9th January 1999

Pathfinder Tours
The Merchant Capitalist

Route :
1Z68 : Crewe to London Victoria
1Z84 : London Victoria to Crewe

Notes :
One of two Pathfinder railtours on this day - whilst 35005 was being serviced at Clapham Junction the stock was used with Deltic D9000 on a round Kent ramble "The Urban Suburban".
(1) A derailment at Coventry station earlier in the day caused the tour to be diverted from Leamington Spa direct to Birmingham New Street and on to Crewe on the return leg.

Sources : Ralph Barrett & Alex McGlasham

Tour Review
(by Ralph Barrett)

In order to get the stock (BN91) in the right place for Pathfinder's Deltic hauled 'The Urban Suburban' railtour, an additional railtour was run from Crewe to London Victoria and back. Due to the current unreliability of the EWS (ex-RES) locomotives, Merchant Navy 35005 'Canadian Pacific' was used for part of that journey ;-)

Railtour arrived at Nuneaton on time behind 47744 in EWS livery. Duff was then uncoupled, and the blue liveried Merchant Navy Pacific backed onto the train with her support coach (of which, more later). Train was all ready to depart a good 25 minutes *before* the allotted time, apart from... the guard. A Leicester (or Nottingham?) Trainman was booked as our guard from Nuneaton to Bedford, via the Wigston South Curve. Unfortunately, a train from Leicester had been 'CAPED' (cancelled), and said Trainman and some passengers had been despatched from Leicester by taxi, as the following Leicester to Nuneaton service was also running late. Needless to say, that the late train arrived in Nuneaton before the taxi, meaning that eventual departure from Nuneaton was 25 minutes down at 09:35.

The weather in the Midlands was almost perfect for 'steamy effects' as the wind was light, the sun was shining, and the temperature was just above freezing. On board the train the passengers were nice and cosy, as the consist included a generator van to provide full ETH. Mystery why BR never introduced similar equipment when the Mk1's ruled the roost, as they're *much* better than steam heating ever was. They'd have also allowed non-ETH locomotives to have been used for passenger workings, and given the ETH locomotives an additional 200-300 HP for acceleration (quite important on a class 31).

35005 ran reliably on her outward journey via Wigston South Junc, and ran as far as Kettering where a water stop was booked, using the local fire brigade (very efficient). Running on the MML was disappointing (to me at least) as the driver seemed content to keep the speed in the 50-60mph range for most of the time, although to be fair - the schedule was *very* slack.

I believe that Canadian Pacific is rated for 75mph maximum, so I have a suspicion that her speedo is reading somewhat higher than the actual speed. 35005's Firemen appeared to be doing a good job (too good a job), as the safety valves were forever 'blowing-off' for most of the day, shooting vast clouds of white steam into the cold, crisp atmosphere. Although this looks good, it makes a lot of unnecessary noise during station stops, and wastes a considerable amount of coal and water. Indeed the more I travel behind 'preserved' steam, the more convinced I become that they should be modified to carry sufficient water to be able to run for 150-250 miles without having lengthy (and often highly unsuccessful) water stops every 50-75 miles or so. All they need is one or two small tank wagons marshalled behind the tender, or even a large water tank fitted within the support coach.

An additional brief stop was made at Bedford, for a crew change, and then we ran all the way to Victoria station without further ado. Route was via Brent Junc., Acton Wells Junc., Kew, Barnes and direct into Victoria. 35005 slipped a few times on the final 1-in-120 climb at Battersea Park, but the slipping was skilfully overcome by the driver. Final arrival in Victoria's VSOE platform (2) was 15 minutes late.

At Victoria many familiar faces boarded for the "The Urban Suburban" railtour . Interesting to note that about 50% of the 'kettle' passengers stayed on for the Deltic trip (but most of them in my coach seemed to sleep through it! - Gary). Even more interesting to note that D9000's trip was fully booked, whereas the Merchant Capitalist was around 75% full. However, Pathfinder had ensured that the Deltic trip was 'priced to sell'.

Interestingly at Victoria, 35005 was uncoupled from her support coach, a vacuum braked only BSK, which was sent on the tour of Surrey/Sussex with BN91 and D9000. This meant that D9000 had to use her vacuum brake on a mainline passenger train, for only the second time since the 'Deltic Farewell' of 1982.

The return Merchant Capitalist departed Victoria a few minutes late and a crew stop at Kensington Olympia took much loner than planned, as it was announced that the locomotive was having trouble with her injectors, and that the exhaust steam injectors were not working at all. This meant that the crew only has the live steam injector working, so they had to ensure that the boiler pressure was maintained at or near to the maximum. This caused extra consumption of water and coal on the return journey.

Whislt at Kenny 'O', D9000 pulled up alongside, on the through road. She waited there for some considerable time, and we were eventually the first to leave towards North Pole Junction.

Return journey to Nuneaton was then routed via Willesden, Acton Wells Junc, the GW relief line as far at West Ealing. Then Greenford brach (with a long 10mph restriction!) and the GW&GC joint line all the way to Aynho Junction. The new double track section of line from Princes Risborough to Bicester is restricted to '60/100 DMU', so is not much use on a Deltic tour :-( , although fine for 35005.

Another booked water stop was made at Banbury, which seriously over-ran as much more water then planned was required, and the water pressure from the 'tap' was reported to be 'very low'. Pathetic.

Before the Banbury stop, 'Rail-gen' was reporting an HST derailment at Coventry. We then received gen (incidentally 'posted' from somebody else on our train) that there was a chance of getting haulage from 56071 from New Street to Crewe, as presumably all the local Duffs had expired ;-) During the extended Banbury stop, it was announced on the train's PA that the Leamington to Coventry route would be 'closed' until the following Monday, as nothing was being 'touched' until the blame for the derailment could be apportioned ! Plan was to terminate 35005 at Leamington, and run her to Tyseley light engine. Then a 'diesel' would take the train thenceforth to Crewe. A better plan would have been to swap the locos at Banbury, thus saving the wasted hour spent dripping water slowly into 35005's tender, whilst her safety valves immediately sent the water straight back into the atmosphere.

We have a final section of steam 'thrash' to Leamington, and it was nice to see the big cloud of white steam shooting up into the cold clear sky over North Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Every now and then, a cloud of exhaust steam was lit by a huge yellow glow from the open firebox.

Arrival at Leamington was on the centre road as planned, and all diesel bashers immediately looked around for the class 56. There she was sitting in the platform bay, 56071 in pristine EWS livery. Bye-bye kettle, time for some proper thrash (from the closest BR ever came to building an EE locomotive;-) We had a good 'storming' run up Hatton bank, and reached around 68mph before slowing to 64mph at the summit. After Hatton, we reached 76 mph, which was the highest speed reached all day AFAIK by any of the other locos (D9000 had been knobbled by severe signal checks etc.).

Arrangements had been made for passengers for Nuneaton to alight at Dorridge (of all places!), and then be bussed to Nuneaton. It would have been much quicker to catch the bus from Leamington, but then we'd have missed the class 56 thrash. So around 250 passengers detrained at Dorridge, and I was quite surprised that to see three coaches as promised. What would we have done if they'd not been there ? Who would be responsible for getting us to Nuneaton at 22:30 on a Saturday night ? Pathfinder ? EWS ? Railtrack ? Virgin ? Bus Company ? Nobody ? Needless to say that there weren't enough seats on the buses, and we left quite a few people behind (wonder if they're still at Dorridge?). Just as we were about to board our bus, 56071 departed the station in fine style, the driver 'going for it'.

After first driving the bus to Solihull, (why didn't we detrain there - we'd have got some more 56 thrash too, and saved some time ?), our bus driver eventually arrived at Nuneaton about 90 minutes behind the booked kettle arrival time (suppose that's not bad for a railtour these days;-). After the class 56 thrash, the bus was a great dissapointment - indeed it confirmed to me that coach travel is seriously over-rated by some.

Verdict - Pedestrian running. Interesting route. Nice surprise with 56.

Source : Ralph Barrett
(joined train at Nuneaton/left at Dorridge)

Timings (Booked Only)

Note : Booked route and timings are shown below. In the event, the derailment at Coventry station caused the tour to be diverted from Leamington Spa direct to Birmingham New Street and on to Crewe. Nuneaton passengers being transported home by bus from Dorridge!

Locomotive : 47744

Locomotive : 35005 "Canadian Pacific"

Locomotive : 35005 "Canadian Pacific"

Locomotive : 56071 (Leamington Spa - ??Crewe??)
The locomotive change took place at Leamington Spa owing to closure of the line to Coventry as a result of a derailment earlier in the day. The mileages are "as booked" via Nuneaton and not valid for the route taken by 56071.

Back to "The Railtour Files"