European Railroad Discussion > On This Day One Year Ago: Carlisle, England

Carlisle, England is a major junction on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) in northwest England not far from the Scottish border. There are branches to the southwest, southeast (famous Carlisle and Settle line), and east to Newcastle. I arrived on the afternoon of September 6, 2022, taking an Avanti West Coast train down from Edinburgh, Scotland. I logged 18 trains in two hours from 3:30 to 5:30 PM.

1. A Class 390 Pendolino operated by Avanti West Coast arrives at the Carlisle station. This is the type of train that I came in on. Very nice in all respects.

2. A Class 66 EMD freshly painted for current operator DB Schenker on a light engine move. Prior to repainting, this locomotive wore the maroon and yellow of the English, Welsh, and Scottish Railway (EWS), affiliated with the Wisconsin Central family of railroads.

3. A vintage Class 57, "Pride of Cheshire," operated by Direct Rail Services, rests on a siding.

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4. If I remember correctly, this is the "clean the leaves off the railway tracks" train staged for the upcoming fall season.

5. In one of the classic views at Carlisle, a TransPennine Express Class 397 (Spanish CAF-built Civity) arrives with service to the Manchester Airport. This year, the original TransPennine operator was replaced by the British government for poor performance with a new entity using the same name and equipment.

6. ScotRail operates DMUs into Carlisle from Dumfries, Scotland.

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7. A southbound container train is led by a DRS dual-mode Class 88 "Juno."

8. After a crew change, the DRS freight is ready to continue south.

9. I believe that DRS got into the railway business to haul high-level radioactive waste from the various the nuclear power plants. These trains always have two locomotives, in this case two Class 68 Spanish Vossloh-built units, but, surprisingly to me, not obvious armed guards.

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10. And here is the payload of the nuclear waste train.

11. The Class 66 EMDs might be common but the number of operators and paint schemes is impressive. Here is a GB Railfreight locomotive painted for Newell Wright Transport with a northbound container train.

12. A northbound TransPennine Express approaches the south end of the Carlisle station with service to Edinburgh.

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13. Carlisle can get busy. A Northern service with DMUs arrives from the southeast while an Avanti West Coast train arrives on the WCML. The tamper on the right is on the Wapping sidings.

14. One of my favorite trains was the Royal Mail train. Not quite a freight train, certainly not a passenger train, but absolutely unique and resplendent in red with ER II logos.

15. The Class 325 was purpose-built for this service as four-unit EMU sets. And the sun came out!

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Thanks for posting these beautiful pictures.  Gerry

Some of those fussy liveries make me grimmace. C'mon, people! But always nice to see developments in the UK--I thought those old Class 47s or whatever they are were long-retired. Cheers!

Some great shots of a fine English station with lots of interesting traffic. 
The class 57 is a 'Thunderbird' loco - for rescuing any failed trains. It's converted/rebuilt from a 1960s built class 47 using an EMD 645 12cylinder engine.
The nuclear flask trains don't need armed guards, those cubic flasks are never going to be opened by anyone other than those authorised to do so. They once did a flask robustness test by crashing a retired passenger train into a flask at 100mph. It was barely scratched...