class 70 even though the load was very light. The daily rubbish train was headed by one of DB's newly repainted class 66s. MARITIME is a container company... but not the one which deals with the rubbish containers. It seems that East Midlands are still hiring their power cars to LNER... ... and of course there was the usual Thursday steam excursion to Scarborough.  Ex-LMS Jubilee class no. 45699 named "Galatea" seen here travelling from NRM to Holgate sidings to collect the train. 

GBRf is moving coal around again. This is an empty train heading north. And the Colas engineers' train heads north with 5 loaded ballast wagons and a couple of empty low sided four wheelers.  This is a recent change to Colas even though the whole route is under wires and Colas have no electric locos.

Class 158/0 comes off the Leeds line into the station. This rather battered class 66 was on the binliner train today.  The southbound GBRf container train was powered by 66789 "British Rail 1948 - 1997" - last seen in Doncaster... see previous blog entry. 

Another TPE class 802/2 (802204) is being tested. These are 5 car bi-mode trains and this one was running between York and Darlington on electric power.  Entering platform 5 from the north.  At speed...

The new summer season of Scarborough Spa Express services has started. Today's train was powered by ex LMS Jubilee class no. 45699 named "Galatea".  The steam specials always attract a lot of attention from enthusiasts and the staff are very patient. 

Barnetby lies on the Immingham to Scunthorpe and Doncaster line. There is a regular procession of coal, biomass (mostly for Drax power station) and imported iron ore. East Midlands Trains from Lincoln leaves the station.  Modern colour light signals like this have recently replaced a large collection of semaphore signals. Iron ore is imported through the Port of Immingham for Scunthorpe. Coal empties head back to Immingham.  A loaded coal train is directed into the down loop to allow a couple of passenger trains to pass it.  A Trans Pennine Express train is ready to leave for Manchester airport.