European Railroad Discussion > Water Orton

Water Orton is a small town in North Warwickshire, a suburb of Birmingham, England's second city. It is the site of a four way junction on what was the Midland Railway's mainline from Birmingham to Derby. Water Orton is also near three important present day inter-modal terminals, Birmingham Lawley Street, Hams Hall and Birch Coppice as well as cement and stone terminals in and around Birmingham, which accounts for the large amount of freight traffic through the town. Passenger services through Water Orton are in the hands of Arriva's Cross Country operation, Voyager DEMUs on long distance services linking Scotland and North East England with South and South West England and Bombardier 170s on local services between Birmingham and Leicester, Derby and Nottingham and medium distance cross country services from Nottingham to Cardiff and Birmingham to Cambridge and Stansted Airport. So it's a busy place. One of the junctions, Water Orton East, between the mainline to Tamworth and Derby and the line to Coleshill Parkway and Nuneaton is right by the station and is easily photographed, the other, Water Orton West, between the line to Birmingham and the Sutton Park freight only line to Walsall is not accessible.

I was there last Tuesday from 10:00 until 18:00 during which time I photographed 16 freight trains, missed a few others, saw two sets of light engines and a 66 towing a carriage off the Royal train to DBC's depot at Toton for some maintenance work. All in all it was pretty productive. Most trains were on or about on time but a couple were spectacularly late (three hours plus) following a loco failure. Here's a few pictures from the day.

1: First freight of the day at 10:08 was the 4O38 Freightliner from Lawley Street to Southampton MCT (Marine Container Terminal) behind GE class 70 70005. Not very well loaded, just 12 loads on 42 platforms.
2: At 10:42 66749 Christopher Hopcroft MBE on GBRf's 4E34 Southampton Western Docks to Doncaster iPort passing the public footpath crossing some 250m east of Water Orton East Junction on the Coleshill Parkway line.
3: The first of the two light engine movements was GBRf's 47739 on 0V76 from Leicester LIP to Bicester MoD (Ministry of Defence) where a number of new EMUs are stored. 47739 was going to Bicester to pick one up and take it to Wembley prior to entering service. Although 47739 is in GBRf livery it is actually in service with one of the smaller FOCs (Freight Operating Company) Rail Operations Group (ROG) which tends to concentrate on moving units around between storage locations and moving old units to places like Unimetals in Newport Docks for scrapping. It was great to see 47739, a 60 year old design still going strong and still (in my opinion) looking good too.

 

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4: Crossing Water Orton East is 170 101, wearing XC's new livery. The first of XC's 170s to be refurbished inside and out.
5: At 11:38 DRS 66421 approaching Water Orton East on the 4V44 Daventry to Wentloog (Cardiff) Tesco Express, 28 Unit45.com boxes on 34 platforms
6: I changed locations at this point, driving about 10 miles to where the freight only Sutton Park Line from Water Orton West to Walsall passes through Sutton Park, a 2500 acre National Nature Reserve some six miles north of the centre of Birmingham, which the railway bisects. Near the northern boundary there's a public footpath crossing which I wanted to check out. And the first thing I caught was a pair of Network Rail's class 97s (37s in disguise) running light engine from their base at Coleham (Shrewsbury) to Derby. Network Rail has three of these 37s numbered in the departmental 97 series for use on the ERTMS signalled Cambrian Line from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyrth and Pwllheli

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7: I stayed at Sutton Park for the 6G65 Hope Cement (Earls Sidings) to Walsall loaded cement train behind Freightliner 70011. A long and heavy train of four wheel PCA cement tanks.
8: At 13:20 I was back at Water Orton where I caught 97303 and 97302 again. They had been running early on the Sutton Park Line but were held at the junction to regain their schedule. On the left  is 66724 Drax Power Station on the 6G16 Stud Farm to Bescot. Stud Farm is a stone loading location in Leicestershire and Bescot is Network Rail's infrastructure maintenance centre / yard / virtual quarry on the outskirts of Birmingham. The feather on the signal 6G16 is passing indicates a routing along the Sutton Park Line.
9: At 14:28 DBC's 4M54 Southampton MCT to East Midlands Gateway. That's Water Orton station building on the road bridge.

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10: From the direction of Tamworth, Freightliner 66508 on the 4O99 Leeds to Southampton MCT, another well loaded train, 30 loads on 30 platforms.
11: Off the Coleshill Parkway Line GBRf 66735 Peterborough United on 4L68 Birch Coppice to London Gateway. The track layout at Water Orton is slightly strange, there's an amount of reversible working, as here. On the right hand line there was a short engineering train (6O00 Scunthorpe to Eastleigh) being held at Water Orton West, so to get round it 4L68 switches from the Birmingham bound track to the reversible line through the platform at Water Orton.
12: For the next train I walked back to the footpath crossing on the Coleshill line. 4M91 London Gateway to Lawley Street is passing underneath the M6 (toll) / M42 freeway bridge behind 66515.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/25 15:24 by 86235.

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13: The footpath that crosses the Coleshill Line on the level crosses the Tamworth Line via a footbridge. This class 221 Super Voyager is on the 1V60 08:20 Aberdeen to Penzance (21:31) the longest single journey you can do in Britain. As from the timetable change in a couple of weeks it will terminate at Plymouth, the newspapers and news media have been full of nonsense about the truncation of this service. You would think a national treasure was being trashed reading some of the hyperbole. The train will continue to run, it simnply wont go beyond Plymouth. Any passengers for stations to Penzance will transfer at Plymouth to a GW service, which if they are lucky might be an HST for another few months!
14: This is the car from the Royal Train being taken to Toton for maintenace by 66102. Running as 5Z81 it passed Water Orton 221 minutes late on account of ther earlier loco failure ahead of it,.
15:  And this was the cause of the delay, the 4E49 Daventry to Doncaster iPort and Tees Dock, another Tesco Express service, originally behind 68007 which failed near Bescot and was rescued (after almost four hours) by 68006 - evidence of how the silo-isation of our railways works to the detriment of service. It passed Water Orton at 17:32, 225 minutes late, with 39 loads on 40 platforms.

I saw other trains too, Colas, GBRf, Freightliner and DBC, so it's definitely a place to see plenty of action.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/25 15:28 by 86235.

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Finally here's a short video of 70004 on the 4O17 Lawley Street to Southampton MCT.

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Very nice set of images Nick. I enjoyed
them all.

John B

Great report as usual...:):):)

What a fantastic report.
Almost felt I was there with you.
Spent 6 weeks in the UK. last year on Britrail passes, but never had that much information on the trains I saw.
Thanks. Graham.

Thanks, Nick, for another great show.  Gerry

Nick - wow that was a full day with lots of great photos. Funny to think of the Class 47s as rare given how ubiquitous they used to be. But looking good!

Posted from iPhone

I admit I don't follow European railroads, but your Video of the Day caught my eye. I was struck by the container flats and their apparent inefficiency. Are they 60' long, normally carrying just a 40' box, but as in the last car, also a 20' one? That's a lot of unused carrying capacity most of the time, it seems to me. Also, regarding photo 7, what constitutes a long and heavy train, please? Number of cars, loaded weight of the cars, length of them? That sort of thing.
I was also gobsmacked by what sounds like scheduled freight trains, whose tardiness could be remarked upon. So-called Precision Scheduled Railroading that some North American roads claim to run by is a bit of a joke.
Fred

feclark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I admit I don't follow European railroads, but
> your Video of the Day caught my eye. I was struck
> by the container flats and their apparent
> inefficiency. Are they 60' long, normally carrying
> just a 40' box, but as in the last car, also a 20'
> one? That's a lot of unused carrying capacity most
> of the time, it seems to me. Also, regarding photo
> 7, what constitutes a long and heavy train,
> please? Number of cars, loaded weight of the cars,
> length of them? That sort of thing.
> I was also gobsmacked by what sounds like
> scheduled freight trains, whose tardiness could be
> remarked upon. So-called Precision Scheduled
> Railroading that some North American roads claim
> to run by is a bit of a joke.
> Fred

Yes, the 60' flats can be inefficient now so many boxes are 40'. Many of the newer flats are 40' in sets of two or three permanently coupled. You must remember that ours is primarily a passenger system so that freight trains have to run to precise schedules to fit around the various passenger services. So all those trains I saw are in the working timetable. The data is open source so there are a number of free to use apps that you can use to monitor train movements. That's how I knew where to be and when.

That particular cement train consisted of 30+ 40 year old two axle cement tanks weighing up to 1800 tonnes. I was surprised to see so many in a single train. All modern cement wagons are four axle bogie types.

86235 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> feclark Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I admit I don't follow European railroads, but
> > your Video of the Day caught my eye. I was
> struck
> > by the container flats and their apparent
> > inefficiency. Are they 60' long, normally
> carrying
> > just a 40' box, but as in the last car, also a
> 20'
> > one? That's a lot of unused carrying capacity
> most
> > of the time, it seems to me. Also, regarding
> photo
> > 7, what constitutes a long and heavy train,
> > please? Number of cars, loaded weight of the
> cars,
> > length of them? That sort of thing.
> > I was also gobsmacked by what sounds like
> > scheduled freight trains, whose tardiness could
> be
> > remarked upon. So-called Precision Scheduled
> > Railroading that some North American roads
> claim
> > to run by is a bit of a joke.
> > Fred
>
> Yes, the 60' flats can be inefficient now so many
> boxes are 40'. Many of the newer flats are 40' in
> sets of two or three permanently coupled. You must
> remember that ours is primarily a passenger system
> so that freight trains have to run to precise
> schedules to fit around the various passenger
> services. So all those trains I saw are in the
> working timetable. The data is open source so
> there are a number of free to use apps that you
> can use to monitor train movements. That's how I
> knew where to be and when.
>
> That particular cement train consisted of 30+ 40
> year old two axle cement tanks weighing up to 1800
> tonnes. I was surprised to see so many in a single
> train. All modern cement wagons are four axle
> bogie types.

Thanks so much for a very informative response. Now I know! What a marvel - scheduled freight. I envy you.
Fred

feclark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 86235 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > feclark Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > I admit I don't follow European railroads,
> but
> > > your Video of the Day caught my eye. I was
> > struck
> > > by the container flats and their apparent
> > > inefficiency. Are they 60' long, normally
> > carrying
> > > just a 40' box, but as in the last car, also
> a
> > 20'
> > > one? That's a lot of unused carrying capacity
> > most
> > > of the time, it seems to me. Also, regarding
> > photo
> > > 7, what constitutes a long and heavy train,
> > > please? Number of cars, loaded weight of the
> > cars,
> > > length of them? That sort of thing.
> > > I was also gobsmacked by what sounds like
> > > scheduled freight trains, whose tardiness
> could
> > be
> > > remarked upon. So-called Precision Scheduled
> > > Railroading that some North American roads
> > claim
> > > to run by is a bit of a joke.
> > > Fred
> >
> > Yes, the 60' flats can be inefficient now so
> many
> > boxes are 40'. Many of the newer flats are 40'
> in
> > sets of two or three permanently coupled. You
> must
> > remember that ours is primarily a passenger
> system
> > so that freight trains have to run to precise
> > schedules to fit around the various passenger
> > services. So all those trains I saw are in the
> > working timetable. The data is open source so
> > there are a number of free to use apps that you
> > can use to monitor train movements. That's how
> I
> > knew where to be and when.
> >
> > That particular cement train consisted of 30+
> 40
> > year old two axle cement tanks weighing up to
> 1800
> > tonnes. I was surprised to see so many in a
> single
> > train. All modern cement wagons are four axle
> > bogie types.
>
> Thanks so much for a very informative response.
> Now I know! What a marvel - scheduled freight. I
> envy you.
> Fred

US railroads used to run scheduled freight trains at one time. But that was in the era of Train Order and Timetable operations.