This afternoon I decided to spend a couple of hours railfanning in my local area. First stop was the ICI chemical plant at Runcorn to see what was working the twice weekly acid train to the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The two empty acid tank cars had been “top and tailed” from Sellafield by two DRS Class 33 locos and normally the same locos return the train north after filling. However, today, the locos left the tank cars in the chemical plant sidings and returned north almost immediately. This ruined my plans as I had intended moving on to the West Coast Main Line at Warrington to photograph the acid train heading north but as it was the light engines were long gone before I had battled through the traffic. Nevertheless the weather wasn’t too bad so I stayed to photograph some of the passing trains. Firstly an EWS Class 37 still carrying the old corporate 1980’s British Rail livery hauling two ferry vans south An EWS Class 56 on the daily Carlisle to Crewe MOW train. Today the train included a tracklaying machine and cars loaded with track panels. One for Martyn. A Virgin Trains Super Voyager tilting DMU on a southbound service. For some unknown reason this train had been switched onto the Slow line by the signaller. Only freights and local passenger services normally use this track. A Class 325 “Royal Mail” EMU on a service from Scotland to the South of England. The unit will call at the nearby Warrington Royal Mail Terminal before heading south. A northbound Virgin Trains inter-city service hauled by a Class 90 electric loco. These locos are nicknamed "Skips" because of their shape. I think the U.S. term is dumpster ? [ 22. April 2003, 21:03: Message edited by: John Whitby ]
Thanks John, what a good selection of trains you saw! Good to see those 33's, and although I hated it at the time it was all-pervading, I felt all nostalgic when I saw the pic of the blue 37! I have never seen pics of the Royal Mail 325's before.
<font color="336633">I had no idea that there was any locos still in the Blue paint, it don't look in bad condition either.</font>
thanks for sharing john, these are some realy good photos. with the locos hauling the acid train, were they both running? or was one just being hauled along shut down?
Steve, this has become a more common practise over here over the last few years, it's called "top & tail", basically the rear loco is left idling till it needs to be used. This sort of arrangement tends to get used when trains either have to go down a branch that has no runround track at the end (quite common these days with most lines being run by passenger MU's) or has to do a lot of reversals at junctions along it's route. Another plus is that the second loco can be used to push the train clear should the hauling loco fail. As we now have a fairly litigious system where if you cause delays to other trains you can be charged for the costs, clearing the line quickly is also an issue...
