Nightstar stock - photos of it in action

[DaveF]

Hi All,

 

I came across these photos of a Nightstar test train at Plumpton, near Penrith on the WCML in 1997 while I was sorting out some other material for fotopic.

 

I thought they might be of interest to someone.

 

My apologies for the image quality, they didn't scan well.

 

 

 

Plumpton 92032 Cesar Franck down Nighstar test rake 10th April 97

 

 

 

 

 

Plumpton 92032 Cesar Franck down test rake of Nightstar stock 2 10th April 97

 

 

David

[James]

I always thought the coaches look rather stylish - there can't be too many photos of them in action in the UK!

[Adrian Wintle]

I always thought the coaches look rather stylish - there can't be too many photos of them in action in the UK!

 

No, but VIA didn't bother to repaint them much (they even painted some of the P42s to match), so a little Photoshopping...

 

Adrian

[jamie92208]

For anyone interested there was a good article in Trains magazine a couple of years ago about the trials and tribulations of getting the stock into service in the harsh Canadian climate with a lot of good photos. I'm not sure of the date but might be able to find it.

 

I did once see the set working north through Warrington on a test run and it did look good.

 

Jamie

[Pugsley]

Yes, I don't remember them looking much different to that when I travelled on them in 2004 between Toronto and Montreal.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of them in use in the UK before!

[The Stationmaster]

Yes, I don't remember them looking much different to that when I travelled on them in 2004 between Toronto and Montreal.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of them in use in the UK before!

 

They were not 'in use' but were involved in trials and I've a fairly good idea that one, possibly more, of the vehicles in that set didn't have a fully fitted interior.

[Pugsley]

Sorry Mike, I didn't phrase that very well, what i should have said is that I've never seen a photo of them out on the main line before. The only photos I've seen of them were of them in storage.

[The Stationmaster]

Sorry Mike, I didn't phrase that very well, what i should have said is that I've never seen a photo of them out on the main line before. The only photos I've seen of them were of them in storage.

 

 

Not to worry Martin - I was just (pedantically) making sure before someone smothers Wiki with accounts that the train entered service on the WCML

 

I would think pics of the thing on the move are fairly rare although Brian Stephenson might have got some when the dc testing was going on although I can't recall offhand ever seeing any published. A lot of UK test running was done 'out of hours' initially because there was a need to prove the train was 'electrically safe' and not in the 'roving H bomb emf' category that had been allotted to the Class 92 (which at that time were I think only allowed to run under their own power on BR 25kvac at the north end of the WCML).

 

What is equally surprising is the lack of photos of that set on its perambulations round Europe in its test programme there.

[Southernman46]

Have a couple of slides of these on test through Ashford (Kent) behind a pair of EPS 37's

[Wild Boar Fell]

Just stumbled across this thread, the below album has a few photos of the ERS Sleeper stock in France and Holland.

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHskLQ8mWG

 

Wild Boar Fell

[daveyb]

They spent most of their UK career in store at MOD Kineton which is difficult to get photos from public land. I didn't realise the significance when I was posted there

[Darius43]

They spent most of their UK career in store at MOD Kineton which is difficult to get photos from public land. I didn't realise the significance when I was posted there

I remember seeing them at Kineton when I was working on projects there in the ‘90s.

 

Darius

[JeffP]

Ah, Nightstar, one of two lies told to us Northerners in order to get our backing for the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar.

[The Stationmaster]

Ah, Nightstar, one of two lies told to us Northerners in order to get our backing for the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar.

 

Well yes, and no.  They were not an entirely bad idea but the length of journey involved and the time it would take would never have been particularly commercially attractive and the emergence of cheap air fares really sounded the death knell for a lot of the 'beyond London' stuff.  Mind you Regional Eurostar was only finally pulled about 2 weeks before it was due to start running from Birmingham when the private companies which had taken over Eurostar started to look seriously at what they had bought and managed to get Govt permission to dump it.

 

The decision to dump the EuroNight Services trains was taken on a very different basis as some of them were found not to be commercially viable.  However certain routes remained until the final decision was made - internationally - to cancel the project.  In reality by the time it would have started running it is probable that only the London -Frankfurt service would have had any commercial success with Amsterdam becoming a dead duck due to cheap air fares.  And of course more than a few technical issues had not been fully resolved and i seriously wonder if some of them would ever have been solved.

[russ p]

I spent two nights in the mid 90s as traction inspector doing high speed braking trials with them.

The booked driver was a York RES man who was on nights and the council were digging the road up outside his house so I did all the driving.

We had a RfD class 90 and went from Doncaster to Darlington and back doing various tests an timings.

At the time I was involved with north Norfolk railway and we had just got a mk3 sleeper. That was barely ten year old so I asked if thee would be available in another ten!

I was told then they were never going to run in this country but I hadn't heard it here.

He was a good chap as I said we were having problems getting wiring diagrams for the mk3.

So good was the BR internal mail system back then I had a full set of diagrams on my desk by the time I started my next shift!

The brakes were fantastic and that was without the emergency electromagnetic track brake.

This couldn't be used as we were prohibited from connecting the ETS for some reason.

I must be one of the few people to have driven these at 110mph in the uk

[drjcontroller]

 

90023 at Ayton, a few miles north of Berwick with a rake of Nightstar stock being tested between Heaton and Dunbar, 31st August 1996.

I'm sure I have a picture of the stock testing on the northern WCML but can't lay my hands on it at present.

 

Hope this is of interest.

 

Douglas

 

Click on the image for a better quality one.

[The Stationmaster]

I spent two nights in the mid 90s as traction inspector doing high speed braking trials with them.

The booked driver was a York RES man who was on nights and the council were digging the road up outside his house so I did all the driving.

We had a RfD class 90 and went from Doncaster to Darlington and back doing various tests an timings.

At the time I was involved with north Norfolk railway and we had just got a mk3 sleeper. That was barely ten year old so I asked if thee would be available in another ten!

I was told then they were never going to run in this country but I hadn't heard it here.

He was a good chap as I said we were having problems getting wiring diagrams for the mk3.

So good was the BR internal mail system back then I had a full set of diagrams on my desk by the time I started my next shift!

The brakes were fantastic and that was without the emergency electromagnetic track brake.

This couldn't be used as we were prohibited from connecting the ETS for some reason.

I must be one of the few people to have driven these at 110mph in the uk

 

Definitely need to take care what was connected to the ETS on that stock unless you happened to have a mini power station behind the driving cab as the power draw was 'impressive'.  But the stock used on UK trial runs was never fully fitted-out in any case so whatever went into the train supply might have finished up in all sorts of unusual places

[dibber25]

I wrote the story up for RAIL after I travelled on the 'Nightstar' stock (now called Renaissance stock by VIA - although they assigned that name before they realised that it wasn't going to be appropriate). I must say, I found them very comfortable and the ride was very good. I had previously ridden the 60+ year-old Budd cars on 'The Canadian' and I could not say the same about them! Many of the Nightstar vehicles bought by the Canadian government were incomplete and even today, some unused body shells lie in a field at Thunder Bay, Ontario.

In addition to the sleeping cars VIA has 'Ren' cars configured as:

restaurant cars

day cars

lounge/crew cars

coupling converter cars. These allow conventional stock to be coupled to the 'Ren' stock, so one is positioned next to the locos and another is needed when a Budd 1955-built streamliner is attached to the rear of the train, as during the summer when the Halifax-Montreal 'Ocean' has a 'Park' class tail-dome-lounge car on the rear.

It should be noted that it is routine practice, in Canada, to turn the whole train on a triangle, rather than running the locos round. 

Here are some pictures of Nightstar stock in use.

 

(Edit: Sorry pics in reverse order to list - I thought I had it sussed but evidently not!)

 

Coupling converter car

 

Sleeper

 

Compartment interior. I guess this is as fitted out for Nightstar.

 

Almost empty interior of coupling converter car

 

Dining car interior

 

Day car interior. Used primarily in Montreal-Ottawa corridor

 

Lounge car interior

 

When I travelled we had a Budd cafe car on the rear instead of a dome car.

 

European markings still in place. Only the circular Nightstar logos were removed. I understand any re-livery invalidated the paint guarantee.

[dibber25]

And three shots of 'Ren' cars on a train departing Toronto for Montreal in 2012. The 'Ren' cars are not well liked by VIA crews as they were not built to withstand the harsh conditions in Canada. In general they've been kept off the Toronto run but for a couple of summers there were a number of regular workings. In these pictures there's a coupling converter car immediately behind the loco. Apart from some electrical and safety gear, these cars are empty, just carpeted and the walls decorated with flags. Less under frame equipment, too. Oddly, there are no 'Ren' baggage cars. 

The lounge/crew car is the one with the abrupt switch of light and dark colours - presumably this was a Nightstar feature - as these were converted from the Nightstar office/customs/immigration cars. The Canadians cut a large disabled access door midway along the side, which can't have done much for the structural integrity. Subsequently these doors carried 'out of use' labels after a member of staff narrowly missed falling out when a door opened in transit.

The third vehicle illustrated is a standard car fitted with seats as a day car.

(CJL)

[Steamysandy]

The photo taken at Ayton is of interest.Somewhere I've seen a photo of a southbound working from Dunbar just north of Houndwood.Across the valley on the other side of the road is a house which for many years was occupied by a cousin of my father and her family.

You could sit on the settee in the living room and watch the trains going past without moving!!

[009 micro modeller]

Well yes, and no. They were not an entirely bad idea but the length of journey involved and the time it would take would never have been particularly commercially attractive and the emergence of cheap air fares really sounded the death knell for a lot of the 'beyond London' stuff. Mind you Regional Eurostar was only finally pulled about 2 weeks before it was due to start running from Birmingham when the private companies which had taken over Eurostar started to look seriously at what they had bought and managed to get Govt permission to dump it.

 

The decision to dump the EuroNight Services trains was taken on a very different basis as some of them were found not to be commercially viable. However certain routes remained until the final decision was made - internationally - to cancel the project. In reality by the time it would have started running it is probable that only the London -Frankfurt service would have had any commercial success with Amsterdam becoming a dead duck due to cheap air fares. And of course more than a few technical issues had not been fully resolved and i seriously wonder if some of them would ever have been solved.

I read somewhere (possibly on another forum) that two of the problems with Nightstar were the need to maintain customs facilities at all the regional destinations, as well as the high speed lines in France being closed at night which would make the journey longer. What sort of timings were expected compared to Eurostar services (assuming plans had got that far)?

[nightstar.train]

And three shots of 'Ren' cars on a train departing Toronto for Montreal in 2012. The 'Ren' cars are not well liked by VIA crews as they were not built to withstand the harsh conditions in Canada. In general they've been kept off the Toronto run but for a couple of summers there were a number of regular workings. In these pictures there's a coupling converter car immediately behind the loco. Apart from some electrical and safety gear, these cars are empty, just carpeted and the walls decorated with flags. Less under frame equipment, too. Oddly, there are no 'Ren' baggage cars. 

The lounge/crew car is the one with the abrupt switch of light and dark colours - presumably this was a Nightstar feature - as these were converted from the Nightstar office/customs/immigration cars. The Canadians cut a large disabled access door midway along the side, which can't have done much for the structural integrity. Subsequently these doors carried 'out of use' labels after a member of staff narrowly missed falling out when a door opened in transit.

The third vehicle illustrated is a standard car fitted with seats as a day car.

(CJL)

The now staff car would’ve been the lounge/buffet car with a disabled sleeping compartment. The doors are as constructed, VIA didn’t cut the midway one. The colour switch in the middle was because they had seated cars one side (with light upper and dark lower), and sleeper cars on the other (with reversed colour scheme). The angled colour switch would’ve gone through the Nightstar logo and lined up with the sun/moon design on that.

[dibber25]

The now staff car would’ve been the lounge/buffet car with a disabled sleeping compartment. The doors are as constructed, VIA didn’t cut the midway one. The colour switch in the middle was because they had seated cars one side (with light upper and dark lower), and sleeper cars on the other (with reversed colour scheme). The angled colour switch would’ve gone through the Nightstar logo and lined up with the sun/moon design on that.

 

Oops, got that wrong then. Anyway, they certainly got taken out of use because one opened and a member of crew nearly fell out. Pity really, as the lack of disabled access on most of their rolling stock has been a big headache for VIA and on the one type of rolling stock where it is available, the doors gave trouble. Apparently body corrosion and water leakage are now bigger issues with the Nightstar stock. The problem for VIA is that they expect everything to last as long as their stainless steel stock. It might last well but it's 1950s technology and there's no doubt that the Nightstar trucks (Class 158 bogies, I believe) ride much, much better than the Commonwealth bogies on the Budd cars. (CJL)

[Zomboid]

I had a ride in the Nightstar/ Renaissance stock from Ottawa to Montreal a few years back, in one of the open 2+1 seating cars. I was pretty impressed, apart from the slightly damp/ mouldy smell that it had. Better than the LRC car that I rode in going the other direction.

[Siberian Snooper]

A couple of years ago I did the round trip on the Ocean from Montreal to Halifax and those coaches ride better than the mk 3 sleepers. They look quite small when seen next to a loco.