European Railroad Discussion > Didcot, UK freight operations

Good afternoon.

A friend will be visiting the UK next month for work.  The Didcot passenger station is the best he will be able to visit based on time constrains and location.  I think he'll take anything he can get for action, but is a bit freight-centric, like myself.

He has done some aerial research on the internet and noted what appeared to be some freight motors parked near the station.  There also appears to be quite a nice railway museum there, but possibly only open on weekends at this point?

If anyone would be so kind to offer up what he may expect to find in terms of freight operations, that would be most appreciated.

Best regards,

Mike
 

I suggest a visit to www.realtimetrains.co.uk. It carries the full UK schedule and, if you select the detailed search option you can filter in a number of different ways.

I would choose non-passenger services rather than freight services as my filter initially. I say that because things like track monitoring trains and steam locomotive moves will show up. However, you'll also get a range of empty stock movements which won't show up if you simply filter for freight services. In either case anything that simply says "FRGT" can be ignored, it's not running today. That still means there will be some trains that appear to be operating but aren't. The way to find out is to click on the ID for a particular train. It will show the whole schedule for that train and, once it starts running, the actual times and how early/late it is.

Having determined when you might see things of interest then do a search for all services in a time period. That will show the passenger services too. Look for an ID starting 1Z. It will be a non scheduled passenger train (or 1Z99 is a locomotive en route to an incident) which might just be steam.

If Didcot Railway Centre is open it's worth a visit. If not it might be worth a trip one station west to Swindon where the "Steam" museum is situated. If your friend is interested in shopping (or has a companion who is) it's adjacent to an outlet centre.

If you buy a copy of Freightmaster you can see both trains which call at and which bypass Didcot on the east to north avoiding line.

http://www.freightmasterpublishing.co.uk/

Thank you both for the replies.  Great book suggestion, 86235.  I've ordered that for myself now, given the relative frequent UK visits I make.

Mike
 

ShortlinesUSA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you both for the replies.  Great book
> suggestion, 86235.  I've ordered that for myself
> now, given the relative frequent UK visits I
> make.
>
> Mike
>  
Freightmaster and it's on line forum plus RTT is a great resource. The books or on-line tables give you an idea of what should run, RTT tells you what is running, including extras (STP or VSTP - Short Term Plan or Very Short Term Plan). But RTT is also cluttered with all paths which are in the Working Timetable (WTT) irrespective of whether they run or have ever run. Every now and then Network Rail try to rationalise the WTT, but Freight Operating Companies are often loathe to give up a path they 'own' for fear of a rival picking it up - think landing slots at busy airports. So it does mean that for many locations at first glance RTT lists more freights than actually run.