York - Swansea Cross Country Services

[richscylla]

Hi everyone. 

 

I'm trying find out when the Cross Country Class 47 hauled services from York - Swansea ended. I can find pictures until 1993 and 1994 but I was wondering if they went into 95 and beyond? 

Any information would be great. 

Many thanks, 

 

Rich

[Supaned]

in their later years they were worked by HSTs to simplify the shunting arrangements - no requirement for running round or shunt releasing locos at Swansea, I'm pretty sure they ran into Virgin days, more than likely they were curtailed under Operation Princess.

[SP Steve]

The York - Swansea working finished when the Summer 1994 Timetable came into effect (29th May 1994). From then on the service was extended to start back from Newcastle and did indeed last into the Virgin era of Cross Country.

 

Latterly it was operated as a HST service which helped with running the service via Bristol Temple Meads rather than the 'old' road through Chepstow.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

The workings stayed pretty much the same after the switch from loco-hauled in 1994 until May '98 so initially it stayed as a "marginal" working which resulted in an XC set finishing/starting at Swansea on weekdays; 1V60 1338 Newcastle-Swansea spent the night there and came back the next day on 1E30 0715 Swansea-York and indeed both trains ran via Bristol Temple Meads under the HST era. After May '98 the working changed to become and "out and back" 1V46 0743 York-Swansea > 1E39 1527 Swansea-Newcastle and remained like that bar small timing tweaks until September 2002 when it went over, briefly, to Voyager operation before being cut back to Cardiff . On Saturdays a set ran ECS from Bristol to Swansea in the morning to form 1E30 0725 Swansea-Newcastle and a different set worked 1V60 Newcastle-Swansea and spent the night there before doing a 1000-ish Sunday northbound (latterly 1S42 1000 Swansea-Edinburgh) with a balancing Sundays Newcastle to Swansea (latterly 1V72 0832 Edinburgh-Swansea) running empty back to Bristol afterwards.

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by fiftyfour fiftyfour

[richscylla]

Thanks all. So would the service from Newcastle - Swansea still have been loco hauled after 94? Or straight to HST at this point? I'm modelling South Wales from 1995 - 2000 so trying to see if my Swallow Class 47 can earn it's keep prototypically. Thanks again.

 

Rich

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

No, I think after May '94 there would never have been a 47 west of Newport on a scheduled passenger service. Making the Cross-Country an "out and back" HST would have made it impossible for that to be a Class 47 vice and still gone through to Swansea, and all the GW services were certainly solidly HST by then. Go back to "We buy any Brush dot com" and trade the 47 in for a 60!