28th March 1999

Eagle Railtours
The High Peak Explorer

Route :
1Z27 - Worcester Shrub Hill to Buxton
1Z28 - Buxton to Worcester Shrub Hill

Notes :
(1) 31468 on rear (providing ETS only).
(2) on the outward leg the booked route was Edale - New Mills Central - Romiley - Guide Bridge - Stockport (and reverse of this on the return) to save a run-round. Engineering works however forced the change of plan and a run-round at Stockport.
(3) plus 31468 (providing ETS only).
(4) ?plus 31468 (providing ETS only)? (confirmation required).

Source : Gary Thornton (joined/left train at Droitwich Spa)

Tour Review
(by Gary Thornton)

The day after sampling a pair of choppers on the Midland Railway Centre at their diesel gala and there was a chance to experience another pair.....on a real train! Newcomers to the railtour scene, Eagle Railtours have launched a bold series of railtours using Direct Rail Services (DRS) traction, namely Class 20's and 37's.

This particular tour from Worcester to Buxton was the first opportunity I'd had for years to get some decent thrash behind a pair of 20's. Whatever my original plan for the Sunday morning, it soon changed when the tickets came out - owing to engineering works, the train was diverted and would no longer be routed via Kidderminster on the outward leg. That meant only one thing - the chance to be behind the choppers going up the 1 in 37 climb of the Lickey - an experience not to be missed as each loco had only 1,000hp to throw into the attack.

It appears quite a few other bashers had the same idea and so many of us found ourselves at Droitwich Spa station on the approaches to 10am. I was booked in coach A with a couple of friends and when the train rolled in I was extremely pleased to find A was the leading coach. 20309 and 20311 were at the head and (unnoticed at the time) Fragonset railways 31468 was attached to the rear to provide train heating. Best use for them, if you ask me...

Within seconds of leaving Droitwich the choppers were opened up and what a beautiful noise they made. With every window wide open (good job it wasn't a very cold day) conversation was somewhat difficult over the thrash of the two choppers eagerly attempting to gain speed with "load 10" plus the dead ped behind them. Once turned on to the mainline at Stoke Works Junction all hell broke loose as the DRS driver threw the 20's into overdrive to gain as much speed in the 2 miles or so before hitting the bottom of the Lickey incline - about 3 miles of 1 in 37 rising gradient, a stiff challenge for any locomotive.

We passed Bromsgrove station at around 45mph and, as soon as the gradient bit, the speed quickly dropped to around 25mph and the sound of the choppers got more and more strained as they tried to keep the speed up. For the next 6 or 7 minutes the speed very slowly bled away despite the best efforts of the 20's - it must have been quite a sight for the trackside photographers as we struggled past them! Finally we drew towards the summit (past a 75mph speed restriction, ha ha!) with the speed down to around 15mph but the thrash no less diminished. As soon as we topped Blackwell summit the speed quickly rose and we headed for Birmingham, our next station stop. Walking through our carriage there were certainly a lot of smiling faces - yes, everyone was well impressed with the efforts of these two 40+ year old locomotives.

On leaving Birmingham we took the Derby line past Saltley depot (full of 66's!) and made our way towards Water Orton (pick up point) and then Tamworth. By this time it was apparent that there were only three positions on the power handle of the 20's - full thrash, thrash and idle. It was superb entertainment although trying to talk over the choppers in coach A was a bit of a strain on the voice! Our route then took us through Derby, Chesterfield (last pick up point) and onward via Edale to Manchester. Another highlight, thrash wise, was Totley Tunnel where we went in with the choppers at full chat and stayed that way all through the 3.5 mile long tunnel. Total hellfire! In fact the power stayed on pretty well all the way to the summit beyond Edale some 11 miles further on. For the normals on board (safely seated in the middle of the train) this was the bit to look out of the windows as the scenery was quite, well...scenic.

As we rolled towards Manchester there was a change of plan - the original routing had us do a lap of Manchester to gain access to the Buxton line but due to engineering works this was not possible to do. As a result we ran straight into Stockport where we then had to reverse. And what fun that was. It was a case of "all off" to allow the train to run out and back into another platform, then the 20's were run round to the other end. There were orange vests everywhere as the combined efforts of DRS, Railtrack and Virgin seemed only to succeed in slowing the moves down. As the run-round progressed we witnessed a growing line of trains on the viaduct waiting for the shunting to finish.

We finally departed Stockport about 20 minutes down and after a long slow climb (very quiet for those of us now at the back of the train) we arrived at Buxton exactly 20 minutes late. Time for a few photos and it was off to find some food (pie and chips) followed by a visit to a pub for a couple of pints of Marstons Pedigree. By the time we left the pub we found it had started to spot with rain so we took shelter at the station whilst the stock was drawn in to platform 2 by 31468.

20309, 20311 & 31468 on arrival at Buxton (photo: Gary Thornton)

For the leg back to Stockport we were back at the front of the train for one last thrash. The reversal was not however undertaken at Stockport but (BLS members to note and fume) using the down goods line adjacent to Longsight depot. A very rapid run-round (12 minutes) had us on our way but by the time we rejoined our booked route we were around 20 minutes down.

We retraced our steps as far as Birmingham. Despite the best efforts of our motive power it seemed we'd lost a couple of minutes at every timing point. We rolled in to New Street station almost 45 minutes down. With the engineering works completed we then ran via Stourbridge Junction and Kidderminster to get to Droitwich Spa. As We climbed in to our cars all that could be heard in the still night air was the pair of 20's blasting away from the station towards Worcester!

Verdict : A truly wicked railtour - congratulations Eagle Railtours, you can count on me booking on more of your tours if this one was representative of what to expect.

Most memorable part of the day : Climbing the Lickey, quite simply
ABSOLUTE HELLFIRE!!!

Timings (Booked and Actual)
(from Gary Thornton)

Booked mileages are shown in brackets where they do not reflect the route taken on the day. All distances, in miles and chains, are taken from the tour booklet - no attempt has been made to verify the mileages given.

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