dp123

In the spirit of the BR convention of aquatic life names for engineers stock, NR have christened them "Lobsters", because they're big and red.

There should be another train going down next week, Freightliner again. Twenty of the new MXA conversions (aptly named Lobsters now) going down empty to start removing spoil.

There's going to be 9500t of rock armour delivered by barge in total, by all accounts. Another train of aggregate for the staging area and temporary road is going down tomorrow, arriving 0800. 6Y99 ex-Hoo Jn, Freightliner doing the honours this time.

Depends on the train and recording required, usually 2-4. I once took one out on calibration to Old Dalby with a double figure crew, eleven vehicles, two 67s, three drivers and a fitter.

The South East MMT will be based out of Paddock Wood and Horsham, the initial thinking seems to be having dedicated MMT gangs/welders working all over the region attached to the train. You can load at either of those locations, if you road in the material. We're working on how we are going to work ours, whether it will be treated and planned as an engineering train or on track machine. Colas provide the drivers/operators. No reason why we can't take possession around like anything else. Even been talk of working as an engineers train required to stop in section, using only signal protection to protect it. How that plays out is anyone's guess.

Is there a foot crossing nearby? It could be a sighting board for vegetation clearance.

They're generally fine with that load, route dependant. There are a few bits on my patch (and no doubt most areas) where that sort of load in Coalfish wouldn't fly.

Coalfish are 34.5t coupling strength, so are very much middle of the road.

Somewhere there will be a Possession Train Order with all the spiel on it. Every conceivable detail about the train will be on the order. In theory.

Country end Colas loco declared a failure, couldn't get it off site last night, couldn't run round either. GBRf 66 ran as 1Z99 ex Hoo to drop onto the country end, but circumstances meant the train couldn't come off this morning. Should be off in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Interesting tidbit - there have been rumours of GB class 20s for some of the Easter work, as some trains need to enter via Greenwich (banned to 66s) and GB are short on 73s.

This was the train that piqued my interest in railways as a kid. Used to run with a 73 in a circular route from Ashford - Minster - Deal - Dover - Ashford, so I would catch it charging up the bank to Walmer around six in the evening, massive arcs as it went over the bridge gap at Walmer. The route changed when EWS top and tailed it, IIRC. That section of the Kent coast saw very little variation from CEP/VEPs (to think I once thought these boring), so it was welcome to see the immaculate red RES/RM coaches at speed, with a tatty ED at the helm.