Class 80 In Service

woodenhead · October 5, 2021

16 minutes ago, jools1959 said:

Just out of interest, where was the Styal line as I tried Googling it but it keeps coming up with “Style”.

Not was, is.

It's a double track line that leaves the main four track route to Stockport at Slade Lane, just south of Lonsight depot.

It then travels in a pretty straight line through south Manchester with stations at Mauldeth Rd, Burnage, East Didsbury, Gatley, Heald Green, Manchester Airport, Styal and then joins the Stockport to Crewe line at Wilmslow.

The Airport junctions and station were added in the 1990s which caused a bit of change in stopping patterns for a few years to the detriment of those stations with the airport prioritised, but that has now been corrected and Styal station does now get a regular service again.

RJS1977 · October 6, 2021

My local railway when I was growing up! I could (just) see the tops of trains between Heald Green and Gatley from our then back garden.

The Stationmaster · October 6, 2021

On 04/10/2021 at 21:43, Wickham Green too said:

Plenty of non-authentic liveries available for the Leader, too - another loco which didn't exactly get the mileage 'round the clock' !

It would be interesting to try to source and compare the mileages achieved by these various 'experimental' and 'early development' etc locos. 18000 and 18100 must rank quite high along with, but still well short of, the LMS and SR diesel electrics and the Class 89 in knocking up both total mileage and revenue earning mileage. But DHP1 made hardly any mileage at all and although the Leader and GT3 made more miles than that neither ever made any revenue earning mileage.