European Railroad Discussion > Demo freight on the Dean Forest Railway

The Dean Forest Railway runs for four and a half miles from Lydney, on the River Severn and close to the border with Wales, to Parkend in the Forest of Dean. It's what's left of a once substantial network serving the local mining industry. Today, along with their steam passenger service, they ran a demo freight with their class 08 switcher D3937. The freight consisted of six TTA tank wagons owned by the NWPG (National Wagon Preservation Group). As it had stopped raining I popped over to take a look

1: Approaching the railway's operational HQ, Norchard
2: Returning from Lydney Junction to Parkend
3: The six tanks were topped and tailed by brake vans (our version of a caboose). This is a type built by the Southern Railway, probably the best riding pre-nationalisation type, and known as a Queen Mary. The original ones were built on the underframes of former Brighton Railway 6.6kV AC Driving Motor Luggage Vans, rendered redundant when the SR standardised on the 660v DC third rail system.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/24 14:18 by 86235.

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4: Returning from Parkend, approaching Whitecross.
5: At Lydney Junction D3937 runs round ready to start it's third and last run to Parkend. Lydney Junction also offers interchange with the National Network, with trains to Gloucester, Birmingham and Cardiff.
6: And here's today's passenger locomotive, former GWR prairie tank (2-6-2T) 5541.

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Thanks for posting your excellent Demo Freight photos.  They are both interesting and unusual.
ALLEN

Thanks for sharing. I'd love to see a video with the side rods working.

Victor Baird

Nick, thanks for popping over and posting.  Gerry

Great shots!

The class 08 shunter was arguably the most successful UK diesel of all time... more than 1000 were built and they were ubiquitous, with all marshalling yards having several/lots of them and most stations above a certain size having at least one for shunting parcels/goods trains. They have a 400hp English Electric engine and an electric transmission.

Their nickname is 'gronks'.

Cool Photos!  The brake vans look suspiciously like the ones still in use on Indian Railways, though some of those do have a wagontop-style roof that makes them look like the B&O got hold of them and ran them through their carshops!