Jim’s “out and about with GBRf” thread

[big jim]

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

69009 staying under cover a bit longer then ?

didn’t spot it but there were loads more inside that looked quite advanced in their builds

 

possession between craven arms and Ludlow today, caught the train to shrewsbury and taxi’d to site 

 

66792 leading and colas loco 66848 in the rear 

 

After the work was done it was up to onibury to wait to leave the worksite 

 

after leaving the worksite it was wrong road to craven arms where I crossed over to the right road, stopped by the new ‘flow’ bridge before I got permission to continue toward shrewsbury

 

had to pass over marshbrook crossing under local control before reaching another worksite which I had to pass through, 7 miles long at 5mph, soul destroying! 
 

eventually got to crewe about an hour late where the loco got taken off me to head to bescot 

 

and colas took the other loco off the rear 

 

66789 passing through en route to trafford park 

 

another onibury to crewe job tomorrow, 66779 and 66711 on that one this time 

 

[Iron Horse]

Thanks for the tones Jim, TBH I hadn't gone out to look as all the locos that had gone down there recently were the Colas ones but I heard the engine working up the hill, opened the back door and Carolyn went "That definitely sounds like Jim" 😁

[45156]

14 hours ago, big jim said:

After the work was done it was up to onibury to wait to leave the worksite 

Never seen the station from that angle, as I have yet to travel from Ludlow to Shrewsbury by rail, but I plan to take the TFW loco hauled sometime soon just for the hell of it.

[richardw1970]

15 hours ago, big jim said:

had to pass over marshbrook crossing under local control before reaching another worksite which I had to pass through, 7 miles long at 5mph, soul destroying! 

That sounds even worse than Newcastle-Leeds at 35mph with 4x142's that needed tyre turning!

[big jim]

Only 2 from today, back to bromfield for a sit on before working it back to basford hall, late again!

 

 

Basford hall

 

as I’m late back I won’t catch the start of my job tomorrow so will have to see in the morning what the plan is with it! 
 

One good thing that happened was while I was sat doing nothing I entered a few competitions and ballots on my sky tv rewards app, about an hour later I got an email saying I’d won tickets to see Busted in Nottingham at the start of October, that should be a fun night out, might even sample the trams saving driving into the town! 


 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by big jim

[big jim]

Bit of a can you just that actually worked out quite good today! 
 

as I was in after rest i couldn’t work the start of my job so someone else took my train to humberstone road and left it there for me, it’s actually booked to sit there for a few hours so it worked out good, I got a train over to Leicester in time for it to depart right time 

 

crewe 

 

leicester  

 

mountsorrel, first time I’ve seen the green DB hopper wagon in action! 

 

66007 and 66779 passing by, amazing to think that yesterday I had that loco on the Welsh marches and in the 12 hours since I got off it had somehow got to Doncaster (via an engineers train from bescot!) 

 

 

loaded and ready to depart

 

I got asked to work it through to hinksey instead of getting off at landor st, as I started later I was able to do that and originally my job tomorrow (Friday) should have been hinksey to bescot so staying in Oxford worked out perfectly, well it did until the job was cancelled, I’ve now got to head to coleshill late on Friday to work one back south to banbury!

 

never a dull moment! 

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by big jim

[45156]

12 hours ago, big jim said:

66007 and 66779 passing by, amazing to think that yesterday I had that loco on the Welsh marches and in the 12 hours since I got off it had somehow got to Doncaster (via an engineers train from bescot!) 

That's a funny 66 leading @big jim - but as you say, these locos do get around these days - they don't hang around.

[big jim]

2 hours ago, 45156 said:

That's a funny 66 leading

 just checking your awake

[Siggie in the east]

20 hours ago, big jim said:

66007 and 66779 passing by, amazing to think that yesterday I had that loco on the Welsh marches and in the 12 hours since I got off it had somehow got to Doncaster (via an engineers train from bescot!) 

 

 

And today it worked a train from Whitemoor to Stowmarket Good yard with wagons on 3Z01, didn't understand what the wagons were on TOPS unfortunately.

[big jim]

2 hours ago, Siggie in the east said:

And today it worked a train from Whitemoor to Stowmarket Good yard with wagons on 3Z01, didn't understand what the wagons were on TOPS unfortunately.

class 3 could possibly be the RHTT wagons as GB are doing them out if stowmarket this year 

 

tonight was a simple enough job, had to go pass from Oxford to coleshill to pick up the Iport to Southampton train 

 

That I took to banbury 

 

 

where a footplate swap was arranged so I could work a train back north, an interesting selection of locos, 69 and a new 66

 

 

 

took that as far as landor st and done 

 

 

crewe to small heath tomorrow afternoon 

[gz3xzf]

Platform 3 at Banbury was the place to take water on steam railtours when I was part of the service crew for the GWS, stopped there many times using the fire hydrant that used to be just on the left of this photo. Later on when the platform hydrant had been removed we used one out in the car park.

[big jim]

Empty scrap train crewe to small heath today 

 

66798 

 

Waiting at small heath, vintage trains 47 alongside waiting to get into tyseley, earl of mount edgecombe was on the rear 

 

running round in tyseley 

 

After a bit of shunting taking out wagons for maintenance and replacing them with freshly repaired wagons it was parked up and done 

 

that’s me until Tuesday now, couple of light loco moves to do, pacer tour to llandudno on Wednesday on my day off then a couple of nights of nuneaton to trafford park 

[mikejames]

Jim said 'pacer tour to llandudno on Wednesday on my day off'

 

do report your experience

I wondered about going but there reports of the 'ride' made me duck out.

 

enjoy

mike james

 

 

[big jim]

2 minutes ago, mikejames said:

Jim said 'pacer tour to llandudno on Wednesday on my day off

 

 

yeah, definitely going to be pics of the day out, looking in my forward to it 

[wagonbasher]

3 minutes ago, big jim said:

yeah, definitely going to be pics of the day out, looking in my forward to it 

That was this threads 8888 post, that’s got to mean something.

 

Andy

[big jim]

1 minute ago, wagonbasher said:

That was this threads 8888 post, that’s got to mean something.

 

Andy

means I’m in work too much! 

[beast66606]

On 22/09/2023 at 02:00, big jim said:

66007 and 66779 passing by, amazing to think that yesterday I had that loco on the Welsh marches and in the 12 hours since I got off it had somehow got to Doncaster (via an engineers train from bescot!)

 

66779 ran to Stowmarket on Friday and is in position for the Anglia RHTT which look to be starting tomorrow (25/09) so it had a busy week

[big jim]

Just 2 from today, a couple of light loco moves first up was longport to bescot with 66741

 

Then it was straight onto 66304 which I took to small heath, the lack of photos was down to rushing off to get the train home!

 

bit gutted this morning as I listen to Dave berry on absolute radio and as it’s their 15th birthday they have had a huge 6ft by 3ft birthday card relaying it’s way around the country for people to sign, basically handed to members of the public for the day, this morning it ended up in Stoke and they were after someone to take it on, I got in touch by email to say I could get it on my loco for a trip to Birmingham, they got back immediately and said it would be brilliant and asked about the logistics of it, simple enough if collect it in my car and take it to longport and put it on the loco, they even had someone to collect it from bescot so it looked like it was a goer but the emails stopped and I heard no more about collecting it (checked my spam etc) so they must have had a better option in the end, shame as it would have been fun to have a companion for the trip and get some pics for the thread and a have a chat on the radio tomorrow! 
 

tomorrow is the pacer trip to llandudno, im going to be getting off early on the way back as I’ve been asked to do a ‘can you just’ in the evening, 805 to Glasgow, not going to turn that down! 

[5BarVT]

Do you sign all the way to Glasgow, or will you be conducted from Carlisle (ish)?

Paul.

[big jim]

I work it from oxley then I’ll be Conducted from Carlisle, another driver will get on in Glasgow to take it south, he’ll get conducted back to Carlisle too then take it to back to oxley,  I’ll stay on board and pass back to crewe for 04:00ish, we have to do it that way so we can get our required breaks 

[big jim]

Finally home after a very long day!

 

did the 142 tour to llandudno first, saw it heading ECS to wilmslow from crewe

 

 

got the train to wilmslow where the tour started 

 

197 heading to Manchester 

 

and in the pacer bounced 

 

 

Over to lime st where it changed ends

 

 

Nice and simple cab!

 

and away to llandudno, unfortunately it suffered a bit of a slide approaching colwyn bay and it got a wheel flat on he leading bogie, it was inspected at llandudno and was within spec to keep running, it sounded worse than it was but it’s going to need wheel turning 

 

 

 

 

From llandudno it went back to lime st 

 

 

 

you can hear the flats in this video! 

 

 

I got off there and caught a train to Wolverhampton for my evening job which was a pair of 805s to Glasgow 

 

805005 in full avanti livery 

 

left on diesel then switched to electric at bushbury jn, first stop stafford 

 

Stopped at Carlisle to pick up a route conductor, unfortunately due to the high winds there was a blanket 40mph speed restriction from Lockerbie to the top of beetock so we were late into Glasgow 

 

I got relief there and had my break on the train 

 

however as there was an issue with another train I got asked to work an intermodal back from Carlisle to crewe, it was only booked 5 mins behind the 805 so even with the speed restriction for the wind it wouldn’t have been far behind so off I go to wait

 

 

 

I was looking at the intermodal on real time and the track maps and could see it was sat in Lockerbie, saw a few other things passing though 

 

swift rail courier service (or something!) 

freightliner 90s

 

I then discovered my train had a wagon issue which had to be investigated, hence why it was sat in Lockerbie, it was given the all clear but it eventually rolled into carlisle some 2.5 hours late!

 

luckily I’d given the freightliner driver a lift back to crewe (with permission) so I had a bit of company as I was about to go over my day time wise, a second pair of eyes incase I felt sleepy, thankfully I didn’t and I got back to crewe fine but I can’t catch the start of my job tonight now as I need the proper rest 

 

walking back to the car 

 

hopefully just half a trafford park job tonight (or preferably none at all!) 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by big jim

[lmsforever]

The unit in the Aventi livery  looks very good but I like the look of the grey liveried units .

[nightstar.train]

8 hours ago, lmsforever said:

The unit in the Aventi livery  looks very good but I like the look of the grey liveried units .

I really don’t like the black nose. I know yellow isn’t needed on an 805, but it would look better, or maybe continue the green around? The black makes it look mean somehow, not as friendly as the pendolinos. 

[Nova Scotian]

14 hours ago, big jim said:

 

 

 

 

Oh great, the portaloos are back.

[big jim]

Just 3 from last night, trafford park job, got on at crewe due to the late finish the night before

 

running round 

 

and back to nuneaton

 

same again tonight but from landor st, looks like next week is RHTT out of kings norton on saynday then a week of rest days until a possession at bidston on Saturday