European Railroad Discussion > A Bit of Recent Diversity

April and spring generally have got off to a pretty good start, in terms of quite a bit of sunshine allowing some decent photo opportunities, so here are a handful from my local-ish area in the UK recently.

Photo. 1. A Caterpillar-engined, Trans-Pennine Express (north of England passenger train operator) liveried class 68 makes a somewhat unusual site in this area as it helps out with some route learning in the west of England.

Photo. 2. A weighty aggregates train gets hustled along between Crewe and South Wales by a Freightliner 'heavy-haul' class 66/6.

Photo. 3. Railtour stock gets the steam treatment, as a Locomotive Services Ltd. 'Black 5' (supported by a class 20) heads from Crewe to South Wales. 

Photo. 4. A DB Cargo class 60 in unique silver Drax Power Station colours (the only loco in this series of photos with a European engine) powers a loaded oil train along the Severn estuary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/21 13:12 by exhaustED.

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Nice shots, what was the 68 up to?

86235 Wrote:
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> Nice shots, what was the 68 up to?

There's been a lot of route learning/familiarisation between Shrewsbury and Craven Arms, every day for the last two weeks. It seems to be Freightliner doing it... but on that day they must have had to borrow a loco!

I had seen that FL were route learning, presumably for some upcoming engineering work, but I didn't realise they'd borrowed a 68. They must have drivers who are familiar with them.

It was pretty strange - it was the last thing I was expecting!

Very nice. I don't see photo #4
John

jmbreitigan Wrote:
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> Very nice. I don't see photo #4
> John

Sorry, see the below link for photo 4!

Diversity Continued! (images 492k)

Is that a relative of Ed Dickens in photo #3?

Congrats on IOTD!

-John

jcaestecker Wrote:
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> Is that a relative of Ed Dickens in photo #3?
>
> Congrats on IOTD!
>
> -John

Ha ha, we was certainly hanging it out there like Ed! Thanks!

Love the Black 5, my fave LMS locomotive. But the Class 20 tucked in behind was a surprise to me- has that become a regular practice in the UK?
SR

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Love the Black 5, my fave LMS locomotive. But the
> Class 20 tucked in behind was a surprise to me-
> has that become a regular practice in the UK?
> SR

There's often a dead diesel tacked onto the rear end of a steam train charter, as insurance.... so I'm not quite sure why the 20 was providing assistance, possibly with carriage heating due to the time of year but I'm not sure.