17th September 1977

British Rail
(Day Excursion)

Route : 1Z68 throughout

Notes :
(1) A connecting DMU ran from Leicester to Nottingham (and return). Howard Parker comments; Several signal checks were experienced on the return, following the late running 1755 Edinburgh to Leeds service train.  At Chester le Street we were held from 2030 to 2035 before the station, 2039 to 2057 after the station and 2103 to 2106 before Durham and further delayed at Copmanthorpe (south of York) by faulty level crossing barriers – all of these contributing to the significantly late arrival in the Midlands.

Sources : David Hills (joined/left at Derby) & Howard Parker (joined/left at Nottingham & on connecting DMU)

Tour Review
(by David Hills)

After staggering up to Edinburgh only two weeks earlier on a day excursion, one obviously was not right in the head to try it again so soon, but here we were sitting on Platform 1 at Derby awaiting the arrival of our excursion chariot to far away lands. A train rolled in with an ETH 47 coupled to an Oxley set of Mark 2 E & F's and we stared at it wondering where this was going. The station announcer calmly advised this was for the excursion to Edinburgh, upon which a cheer went up and the arctic clothing and sled dogs were quickly discarded. Our seat reservations pointed to one of a couple of first class coaches, clearly the day was getting better and better until advised that the set was the wrong way round, but that was not sorted until the return trip!

Running out via Nottingham Clayton 8598 was noted on the Research Dept, with many Class 20's on the London Road curve. York produced a fleet of buckets, 40057/059/067/069/081, whilst only one 03 was seen at Newcastle 03094, though 03066 was at Berwick.

The ritual hurried purchase of tickets for Glasgow took place with 27104 & 27204 whisking us away to Glasgow. Our only stop here would be a taxi ride to Eastfield where fifty locomotives went 'in the book'. Little had changed since our last visit two weeks previously, 06003 & 24006 were still present. After returning to Queen Street 27112 & 27203 returned us to Haymarket which produced a right mixture of locomotives with a predominance of Type 4's, 40006 & 46020 to name but two. The short hop back to Waverley found our palatial chariot waiting for the run south, regrettably no longer in first class, the reservations snafu having now been sorted. Little could be observed on the ride home, the tinted double glazing on the Mark 2's making it difficult to see out in the increasing darkness.

Timings (Booked & Actual)
(from Howard Parker)

Connecting DMU;

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