European Railroad Discussion > On the West Coast Mainline, Trent Valley Line

About 100 miles north from our home in Wales is the four track West Coast Mainline (WCML), one of the busiest in Britain, with a wide variety of 125 and 110 mph passenger trains and 75 mph and 60 mph freights.

Tuesday was forecast to be fine over the English Midlands, wet in many other parts of the country, so I headed north for what turned out to be a very enjoyable day's picture taking.

1: At Hademore (between Tamworth and Lichfield) 66003 on the 4O21 DBC deep sea intermodal service from Trafford Park (Manchester) to Southampton Western Docks.
2: At Tamworth the Birmingham to Derby line crosses the WCML. On the former the 6V50 Burton on Trent to Cardiff Tidal consisting of VGA vans (boxcars) which carry steel from Cardiff's Celsa steelworks.
3: Back to Hademore and the 4M81 Freightliner from Felixstowe to Trafford Park. This consisted of 22 of these relatively new FFA-G 40' twin flats, so 44 platforms in total.

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4: This year has been extremely wet, almost everywhere in Britain. This tree is sitting in the remains of what must have been an enormous puddle, as a Euston to Liverpool Lime Street Avanti West Coast Pendolino streaks by.
5: Mail trains still feature on the WCML. Sadly they're all EMUs like this pair of 325s, which form the 1S08 Daventry to Shieldmuir (Glasgow).
6: Rugeley (Trent Valley), until about 15 years ago stations on the WCML between Stafford and Rugby had an infrequent local service, for which a bus was often substituted. Since the completion of the WCML upgrade, which included four tracking a number of sections, they now have an hourly semi-fast service from Crewe to London Euston. This is the 16:42 to Euston (arr 18:24) made up of a pair of 110 mph class 350s. The lead unit is vinyled for the Liverpool 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Liverpool substituting for Kiev after Ukraine won the 2022 competition.

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7: Freightliner use class 90s in pairs on some of their intermodal services, like 4M87 from Felixstowe to Ditton on Merseyside.
8: Taken from the same location as the 4M87, a footbridge north of Rugeley Trent Valley station, one of Avanti's new Hitachi built class 805 125 mph non-tilting bi-modes. They look quite smart, but sadly are rather inferior units, rough riding with a poor internal layout. I suspect passengers will quickly start feeling nostalgic for the much-reviled class 221 Super-Voyagers that these things are replacing.
9: Another DBC service, 66020 on the 6M98 from Ely Papworth, empty stone hoppers returning to Tunstead Quarry in the Derbyshire Peak District.

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10: Right behind the empty stone train was Freightliner's 6M92 empty cement tanks from West Thurrock (on the Thames, east of London) with 66623 Lest We Forget
11: Taken from the down platform at Rugeley TV Station one of Freightliner's frightful GE class 70s, 70006 on 4M61 Southampton to Trafford Park.
12: And finally before I started for home, a DRS class 68, 68005 on 4S45 Daventry to Coatbridge (Glasgow), run for the Russell Group, a large logistics provider in Britain and Europe. These days Daventry, which is about 25 miles east of Birmingham, is a major intermodal railfreight hub, particularly between England and Scotland for time sensitive supermarket traffic.

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Excellent photos and coverage!

texchief1

Very nice photos. Typical beautiful UK weather.

Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty ungainly.

Posted from iPhone

Good show, Nick.  Gerry

dwatry Wrote:
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> Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty
> ungainly.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Thanks Duncan, they're not known as a fugly for nothing.😀

86235 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dwatry Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty
> > ungainly.
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> Thanks Duncan, they're not known as a fugly for
> nothing.😀

They're my favourite UK loco, I like the look, they're totally unique and they sound amazing under full power. No UK diesel loco can match them for performane.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/24 02:17 by exhaustED.

Great photos and I espcially appreciate your mentioning the location of the various freight terminals.  That is a big help for this guy across the pond!

Mexrail

86235 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dwatry Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty
> > ungainly.
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> Thanks Duncan, they're not known as a fugly for
> nothing.😀

GE's North American locomotives are no beauty queens either.

Nice collection, Nik. I really must get to the WCML. I've still to see any orange electrics!  chris uk

Excellent catches and photos!

Rich

PHall Wrote:
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> 86235 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > dwatry Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty
> > > ungainly.
> > >
> > > Posted from iPhone
> >
> > Thanks Duncan, they're not known as a fugly for
> > nothing.😀
>
> GE's North American locomotives are no beauty
> queens either.

I disagree and they too are very loud and clag delightfully.

Peak45068 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PHall Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > 86235 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > dwatry Wrote:
> > >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > > -----
> > > > Nice set! Agree those Class 70s are pretty
> > > > ungainly.
> > > >
> > > > Posted from iPhone
> > >
> > > Thanks Duncan, they're not known as a fugly
> for
> > > nothing.😀
> >
> > GE's North American locomotives are no beauty
> > queens either.
>
> I disagree and they too are very loud and clag
> delightfully.

To each their own I guess.

Peak45068 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PHall Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> > GE's North American locomotives are no beauty
> > queens either.
>
> I disagree and they too are very loud and clag
> delightfully.

Agreed!