56098 was rolled out of Barrow Hill on Saturday in it’s new guise of LoadHaul freight livery. The loco is due to move to Alleleys yard on Tuesday 16th Feb to swap bogies with 56056. Thanks to Gareth Broughton for the last 3 photos!
56098 outside Barrow Hill today. Thanks to David Dudley (http://daviddudley.fotopic.net/) for this photo.
The disposal of the eight class 56’s recently sold off by DB Schenker Rail has begun. Firedamaged 56118 has already been completed scrapped at C F Booth’s yard in Rotherham whilst 56033, 56048, 56056, 56068, 56079, 56116 have all been transferred from Healey Mills to Doncaster Wood Yard for onward movement to European Metal Recycling at Kingsbury. RIP.
Thanks to www.wnxx.com for some of the location information
Pathfinder Railtours have announced plans to run two Class 56 hauled trains during 2010. The first train is the re-scheduled ‘Scenic Settler’ from Bristol to Carlisle and return. Taking place on the 22nd May, this train is expected to be hauled by a DBS Class 66 diesel locomotive from Bristol to the West Midlands and return, with a Hanson Traction / Colas Rail Class 56 diesel locomotive providing motive power from the West Midlands to Carlisle and return. The second tour on the 26th June is an out and back trip from Tame Bridge Parkway and stations via Birmingham, Cheltenham and Bristol for Cornwall and Penzance ‘Mazey Day’ celebrations. Further details will be posted on our ‘Railtours’ page when they are announced.
Pathfinder’s last ‘Grid Trip’ was on December 12th 2009 with 56312 – it’s seen at Kettering during reversal.
Pathfinder Tours have advised a change to their ‘Scenic Settler’ railtour on Tuesday 29th December – the planned motive power has now been changed from 2x Class 31s to 1x Class 56 loco provided by Hanson Traction. The tour picks up at Bristol TM, Bristol Parkway, Cam and Dursley, Cheltenham Spa, Barnt Green, Birmingham New Street, Stafford and Crewe before running to Carlisle via the Settle and Carlisle railway. Fares are availible on the Pathfinder Tours website: http://www.pathfindertours.co.uk/. Seats are still availible in all classes.
UPDATE 14TH DECEMBER – Unfortunately, Pathfinder have had to postpone this tour until 2010 due to a low number of bookings. We will update this site accordingly once a new date is announced.
With thanks and credit to Ian Furness’ excellent WNXX.com;
As far as can be ascertained, and subject to the usual disclaimers etc. the outcome of the recent tender list is…
CF Booth: 37203 37415 37428 37684 37698 37890 37893 37896
EMR: 56033 56048 56056 56068 56079 56116 56118
Private: 56134
DB Schenker Rail UK has the following locomotives available for sale:
These locomotives will be sold as seen and as and where lying. The successful bidders will be required to remove the Locomotives from their present site at their own expense and without any assistance from DB Schenker Rail UK.
We have been informed of the following changes to Pathfinder’s forthcoming ‘Boot and Hoot’ railtour on 14th November.
Unfortunately, we have been advised by Hanson Traction that one of their two serviceable Class 56 locomotives (56311) now needs a complete power unit change after inspection of an engine fault last week. This, in effect, means that they will now not have a spare Class 56 to work our railtour this coming Saturday, as their other serviceable locomotive (56312) is tied into a long distance diagram for Colas Rail and will not be in a position to substitute. They also looked at the possibility of hiring in 56303 from RVEL, thus releasing ‘312 for our use, but this was also ruled out, as ‘303 is already on hire to a 3rd party and will not be available.
Therefore, instead of using a second ubiquitous DBS Class 66 locomotive, Hanson Traction will supply heritage Class 31 locomotive, 31190, as a direct replacement for the Class 56. One minor change is that the loco will complete its day at Stafford, rather than Birmingham International, which means arrival back at the latter will now be at 1935 (rather than 1900).
A Class 56 was booked for both of the above galas however neither will be attending now. A Hanson Traction Class 56 was booked for the NVR event however it will not now be ready in time. A RVEL Class 56, number 56303, was booked for the SVR event but unfortunately due to a derailment they have had to decrease the number of locomotives attending due to restricted train paths.
Class 56/3 No. 56303 has mysteriously appeared in a new coat of paint outside RVEL’s Derby workshops. It is not clear what the purpose of this repaint is, but rumors suggest that the loco may be hired out to Colas Rail for their mainline steel traffic. Photo below taken earlier on today, thanks to Anon for supplying it.
The following report comes courtesy of John Batley.
A glorious day, a 05.00 start up to chesterfield to meet Gareth, Keith and Alan At Barrow Hill at 08.00, first job after getting to Barrow Hill was a cuppa Tea and a bacon roll, after fueling up on Tea and butties we went into the roundhouse and got into our boiler suits ready to prep 56101, first job was to for Gareth to assess the oil loss from Saturdays crankcase door failier which flooded the bedplate with oil..nice!! we took 5 x 25lts of fresh oil to the loco and refilled the engine, Keith W then fitted a new gasket to the offending crankcase door and refitted it, once the oil was refilled ther next job was to drain the bedplate of water and oil..so yours truly had the lovely job of draining the oil out, this was done by filling the 25lt drums we used to refill the engine with fresh oil..6 drums later it was sorted. We then retired for a cuppa and had a look around at other locos on site at the gala. at around 10.30 56101 burst into life, much to the excitment of the punters on site, she certainly look and sounded the part, at around 11.30 Gareth took 56101 out of the stabling road to have her three turns on the ’shuttle’ train, all went well and it was nice to see 56101 breath as she climbed the demo track, there was a slight prob with the brake pipe as 56101 was showing over 5 bar on the dial, so it was a wait on the top of the demo line until the brakes bled of to 5 bar, but apart from that she performed brilliant, after the ’shuttle’ runs she was put back into the stabling sidings and checked over in the engine room to see if all crackcase doors were still in situ, all was ok. Later in the afternoon Gareth brought 56098 up to 56101 and i ‘multied’ them up to give the punters some serious ‘grid’ thrash, we put the loco’s into ‘maintenence’ and pulled the power handle back on 101, well talk about clag from 098!!
