31st March 2001

PTG Tours
The Night Owl Co.

Route :

Notes :
(1) This train was basically a night "positioning move" to get the stock and passengers from Praias Sado to Entroncamento ready for the main days tour "The Marvao Marvel". 1510 was used to get it to Entroncamento ready for "The Alco Farewell" tour on Monday 2nd April. Original route was to have been from Praias Sado - Ermidas Sado - Funchiera avoiding curve - Beja - Vendas Novas - Vidigal - Coruche - Santana Cartaxo - Satarém - Entrocamento but this was scuppered due to engineering works, resulting in the much-reduced route that was traversed on the night. Arriving about 3am we were allowed to sleep on as the same stock was being used for the "The Marvao Marvel" though, as per note (4), it wasn't quite that simple!
(2) This coach was added as a replacement to 10 69 007-6 which had defective heating. As it turned out, the heating on this coach wasn't any better!
(3) From freight curve adjacent to station.
(4) after arrival into Entroncamento the rear coach (10 69 007-6) was removed and a restaurant car added between the leading and second coaches. This was achieved using Sentinel shunter 1159 and those passengers in the front and rear coaches were left on whilst the shunts took place!!

Source : Gary Thornton.
(on the train throughout, though asleep most of the time!)

Tour review :

Follow this link for a photo.

z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z . . . . . . . .

Erm, that's about the review!!

This short tour was a positioning move to get us to Entroncamento ready for the main event on Saturday. Originally it was a longer route via Funcheira but this was scuppered by engineering works - leaving a direct journey of less than two and a half hours for our ticket price of something like £75 each! Ouch!!

Never mind, it was a holiday and all had long since been paid for. Having arrived in behind 1807 we found an additional FK had arrived and this had been provided on account of the defective heating on one (our) coach. One of the PTG stewards came round before we left and said we were free to move to any other free compo in another coach if we wanted. David and myself were all settled so decided not to, however a while later I was beginning to feel cold so off I went to check out the free compo scenario. One was located near the front of the second coach so I wandered back and a move was negotiated. This would also have the advantage of putting us near most of Saturdays thrash. 

Within a few minutes I was off asleep....

....and awoke to find us already sat in a platform at Entroncamento, tour over!! It was a little after 3am.

Then a few strange noises could be heard - it sounded like someone messing about with the corridor connection at our end of the coach. Being the sort of person I am I wandered out to see what was going on.....

...and was absolutely withered to find we were now the third coach in the formation and a restaurant car had been neatly inserted between our coach and the leading one. I was all the more withered to see a Sentinel shunter just in process of powering away from the leading coach - those lucky buggers in that coach having just had it for haulage!!

Dozed/slept on until about 7.30am then went off to the loo to de-rance. Suitably washed and shaved I felt a bit more alive and David was soon up and freshened up too. We baled off to go and get breakfast (at the Carlos Lopez cafe just outside the station) and go and get provisions from a local supermarket (beer at 25p a bottle!). As I stepped down off the coach I was yet again rather withered to find the rearmost coach (the one we'd been in and had left various friends in when we'd moved last night) wasn't there any more....

.....it had simply vanished!!!!!

A conversation with one of our friends (formerly) in that coach confirmed that at about 3.30am everyone in it was woken and told to get off as it was being taken away - the replacement coach was just that, a replacement - no-one had told us that the defective one was being removed on arrival at Entroncamento! The unfortunate passengers were left to find compo's elsewhere on what remained of the train (after themselves getting 1159 "in the book"!!). They in turn invaded the replacement coach, waking up most of that vehicles inhabitants I guess. It was then realised that the heating in the replacement coach hadn't been working either!

Breakfasted and supplies bought we headed back to the station just in time to see Sentinel 1159 (same gronk as used to shunt the train about a few hours earlier) being hooked on to the south end of the train. Hopped on just in time as it set off to move the train to another platform. Good - at least we'd managed to claw-back what we'd missed earlier!

Verdict : perhaps a bit grand to call this a railtour - better to call it what it was - a positioning move. At least we were now "in place" for day two proper - our jaunt over to Spain with a CP1401 class.

Timings :
courtesy of Matt Gaskarth

Train reporting numbers :
13861/13860 : Praias Sado - Entroncamnto

Total journey distance : 160.7km

Key :
a : arrival time
d : departure time
/ : passing time

(a) Starting point was PSO Yard, not station

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