Scenic Railcar Weekend at the East Lancs 4/11/2017
How exciting. My first ever trip on the East Lancs - a railway that I’ve wanted to visit for years.
A certain Mr
Ash Bridge suggested quite a few months ago that I should head north and savour the delights of the ELR with himself through the front windows of various 1st generation DMUs.
It sounded like a good plan so I found myself being dropped off at Exeter Airport at 5:40am by the lovely and very understanding Mrs C. Unfortunately my SIM card had packed up the day before although the phone was still taking pictures, I had to borrow a friends brick phone to make calls and texts on. Not easy stepping back in time.
I’d deliberately not drunk coffee before leaving home so that I’d sleep on the flight. No chance. Far too excited.
In the end I chatted to a nice older lady next to me and she told me that her cousin was in involved with LMS 6201 ‘Princess Elizebeth’.
Somewhere over the Brecon Beacons I was chatting to the lady and drinking my coffee when I realised that the clouds had risen up to our level and the plane was starting to wobble. I was too late getting the lid back onto the cup as the plane took an almighty lurch and I threw my coffee up the back of the seat and onto my trousers.
I have a bit of a thing anyway with planes where I’m staring at the lift up table in front of me and thinking - if we crash at 200mph what sort of head protection can I expect from a hard plastic table when all I’ve got on is a lap belt?
Dash thingy plane thingy - I’ll go for ‘or rail’ thanks.
Upon landing at a very soggy Manchester Airport I hot footed it to the station and took
185135 (which was making a strange transmission whining sound) to Manchester Piccadilly before meeting Mr Bridge on the concourse. Bacon rolls were sourced (and sauced) and we headed down to catch the tram out to Bury.
Trams are great. They’re a bit like buses but on rails.
The line out to Bury was new track for me and to be honest it’s so long since I’ve been in Manchester that it all seemed pretty new. Piccadilly is very smart these days...
The East Lancs.
What a railway! Bury Bolton Street has a proper mainline feel to it and after purchasing tickets we headed down to the platforms to be confronted with this wonderful scene...
109,121,110 line up.
A couple of days before I’d mentioned to my stepbrother that I was going to a DMU gala for the day and he was still laughing at me an hour later “DMUs! Bog carts hahaha” etc. Hmm.
Well I didn’t care because this was heaven.
Anyway it was planned that 40135 was going to drag the 104 unit later in the day and he loves 40s so I was going to send him a photo to shut him up (I must admit I was looking forward to the 40 drag).
We took the 121 Bubble Car (towing a CCT van) to Ramsbottom and I was full of memories of travelling on them in my youth. The smell, the noise, lovely.
Bubble interior
At Ramsbottom we watched the beautifully restored Cravens 105 pass by as we waited for the Calder Valley 110 to take us on up to Rawtenstall.
The Cravens in the olden days...
Unfortunately at Rawtenstall the 110 developed a problem meaning that it had to be driven from the rear cab with the driver looking backwards out of the rear cab. Not a big problem but it did slow the timetable down a bit.
We opted to take the 110 down to Ramsbottom and then pick up the Wickham 109 back to Rawtenstall (I got tooted and shouted at for going towards the foot crossing at Ramsbottom despite being told to do so by a different member of staff. Most embarrassing).
The 109 was a thing of beauty and totally unlike anything else I’d been on - all Art Deco and stylish. Smooth too with a lovely sprung ride. We took this back to Bury for a burger lunch and a couple of pints in the pub on the platform ready for the main event which was to be the 104 up to Heywood and hopefully front seats on the return before they attached 40135 to the front.
104 at Bury...
I needed the toilet and asked the guard if I had time to go but he said we were leaving and I could use the toilet at Heywood (I wrongly assumed that the toilet on the unit didn’t work).
The 104 made easy work of the ‘Ski Jump’ on the Heywood section and we’d managed to find ourselves the best seats in the house right at the back ready for a full window view of the 40 when it attached.
Mr Bridge went to the toilet first while I kept the seats, then I went and was in mid flow as the guard blew his whistle and the driver honked the horn before I felt the toilet shaking as the train went!
I don’t know if any of you have tried to rearrange yourself, escape a toilet and answer an unfamiliar phone to a frantic friend who’s disappearing into the distance at a great rate of knots? Well it wasn’t what I was expecting to happen!
Hello? There’s nobody here.
I found two chaps in the office and whined at them about what had just happened and one of them said it was his fault that he didn’t check everyone was on board.
“You’re not running Clapham Junction you know!” Said I.
“I’m really sorry” he replied, “all I can do is offer you a coffee.”
So I drank coffee and mooched around in the cold before being rescued by the 109 about 40 minutes later.
Ah well.
After meeting up with Mr Bridge back at Bury we did a quick trip up to Heywood and back on the Cravens 105 which again was fabulous and we also had the pleasure of
The Black Watch for company which was nice.
So it was then time to get home via two different trams to Piccadilly and 390155 to Euston. First time on a Pendo and I thought it was pretty good tilting away and watching the fireworks out of the window. Nice tilting beer too, mmm.
What kind of stupid a*se name is that?
I tubed it to Paddington and was pleased to be on some 1972 stock on the Bakerloo (a year older than me!)
From Paddington it was the 20:06 to Plymouth with 43163 on the front and 187 at the back.
Paddington 43 lineup
It was a great journey back and I stood by the open droplight a few times savouring the experience. The beer may have helped with the enjoyment too...
All in all a fantastic day out with great company and despite the disappointment with missing the 40 it was probably the best gala I’d been to in a few years.
Thanks for reading.