Macedonia and Kosovo – May 2012

A trip to Macedonia and Kosovo which was absolutely brilliant! :-)

In short: Lots of sun, lots of noise, lots of rakia, lots of beer, lots of scenery, lots of cake, two nohabs and seven 661s!

Big thanks to Dan and Parker for making this such a good week.

Full gen for each phot can be found by clicking on the ‘permalink’ in the image, which also goes back to the far superior pre-slideshow WordPress format

Posted May 14, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, Macedonia and Kosovo

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Belgium for Mercia “The Cause and Effect” tour

A quick trip to Belgium to do the Spring Mercia tour

Decided to cover the SNCF 67400 turn to Tournai on the way over, so leapt off the Eurostar at Lille Europe for the conventional route forward with 67589 dropping us nicely onto 2125 into Brussels. The Mercia tour used 5166 as the main train engine with 2810 and 7840 assisting as we covered various lines down towards the German border. On Sunday with and a big change from last year in that nearly everything is now Class 18s we took the opportunity to head out to Dendermonde on a diverted service via Brussels West and cover the 21s on the Kotrijk axis (although one was a cart vice!) before an evening Eurostar back.

Posted May 1, 2012 by redcow87015 in Belgium, Euro Nedding

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87 phots from 2004

A selection of ‘seven’ phots from 2004…

By 2004 the end of the 87s on WCML duties was well in sight – the year should have seen full 390 service with the 125mph September timetable introduction although this had already slipped into 2005. On 1st January the class already on borrowed time with 87005, 009, 011, 017, 018, 020, 027, 034 and 035 stored at the start of the year and many others would fall by the wayside as further Pendo’s entered service.

Until September all WCML destinations still saw hauled trains although trips to Manchester were becoming fewer and fewer, luckily crew restrictions meant the diagrams were as solid as the WCML can provide which increased the ability to plan moves without getting stuffed by the tilting junk. Most of the year saw major engineering blockades with the Trent Valley shut most weekends and further periods of Milton Keynes or , even worse, Northampton – Euston blockades. September saw the hauled trains only booked on Euston-West Mids workings, this concentration led to an Indian Summer with all Birmingham workings hauled and up to twelve sets attempting to keep to 125mph timings with much fast running as a result!  As the year drew to close more and more turns went over to Pendos, an engineering blockade over Christmas however saw the hauled sets kicked out for a last hurrah on Trent Valley turns. Three machines worked over 150,000 miles during the year – 87002, 019 and 021 – not bad at all for a class being run down!

December 31st saw just 87001, 87002, 87004, 87010, 87012, 87019,  87030 & 87033 survive into 2005 with all other class members withdrawn…

Many Thanks to Mssrs “87009″, “87031″ and “Blacksmoke” for their gen…

Posted March 29, 2012 by redcow87015 in Class 87s, UK, UK Mainline

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TGV-Post at St Pancras

TGV-Poste Set 951 at St Pancras in connection with a test of some description involving a postal run to/from Lyon, although dragged by a pair of Eurotunnel MaK diesels from, presumably, Calais.

As I was conveniently en-route to a meeting in Derby grabbed a few phots of it stabled in the morning.

Posted March 21, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, France, UK, UK Mainline

Tunisia March 2012

A first foray into Africa with a hastly organised Tunisian trip to sample the various diesel locos which are threatened with new fleets of EMUs and DMUs and especially the Alco ‘DK’ -hauled Tunis suburban services on the Metre Gauge. So at silly o’clock from Birmingham we headed out on a Thomas Cook package deal to our hotel in Sousse but were soon armed with a weeks ‘Carte Bleu’ for the princely sum of 45TND (£20ish) in ‘grand comfort class’ and were ready for the bash across the SNCFT network of both Metre and Standard Gauge.

For the first few days we concentrated on the Metre Gauge whilst we found our feet and then did a few trips out of Tunis on the Standard Gauge which was a total shambles for timekeeping and security as every train was heavily bricked in the very rough Tunis suburbs it passes through so we curtailed the planned moves somewhat. However with a few engines in the book that shouldn’t detract from the much better Metre Gauge, the DKs which are monstrous, DK86/87/88 seemed especially loud and claggy with a number of flaming departures from stations! The long distance trains were all in the hands of “big” GMs which storming along at up to 80mph on the metre gauge was a bit of a beast (and claimed to be the fastest in the world) as were the regular slides into stations on a wet rail as the latter half of the week turned to storm conditions each night.

Full gen for each phot can be found by clicking on the ‘permalink’ in the image, which also goes back to the far superior pre-slideshow WordPress format, and I have attempted to put a bit of gen about each class on one of the photos.

Posted March 13, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, Tunisia

SNCF Bash February 2012

An overdue first trip of 2012 with a four day bash to France to sample some of the hauled trains operating around Paris.

Saturday:  Took the 0824 Eurostar from St Pancras, shortly after leaving the high-speed line we ground to a halt due to a fatality at Gare du Nord and crawled in to arrive an hour late. Said fatality had clearly caused complete chaos with most platforms closed and the concourse was just a complete mass of people. With all moves out the window we waited for the 1404 Boulogne which did manage to get away right time however on arrival the 1707 back to Paris was formed of a TER cart vice Intercity set so a complete bowl out there!

Sunday: Up early for the 0706 Boulogne-Paris which was taken throughout before the afternoon was spent bashing the 72000s out of Paris Est on the Mulhouse route which has recently been hacked back after a new TGV line open.

Monday: Into Paris from Troyes for a trip up to Longeau to net another 67000, then across to Austerlitz and a thrash to Orleans on 7216 and the evening was spent spinning 7200s/22000s out of Orleans. 7324 on the 1727 Paris-Orleans was a whopping train of 15 Intercity coaches, now thats how you move people around!

Tuesday: Gained a bonus class in 26016 on the way into Paris (vice 7200) then spent most of the day spinning out of San Lazare where the routes through Argenteuil have an impressive eight hauled trains per hour off-peak with both 17000 and 27000 locos available before taking a wedged Eurostar back to St Pancras.

Full gen for each phot can be found by clicking on the ‘permalink’ in the image, which also goes back to the far superior pre-slideshow WordPress format

Posted February 22, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, France

Ireland Autumn 2003

Some more phots which are now from a different age…

The late 90s and early 00′s saw a number of bashing trips made to Ireland, a magic land at the time where diesel haulage ruled the roost with 071s thrashing along the mainlines and secondary routes were the preserve of “baby” GMs, short rakes of cravens and steam heat. A long weekend at the end of October/early November 2003 would be my last visit – with cartification of the Limerick locals sounding the death knoll for me, preferring not to go back for scraps or solely for 071s as Ireland got very rancid, very quickly. By the time I did venture back for the “141 farewell tour” (which, err, wasn’t even a 141) I hardly recognised a thing on or off the railway…!

Full gen for each phot can be found by clicking on the ‘permalink’ in the image, which also goes back to the far superior pre-slideshow WordPress format

Posted February 9, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, Ireland

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DB New Years 2011

Last Years Munich trip for New Years celebrations

Headed over to Munich with a few mates to see in the New Year, wangled a few leaps and grabbed a couple of phots as you do!

New WordPress slideshow avoidance – click on ‘permalink’ from the slideshow to go back to the old format photo pages which have the captions on…

 

 

Posted January 17, 2012 by redcow87015 in Euro Nedding, Germany

Germany December 2011

German Trip December 2011 – Second week long bash to Germany, this time a bit more time in the East, highlights being a tours with 103222 and V100 2091 and a raft of both DB and MRCE Taurus on Regio turns – all of the ‘noisy’ tune playing variety as well as cheeky leaps on OBB, PKP and CD locos.

Tuesday: Flew to ‘Frankfurt’ Hahn, local breadvan to Bullay then into Frankfurt via Koblenz and had the evening around Frankfurt prior to getting the overnight up to Hamburg

Wednesday: RA Berlin from Hamburg, spent all day spinning around which fell apart when the downstairs collapsed then onto Leipzig for the night.

Thursday: Spent all day around Dresden taking in a variety of stuff including a run to Bad Schandau on CD 371s

Friday: A few leaps around Leipzig then onto Halle to cover off the 182 turns on the Eisenach REs before a long IC west to Hamm

Saturday: Joined ‘every man and his dog’ (well, nearly everyone) for a Hamm to Bremen tour with ‘massive’ 103222, a leap for 110464 out of Rottenburg which went pear shaped before a rioutous return tour spent enjoying the whopping bar/disco car

Sunday: Covered V100 2091 from Euskircken to Aachen on a Christmas Special then worked back to Dusseldorf for a few beers

Monday: Home today via Brussels, SNCB farce to welcome us with a caped local Aachen-Liege unit then no space on the following Thalys so local bus to Eupen for carts vice IC set to Welkenraedt then 1351 into Brussels for a bit of a run at the peak, which managed to feature 3×27 vice 23! 1850 Eurostar back to St Pancras, next 319 home duly caped so usual UK FCC quality on arrival!

New WordPress slideshow avoidance – click on ‘permalink’ from the slideshow to go back to the old format photo pages which have the captions on…

Posted December 11, 2011 by redcow87015 in Czech Republic, Euro Nedding, Germany, Poland

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“Photo Carousel” bollocks

WordPress have helpfully imposed a new photo gallery setting, and as you will see clicking on photos now leads to some flashy slideshow type setup, which doesn’t show full captions and resizes and shows the photos in a fotopic-style lower quality compressed basis. CHEERS THEN! Apparently there is no way to disable this junk so for now at least I’m stuck with it. Grrr.

 

As a workaround if you click on a photo then the ‘PERMALINK’ text on any photo that takes you to the old individual photo page and that has the thumbnails to move back/forward between the pictures in a post.

 

If anyone knows how to change it back, please let me know.

Posted November 14, 2011 by redcow87015 in Uncategorized

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