Train shite

[willswitchengage]

As far as I know, this topic hasn't been brought up before. Got me thinking as a few weeks ago I noticed a farm near my house full of disused railway carriages here. Not far away there's also this unusual restaurant composed of old railway carriages.

 

Trains of the 80s were win.

 

[rml2345]

The APT is 100% train shite. There were loads of diesels built in the 60s that qualify too.

Especially Baby Deltics.

[morris_ital_lover]

Trains of the 80s were win.

 

 

Cough, 70s... (tis the HST prototype and the early APT gas turbine prototype.

 

The APT is the shitest train of them all, essentially your finest British engineering project. So close to being excellent but killed off by accountants and trying too hard.

[M'coli]

Just as a note, it's Keighley's diesel gala this coming weekend.

[pocket.calculator]

Yer actual 'abandoned luncheonette' by the Route Napoleon.

 

 

[Volksy]

This have to be pretty high on the list.

 

[willswitchengage]

I love those old railbuses, Pacers seem to still be the staple diet of us Northerners. A few more unusual vehicles:

 

Metro-Cammell Class 151 - rival prototype to the venerable sprinters we still have today.

 

SEPTA Silverliner II - autonomous self-powered coaches makes them quite versatile, but look a bit odd when there are four in a single train.

 

The Daddy. 10,000hp and 200 tons of GM experimental purely electric traction.

 

MaK/Vossloh G2000 with asymmetrical cab for easy marshalling.

 

Might as well save the best 'til last - sixhundred tons of the biggest and most powerful train ever made. Can't see it being rivalled soon.

 

[idiotboy]

I love those old railbuses, Pacers seem to still be the staple diet of us Northerners. A few more unusual vehicles:

 

 

 

Now that's ace, a Britsh built locomotive (English Electric Class 08 350hp shunter), pulling a British built Motor rail flat wagon, loaded with British built cars, along rails made probably in Workington.

 

Wouldn't happen these days.

[idiotboy]

As far as I know, this topic hasn't been brought up before. Got me thinking as a few weeks ago I noticed a farm near my house full of disused railway carriages here. Not far away there's also this unusual restaurant composed of old railway carriages.

 

Trains of the 80s were win.

 

 

Actually the APT-E was powered by gas turbine engines made by Leyland so there is an Autoshite link...

[morris_ital_lover]

[o/t]Didn't Leyland's gas turbine research nearly bankrupt them?[o/t]

[willswitchengage]

Wouldn't happen these days.

 

Axiom Rail of Stoke still makes wagons, rail prodction moved to Scunthorpe after Workington closed, and we now export more cars than we import. Oh, and Hunslet has prototyped a new shunter. So, despite the Gov't's efforts of outsourcing big new train orders to Semens, it's not all bad news

 

[Vin]

Here is some train shite I saw at the Midland Railway Centre last weekend.

 

This was at Swanwick Junction...

 

 

Maybe the classification of train is stretching it but this badboy was at Butterley...

 

 

 

I enjoyed the MRC - there is lots to see in the sheds and sidings. There is also a bus museum and the the national fork truck heritage centre My sister lives in Ripley, so it was only a 20 minute walk to Butterley station as well. I recommend.

[RedSparrow]

That little truck is a Multicar from East Germany.

 

I am going to pearoast these from Czech:

 

 

Railbus type things. Not the smoothest of rides.

 

All still in daily service.

[Pillock]

Aaah, trains.

 

Quite interesting to see that Class 151 prototype, since we ended up with a Class 151 which is distinctly not that! Did BR never allow it on the open rails? Looks a bit too... erm... APT to be nice though, I prefer the Sprinters we got. Even though I've probably travelled on them all at some point, all the local lines used them.

 

Railbus thing was just SKILL - I reckon someone at Leyland had a spliff too many and just started welding things together. It's just 100% cheesy, you expect it to have a steering wheel.

I remember a lot of the old DMUs that used to get trotted out whenever one of those new-fangled Sprinters broke down. I remember things like the Class 102, even sounded like they had a pre-select gearbox in them?

[morris_ital_lover]

The 151 did make it out IIRC, it was bought by Pete Waterman to be refurbished and hire out on spot hire but it was never to be as pikeys got to it, trashed it and it was consequently scrapped.

 

I think the railbus used a wagon chassis and the national body, quite who was passing all the weed around BR and BL during the era I'll never know but to get that thing signed off it must have taken alot. I can remember the first time I saw one of them at Exeter Saint Davids as it rolled in and then rocked alarmingly as the driver applied the breaks. I've luckily missed a journey on them a couple of times... I don't mind a good sprinter. Quite possibly the last "British" unit we successfully exported ignoring the Desiros to South Africa as most of that is built in Europe leaving th assembly to Derby.

[willswitchengage]

We have exported lots of surplus locos since then however, here's a couple of 86s in Hungary

 

 

And a 58 in Holland, lots in France too

 

[Pillock]

After a bit of research.... ok, lazily hitting Wikipedia.... it seems that the 151 was the only 151 (well, there were two of them but the same design).

I was sure the class 151 was a variation on the Sprinter but obviously not.

 

We seem to export a lot of fright locos, but we also import - 56s were Romanian (and were some of the shortest lived locos on the network), I think the 58 was an imported design too. And all the 59s (and 66s?) were American.

[Albert Ross]

Only some of the 56s were Romanian, made by Electroputere. Dreadful where corrosion was concerned.... odd really!

[RedSparrow]

This is you lot:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwEVzOegqzw

[willswitchengage]

This is you lot:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwEVzOegqzw

 

Nahh, more like this

 

[theorganist]

After a bit of research.... ok, lazily hitting Wikipedia.... it seems that the 151 was the only 151 (well, there were two of them but the same design).

I was sure the class 151 was a variation on the Sprinter but obviously not.

 

The class 151 was built by Metro-Cammel in Birmingham as a rival for the BREL built class 150. It was classed as a Sprinter. Only two were built (both 3 car sets) and worked out of Derby Etches Park depot alongside the 150's. The were often used on the Matlock branch. IIRC one of the reasons they were not ordered as a production batch was that there was a lot of vibration from the transmission in the saloon.

 

They were withdrawn in 1990 and spent much of the proceeding years parked up at Llandudno Junction carriage sidings. There was a plan a few years ago for them to be refurbished and then leased for spot hire or used for special workings. For whatever reason this fell through and they were scrapped, which is a great shame.

[theorganist]

59, 66 ,67 amd 70 are all US designs to UK loading gauge

 

Class 67 were designed by Alstom in France and built in Spain. The engines and drivetrain are indeed GM however, the same as the class 66.

 

I will get my anorak

[pompei]

That Keyboard Cat incident is just what happened a couple of months ago when Oliver Cromwell was coming through Grimsby Station GGRRRR

[Pillock]

Aaah I didn't realise the 56 was UK designed, it just looked out of place next to everything around at the time.

I remember them being Christmas Tree'd at Toton at only a few years old, there can't be many left now!

[tonedepear]

IMAG1367 by Tony Lloyd, on Flickr

 

APT-E is at Shildon. Free and very much worth a visit.

[catsinthewelder]

Aaah I didn't realise the 56 was UK designed, it just looked out of place next to everything around at the time.

I remember them being Christmas Tree'd at Toton at only a few years old, there can't be many left now!

 

They were introduced in 1976 and lasted until 2004 in frontline service with a few stragglers still running on odd jobs with smaller operators. Not great but better than a good many other classes. They always seemed to fit in to me, They bodyshell is very similar to the class 47.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_56

 

The class 58 was based on the 56 but was designed for easy maintenance (with the unfulfilled hope of export orders)

 

Introduced 1983, all out of service in the UK by 2001

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_58

[morris_ital_lover]

It is worth noting that the unreliability of the 56s was such that Foster Yeoman IIRC, who were running aggreagrates out of the Mendips gave up and ordered their own locos (the class 59s) to stop the silliness of all the 56s repeatedly blowing up.

 

Also IIRC, the Romanian built examples turned out to be a false economy as they were so poorly built they essentially had to build them twice.

[Vin]

Class 56s are 'proper' locos. Here's an early one dropping a track worker at my local station. Then setting off again. Cum on feel the noize!

 

[catsinthewelder]

I read somewhere (possibly the last incarnation of this thread) that the reason that they were built in Romania was to secure a trade deal to send CKD kits for somewhat outdated passenger aircraft out there. I can't remember the exact result but I imagine it went monumentally tits up as usual.

 

Anyway a shot of my favorite trainshite, the class 89

 

[oman5]

My personal faves are the venerable class 37s.These were built in the early '60s and were so reliable and useful they were kept in active service until only a couple of years ago. I saw a lot of them back in the day around the welsh valleys on coal and ore trains. here's one light engine being given the biscuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6v3tmPud6Y

They have a couple at my local heritage line the Pontypool and Blaenavon railway as well as 108s, 31 and 73.chuck 'em a fiver on one of thier diesel gala days and they let you drive one.

 

and of course the spectacular class 55 "deltics". from the days when we made stuff in this country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVNFJcgLmw