20th November 1999

Pathfinder Tours
The Crompton Collier

Route :
1Z90 : Crewe to Gedling Colliery
1Z91 : Gedling Colliery to Crewe

Notes :
(1) 33021 + 33103 on rear.
(2) 66131 on rear.
(3) 56091 on rear.
(4) 66098 on rear.

Source : Gary Thornton (joined/left train at Nuneaton), Ian Loveday (on throughout) & David Clark

Tour review
(by Ian Loveday)

D - 4
The day the tickets and timings arrived

The latest brochure stated that the train would be expected to depart from Crewe at 04:50 and arrive back there at 22:15. The confirmed timings proved to be somewhat different; depart from Crewe at 05:34, and arrive back at Crewe at 00:09 (Sunday). However the important things to me are always, is the motive power and route still as originally advertised? They were, save for the fact that the Leicester goods lines would be omitted, but they were dud for me anyway. Certainly a good day was in prospect.

D -1
The day before

The weather forecast for the Saturday was a sunny winter's day c. 7 Deg. C, with a ground frost in the morning.

The gen. for our tour was: 66098, 33021, 33103 & 56091. Verdict : As good as could have been expected.

Hertfordshire Railtours were also running a tour on the same day called, "The Great Rocks" to Buxton via (unsurprisingly) Great Rocks. The gen. for this tour was : 47727 47760 86???. Verdict: Good for me as it meant that I didn't miss any required engines, bad for the bashers that had booked on it and then were subsequently refused refunds by HRT. Let me explain; It was commonly thought that this tour would get at least one 66 from Doncaster, but due to safety reasons associated with EWS providing only one train crew and the fact that 66's are non ETH traction, it was either be cold on one section, or have ETH 47's. Since we all know that any prospect of 1st class passenger discomfort on an HRT is punishable by public flogging, 47's were booked.

D-Day
The day of the tour

A great many things in this life bring me much untold pleasure, however one thing that I can't stand is early mornings. The alarm sounded at 03:00. I live in Selby but work over 200 miles away in Swindon, and Swindon was to be my departure point this morning. After defrosting the car, I climbed in, selected 4 400rpm and 5th gear, engaged the auto-pilot and under two hours later somehow I arrived in Crewe.

I entered the buffet on platform 6, and the last time that I had seen it like that at 04:55 was during the Crewe drags years ago. It resembled a local village hall in a disaster zone, loads of people asleep in what little space they could find whilst others looked on in a bleary-eyed trance. Pleasantries were exchanged with some fellow cranks, and it was established that the gen. was the same as the night before.

At 05:10 the ecs for the tour rolled out of the darkness and into platform 5 hauled by 66131! It is proving to be quite a problem getting the correct gen. on 66's. 33103+021 were already attached to the rear of the stock thrashing away providing some much welcomed heat. Boarding the stock I couldn't believe how warm it was, the metal table edges were hot to the touch!

The timings (booked/actual) can be found below, and therefore I will make few references to them in this text. An on time departure from Crewe was followed by a storming run to Stockport and then a stagger from Stockport to Man.Pic, albeit the complete run was non-stop. Now with the 33's at the front (33021 leading) we left Pic still in darkness and passing Longsight depot again revealed 47705 on Virgin stock, this had been used in top "n" tail mode the previous day on the Portsmouth Harbour service and was due to be used again today, however a driver's dispute stopped that, and the service was cancelled. 47702+810 on a Virgin ecs duty were waiting for us to pass before gaining release from the depot. We were put on the up slow at Stockport to allow the 06:30 Pic-Euston to pass, today haulage of this service was noteworthy in the form of 90146.

I am glad 33021 was leading, and although I didn't require it for haulage, it was many years since I had had it. I have always rated cromptons, and a pair is always a treat, it is just a shame that 33021 is painted red! 33021+103 both in BR blue would have been much better!

At Crewe the 66 was detached from the rear of the train and during this manoeuvre 47702+810 drew up along side on the centre road, they were being signal checked to allow an Euston service to head south first. It was very noticeable how the drivers were stopping very short of red signals, presumably in light of recent events. The 47's plus their Virgin rake of stock set off for Brum New St as we boarded the train.

With the 66 detached we were on our way again. There was much talk of whether or not it would be 66131 again in the evening, but for most people it was a win win situation as if it was 66131 again, we would just detrain at Crewe on the first pass in the evening and thus all get home two hours earlier.

50017 in some awful livery was visible on Crewe carriage shed along with 46035.

It was a beautiful bright crisp winter's morning by the time we arrived in Stafford and by departure the tour was filling nicely. It turned out that the run between Crewe and Stafford in the morning was the fastest stretch of the day as the rest of the day was rather a stagger.

47634 on the Shrewsbury-Euston was viewed at Brum New St, this being one of three RES 47's on hire to Virgin that day (47584+640 being the other two). Kettle 35005 (I think that is the right one, but I don't know anything about steam engines, they are just not my bag) was being held at Landor St. Junc. to allow us to gain the up main. Our diesel v steam triumph only lasted for a rip-roaring 4.5 miles though as we were placed on the down and up slow at Castle Bromwich and met with a red signal to allow the 35005 to pass. The kettle was on a Stratford-on-Avon-York steamex with 31452 attached to the rear to provide ETH. The "once in a loop and then forgotten about" scenario started to develop as after the kettle had long passed we were still held by a red. 2x153 units drew up along side and stopped over 4 coach lengths from its red signal, not that I blame the drivers at all for acting with such caution. The 153's were held to allow 47806 on 1V39 to pass before they could cross onto the Nuneaton line, the line we were also booked to take. Next to pass us was a class 158, before we finally were allowed out to play again. Handle back, plenty of noise and clag, and we were Nuneaton bound!

We paused at Nuneaton, our last official pick up point, and then onwards with a well loaded train towards our first bit of "red track" of the day. We joined the Coalville freight only line at 10:08 and our train was given 100 minutes to travel the next 30 miles, was this a little generous on the recovery time?, Pathfinder seem to think that it would be, and in the event they were right as the actual time taken was 88 minutes. 60061+035 were noted at Bagworth Junc en route.

Pathfinder must be praised for arranging a lunchtime break in Derby. There is nothing worse than being stuck on a tour all day. This one proved particularly good, as at just under an hour it was long enough to go to the chip-shop, cafe or pub adjacent to the station entrance. To top it all, this tour's lunchtime break was at lunchtime, not at three in the afternoon at some shack in the middle of nowhere without catering facilities, like some previous tours!

(Manchester Utd, the team I support, were playing against Derby at Pride Park that day, and they won 1-2!)

Our top and tail engine in the form of EWS livered 56091 was attached during the break at Derby. With fully stretched legs, and a nice lunch inside me, I joined the train again, class 56 leading, as it headed for the first of the three colliery branches we were due to visit; Calverton.

With the sun now low in the sky, we were joined by many lineside photographers as we rounded the curve into Calverton colliery. We continued until at least the Railtrack/RJB boundry and someone did say that they could see the buffer stops ahead of us, although I didn't see them myself. Whilst waiting for our departure time we were visited by a brief shower, the only one of the day. Retracing our steps, we were held at Bestwood Park Junc. for a 156 unit to pass on a Nottingham bound Robin Hood line service. We followed that service down to Nottingham where we were again running ahead of time, so we were held on the centre road for 60002 on 6E50 to pass. Continuing east we passed the new Nottingham train servicing depot where it was host to many units including 4 of the new class 170 units.

I was just nodding off to sleep when I was woken up to find Pathfinder's Richard Szwejkowski grinning inches from my face wanting me to make a donation to the charity raffle. I say donation because I never ever win! We were so on on the second branch of the day; Gedling. We made short work of this branch, travelling as far as the Railtrack limit. On the return we were held at Netherfield level crossing, again because we were running early. This was not surprising as we were given 30 minutes to travel just over 2 miles! The amount of recovery time was now proving to be a little tedious, and as we were informed that we would not be allowed to pass through Nottingham again until our booked time, at least it was arranged to have us platformed so that we could stretch our legs. I must say that one improvement I noticed with this tour is that we were all kept informed of what was happening by announcements over the PA.

We departed from Nottingham in darkness and headed for the only branch that I needed; Bentinck. It is always a shame to travel somewhere new during darkness, however it is better than not going at all, and being stood by a window I had a good view of what was around us. We took the branch as we passed under the M1, a road that I have come to hate due to it's constant traffic queues when I am driving between Selby and Swindon. Again on this branch we only travelled as far as the Railtrack limit. An announcement informed us that this was due to RJB refusing permission for the train to travel onto their land. Nowadays I only ever expect to get to the Railtrack boundaries (unless advertised otherwise) and I treat anything beyond the boundaries as a bonus, so today there were no bonuses, but no major disappointments either.

Some gen. was updated, and the HRT actually got 86401 47749+760 and that we should expect to have 66131 again in the evening. We stopped along side Toton depot to detach 56091 which was due to return to Worksop depot, and many people on board were shouting out numbers of the locos on the shed. I'm not interested in trainspotting personally, but I would have liked to have seen the new class 67, 67003 that was there. However I think that it must have been safely tucked up inside one of the sheds as it certainly wasn't visible. (Editors note : Actually 67003 was tucked up safely in a shed in Adtranz Litchurch Lane, Derby - not at Toton).

Once the grid was off the back, we made our way along the high level goods lines and then onto Leicester. An additional set down point had been arranged for here, and I am sure that this was much appreciated by those that alighted.

We returned to Nuneaton by which time we were running late due to a temporary speed restriction between Croft and Hinkley. We were booked to traverse the Hams Hall Railfreight Terminal reception tracks, and I have to state that I was somewhat sceptical that this would actually take place as by past experience things booked for the return journey tend to get missed as nobody has any will left to solve any problems, and no one wants to make the train any later as connections etc might be missed. However my fears were unfounded and the reception tracks were duly covered.

After Brum New St, you could have heard a pin drop in our carriage as everyone around me was asleep. However they missed the cromptons reach their top speed of the day between Wolverhampton and Stafford.

On approach to Crewe people started to awake and gather their belongings together ready to alight, and I was doing the same expecting 66131 to be coupled onto the back of the train. I alighted and walked along to the end of the platform where 66098 came out of the darkness much to everyone's delight! It transpires that 66098 had been on Crewe the night before, hence it being quoted, but then got sent south on a steel train, however it had returned in time for the evening trip. Not that I think that that influenced it's use in the evening, just that there were four 66's on Crewe by the time we returned in the evening ready to be allocated to infrastructure trips, and I think we were just lucky, however if someone did swap it on purpose, thank you!

So it was all back on board (catering staff included!) to Manchester behind the 33's with 66098 on the back. That excitement and seeing some of the people I normally hang out with that had just turned up for the 66 breathed new life into a tired day, and the run to Manchester was an enjoyable one.

The correct time of departure for us to return to Crewe behind the 66 arrived and the platform signal clicked to green and the theatre indicator shone a capital F for the up fast, but departure time came and went, but we didn't. We actually stood under that green light for 9 minutes without moving, but I don't know why, anyway with a new engine on the front that was forgotten as we stormed non-stop to Crewe arriving at 00:17, 8 minutes late. I then had a fast drive across country to Selby, arriving home to climb into a nice warm bed very tired but happy at a little before 02:00.

Verdict : Another good tour by Pathfinder, the only bad point was the amount of recovery time built in meant that we were frequently stood waiting time during the day. There were no major unpleasant surprises on the day and a "bonus 66", but it was a very long day!

Ian Loveday

Route, Distances and Timing's (Booked and Actual)

Timings courtesy of Ian Loveday, David Clark and myself (teamwork!).

66131 outward & 66098 return :

33021 + 33103 :

56091 :

33021 + 33103 :

56091 :

33021 + 33103 :

** Hams Hall Reception Line mileage is estimated.

Key;
a : arrival time
A : Attach assisting engine
c : crew change
d : departure time
D : detach assisting engine
L : locomotive change
o : operational stop
r : reverse direction
/ : passing time

All distances, in miles and chains (M & C), are taken from the tour booklet. No attempt has been made to verify the mileages given.

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