Mark 3 Sleepers

[Flood]

1 hour ago, eastwestdivide said:

 

And a note that the vehicles intended to be 10734/5 are now Royal 2914/2915

No mention of 10733, missing from the listings.

 

 

As covered by my and Bomag's posts on January 6th. You'll find that in the 1986 book that 10505, 10524, 10528 and 10652 are also not listed.

[keefer]

Regarding the ScotRail sleepers, today i watched a couple of videos taken in 1989 by 'Soi Buakhao' on YouTube.

There's a single sleeper in a 4 or 5 coach rake being worked out of Glasgow QS by a class 26, so obviously a portion which has worked in at some point. (EDIT: possibly the portion of the Inverness sleeper as it has non-a/c mk2 coaches)

The other is at Perth, where an Abdn-QS mk3 p-p set (in full ScotRail livery) has a b/g sleeper at the back next to the 47/7. It just says 'Sleeper' on the side - 'InterCity' has been removed but they haven't put 'ScotRail' in its place yet!

Edited January 14, 2020 by keefer

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

5 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

Just found my 1984 (Ian Allan/RCTS) and 1986  (Ian Allan) books.

 

The 1984 book shows only prefixes:

SLEP

E 10500-534, 10571-589, 10593

M 10535-570, 10590-592, 10594-595, 10604, 10607 

W 10596-603, 10605-606, 10608-619

 

SLE

E 10646-665, 10668-672, 10678-680, 10682-10691, 

M 10666-667, 10673-677, 10681, 10692-727

W 10728-735

 

The 1986 book has prefixes and depots (BN - Bounds Green, WB - WIllesden Brent, EC - Edinburgh Craigentinny):

SLEP

E (at BN) 10500-534, 10570-575, 10580

M (at WB) 10535-569, 10582-607

SC (at EC) 10576-579, 10581, 10608-619

 

SLE

E (at BN) 10646-665, 10668-672, 10722-732

M (at WB) 10666-667, 10673-715, 10720-721

SC (at EC) 10716-719

 

And a note that the vehicles intended to be 10734/5 are now Royal 2914/2915

No mention of 10733, missing from the listings.

 

So quite a bit of change to deal with!

I wonder how seriously WB took keeping the "W" prefixed ones on the Night Riviera and the "M" prefixed ones on Anglo-Scots?! 

[EddieK]

In May 1987, part of my railway training involved a fortnight of footplate riding around Scotland. In order to get from Glasgow to Inverness to be able to enjoy the Far North line, I was booked on the Glasgow - Inverness Sleeper.

The 23.30 Queen Street to Inverness had two Sleepers at the front of the train, then a number of Mark 2 PV coaches. There was a similar train off Edinburgh Waverley at the same sort of time, destined for Aberdeen. This also had Inverness and Aberdeen sleeping cars. Both trains reached Perth at Similar times, where the sleepers were shuffled to get them on the correct trains. There were also southbound trains with sleepers for Glasgow and Edinburgh as I recall. The internal ScotRail overnight trains ran every night except Saturday night.

 

As a little aside, when I was on the Inverness sleeping car it was the front vehicle on the train. As 374xx thrashed up the incline to Cowlairs with this heavy train, I thought that the EE sounds could not get any louder, from my vantage point in the front vestibule. Right up to the point when the other 374xx that had brought the empty stock down the hill overtook the train on the other line, running equally flat out and still in the tunnel.

[keefer]

Nice pic of E10651 when new

E10651 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

[adb968008]

On 11/01/2020 at 07:30, daveyb said:

Was that the end of 50 041 too? 

Unbelievably but no...

50041 actually bounced back from that.

 

It took from the crash in November 1983 until January 1985, but it was indeed overhauled and returned to traffic.

 

I remember at the time seeing it on TV and thinking it was finished, and then seeing it stripped out, on jacks and in green primer in Doncaster works during an openday in 1984.

 

Then 2 years later 50011 would drive itself to Crewe works and be turned off, to be the first 50 withdrawn, just intime for Crewe works openday in 1987.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by adb968008

[adb968008]

On 11/01/2020 at 01:20, stovepipe said:

 

I imagine the Glasgow/Edinburgh-Perth-Inverness sleeper would have remained Mk1 until they stopped running in 1984. Inverness and Fort William were served off the Euston trains with Mk3s (and ETHels) from 1983. I don't know much about modern operations but it seems the Night Rivieria uses 8 or 9 sleepers per night in total. I guess they would need 3 or 4 spare too.

 

 

As per my post the page before, the sleepers were alive and running in 1989.

I went on them and still have the timetable.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/150492-mark-3-sleepers/&do=findComment&comment=3789687

[Gwiwer]

8 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Unbelievably but no...

50041 actually bounced back from that.

 

 

 

 

However very few locomotives have achieved the honour of entering Paddington on their sides. 

[keefer]

Have been on railwaysarchive.co.uk looking for something else and realised the Sleeper accidents mentioned weren't already linked to:

 

Taunton 06/07/78: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Taunton1978.pdf

Paddington 23/11/83: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Paddington1983.pdf

Morpeth 24/06/84: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Morpeth1984.pdf

(Similar accident with Mk1 Sleepers at Morpeth 07/05/69: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoE_Morpeth1969.pdf )

 

While, by nature, these reports can make for very sad reading, they can often provide a lot of detail of stock, formations, track layouts etc.

Often, the only 'good' thing that can come from incidents such as these is that lessons are learned - as previously mentioned, the Mk3 Sleepers were delayed due to issues highlighted in the Taunton fire.

The Morpeth accidents (not had time to read them) could give a useful comparison of the Mk1 v Mk3 designs

Edited January 21, 2020 by keefer

[rodent279]

On 14/01/2020 at 18:45, keefer said:

Regarding the ScotRail sleepers, today i watched a couple of videos taken in 1989 by 'Soi Buakhao' on YouTube.

There's a single sleeper in a 4 or 5 coach rake being worked out of Glasgow QS by a class 26, so obviously a portion which has worked in at some point. (EDIT: possibly the portion of the Inverness sleeper as it has non-a/c mk2 coaches)

The other is at Perth, where an Abdn-QS mk3 p-p set (in full ScotRail livery) has a b/g sleeper at the back next to the 47/7. It just says 'Sleeper' on the side - 'InterCity' has been removed but they haven't put 'ScotRail' in its place yet!

Did any MK3 sleepers make it into ScotRail livery? BR ScotRail that is, not post-privatisation ScotRail.

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Did any MK3 sleepers make it into ScotRail livery? BR ScotRail that is, not post-privatisation ScotRail.

None.  The handful used on the Inverness - Glasgow / Edinburgh, plus the Aberdeen coach, were all in B/G or IC livery until the service ceased.  There were no other internal Scottish services which would have led to sleepers being branded "Scotrail".

Edited January 22, 2020 by Gwiwer

[nightstar.train]

9 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Did any MK3 sleepers make it into ScotRail livery? BR ScotRail that is, not post-privatisation ScotRail.

 

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

None.  The handful used on the Inverness - Glasgow / Edinburgh, plus the Aberdeen coach, were all in B/G or IC livery until the service ceased.  There were no other internal Scottish services which would have led to sleepers being branded "Scotrail".

 

I’m away from my computer right now, but I have definitely found (a long time ago) a photo of a Mk3 sleeper in Scotrail livery. AFAIK only one was so painted, but there was one. 

[keefer]

Is that the one with the rail blue (instead of pale blue) stripe?

 

[royaloak]

On 17/01/2020 at 07:44, adb968008 said:

Then 2 years later 50011 would drive itself to Crewe works and be turned off, to be the first 50 withdrawn, just in time for Crewe works openday in 1987.

50011 was sent to Crewe works to work as a power unit test bed as Crewe Works had taken over the PU overhaul contract but didnt have the necessary test equipment, so a suitable loco was used instead.

[adb968008]

50 minutes ago, royaloak said:

50011 was sent to Crewe works to work as a power unit test bed as Crewe Works had taken over the PU overhaul contract but didnt have the necessary test equipment, so a suitable loco was used instead.

The point I’m making was the fallacy of overhauling 50041.

 

They managed with 49 class 50’s since the 1983 crash, except the 2 years 50041 gave them with its rebuild... which to me seems an expensive proposition overhauling 50041, and they probably already knew about planning to move the class 50 work from Doncaster to Crewe by November 1983... these things took ages to organise in the days of triplicate, typists and internal mail.

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

13 hours ago, adb968008 said:

The point I’m making was the fallacy of overhauling 50041.

 

They managed with 49 class 50’s since the 1983 crash, except the 2 years 50041 gave them with its rebuild... which to me seems an expensive proposition overhauling 50041, and they probably already knew about planning to move the class 50 work from Doncaster to Crewe by November 1983... these things took ages to organise in the days of triplicate, typists and internal mail.

 

Hell of a thread creep but the repair to 50041 was only possible for one reason- repairs done to locos under BR were seriously low quality and therefore cheap, not one of the Doncaster works repair jobs done in the 1980's would ever be allowed back out on the rails nowadays and the same went for a lot of works. There was a 47/8 entered into the Class 57/3 program which had to be scrapped as the thing was banana shaped following an earlier repair lash-up decades before, some of the HST power cars that went into Brush for body overhaul as part of MTU re-power would never have come back out if they didn't need each and every shell, some repairs wouldn't have withstood a minor shunting incident let alone a heavy impact.

[royaloak]

3 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

Hell of a thread creep but the repair to 50041 was only possible for one reason- repairs done to locos under BR were seriously low quality and therefore cheap, not one of the Doncaster works repair jobs done in the 1980's would ever be allowed back out on the rails nowadays and the same went for a lot of works. There was a 47/8 entered into the Class 57/3 program which had to be scrapped as the thing was banana shaped following an earlier repair lash-up decades before,

There was more than one body shell rejected due to poor repairs, one became a gate guardian and another was broken up, there might have been a third one but I cant recall.

[Bomag]

1 hour ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

Hell of a thread creep but the repair to 50041 was only possible for one reason- repairs done to locos under BR were seriously low quality and therefore cheap, not one of the Doncaster works repair jobs done in the 1980's would ever be allowed back out on the rails nowadays and the same went for a lot of works. There was a 47/8 entered into the Class 57/3 program which had to be scrapped as the thing was banana shaped following an earlier repair lash-up decades before, some of the HST power cars that went into Brush for body overhaul as part of MTU re-power would never have come back out if they didn't need each and every shell, some repairs wouldn't have withstood a minor shunting incident let alone a heavy impact.

 

D1630/47048/47570/47849 was rejected as a 57/3, although it had run safely on the network for 29 years on the network after the Eltham Well Hall crash. Repairs were based on getting things to run and not returned to a pristine condition.  

[royaloak]

Yesterday (Wednesday) 2 class 50s delivered 3 ex ScotRail sleepers to Laira (do you see what I did there, getting us back from class 50s to mark 3 Sleepers), I assume for spares but anything is possible.

 

Edit-

only 2 were dropped off at Laira (10551 and 10553 both SLEP), the other one (10706 SLE(D)) was taken to Long Marston this morning.

Edited January 23, 2020 by royaloak

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

21 minutes ago, Bomag said:

 

D1630/47048/47570/47849 was rejected as a 57/3, although it had run safely on the network for 29 years on the network after the Eltham Well Hall crash. Repairs were based on getting things to run and not returned to a pristine condition.  

That's the one- I knew someone would know the number. Ran safely- undeniably. Passed through overhauls without causing aggro because things didn't fit as they should, or run full term between needing wheelset changes - certainly not!!

[RBAGE]

Funny, when I read the title of this topic my first thought was of the things that keep the rails in the right place.

First timber, then concrete. So, what was the Mk3 sleeper going to be made of.

[woodenhead]

23 minutes ago, RBAGE said:

Funny, when I read the title of this topic my first thought was of the things that keep the rails in the right place.

First timber, then concrete. So, what was the Mk3 sleeper going to be made of.

Metal then for high speed concrete with metal ties. 

Edited January 23, 2020 by woodenhead

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, royaloak said:

Yesterday (Wednesday) 2 class 50s delivered 3 ex ScotRail sleepers to Laira (do you see what I did there, getting us back from class 50s to mark 3 Sleepers), I assume for spares but anything is possible.

Anything is possible and the Night Riviera is gasping for more beds.  Five sleepers are often booked out weeks in advance especially in the latter part of the week and up to London on Sunday night.  Some trains are still booked four sleepers I understand though my recent trips have all had five on.  I did hear whispers that they were going up to six.

 

If that is the case I hope they can do something about the adhesion (lack of) often suffered on the down "beds" which can lose an hour or more through Cornwall in damp conditions.  Perhaps the new timetable which has another train running in front of it might help.  

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, RBAGE said:

Funny, when I read the title of this topic my first thought was of the things that keep the rails in the right place.

First timber, then concrete. So, what was the Mk3 sleeper going to be made of.

There are the steel ones used in some areas

 

[Bomag]

5 hours ago, royaloak said:

Yesterday (Wednesday) 2 class 50s delivered 3 ex ScotRail sleepers to Laira (do you see what I did there, getting us back from class 50s to mark 3 Sleepers), I assume for spares but anything is possible.

 

They could be SLEDs, last time I looked the NR did not have the same level of disabled provision as the Scotrail trains (presumably on the basis of the lower usage making it not practicable).