Railways Illustrated - December 2020 preview

RHTT SEASON UNDERWAY

George Browning

COLAS HSTs FOR IM TRAINS

Steve Donald

THE RAILWAY WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

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£9m BOOST FOR

HERITAGE SECTOR All GA20s 7 Class fiveto be rs ca

Model Spot

CIE 121 Class

Testing BR’s Class 210 DEMUs Exploring the Sheerness branch The France National Railway Museum Confidence needed to win back passengers

Main line debut for hydrogen Class 799

DECEMBER 2020 £4.80

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Contents

EDITOR: Mark Nicholls CONTRIBUTORS: Mel Holley, Evan Green-Hughes, Ian Furness, Mark Hare, Al Pulford, Andrew Watts, Alistair Grieve, Colin J Marsden, Paul Biggs, Ian McLean, Bill Pizer, Martin Loader, Gavin Morrison, Pip Dunn, Gordon Kirkby, Paul Shannon and Simon Bendall.

Regular 3 Welcome

32 Steam News

DESIGN: Daniel John Design ART EDITOR: Kelvin Clements PUBLISHER: Tim Hartley PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage

6 Headlines

40 Pictorial

10 News

58 From The Front Coach

EDITORIAL ADDRESS RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED magazine, Mortons Media Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ WEBSITE: www.railwaysillustrated.com EMAIL: rieditor@mortons.co.uk

16 Fleet Review

68 Railwayana

22 Heritage News

70 Traction Action

28 What’s Happening To…? 72 Reviews

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Advertising deadline November 12, 2020 4 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED December 2020

7

Testing times with the Class 210 FEATURE

FEATURE Testing times with the Class 210

FEATURE Cité du Train – Patrimoine SNCF

Cité du Train – Patrimoine SNCF FEATURE

Testing times with the

Class 210

Chris Nuthall recalls his time as a GEC junior engineer working on the prototype Class 210 DEMUs in the early 1980s.

MAIN PICTURE: Three-car Class 210 DEMU 210002 at the Old Dalby test track on June 21, 1982 after arriving from Derby; this was the unit’s first trip onto the main line.

(All photos author)

F

or me, 1982 started in the sub-zero snow of the Colorado winter and ended in the sometimes scorching heat of a Melbourne summer, such were the variety of projects I participated in during my early years with GEC Traction. In between these overseas postings I was the junior engineer assisting the GEC Site Engineer of the BR trial Class 210 DEMU, specifically working with 210002. The succeeding 38 years may have clouded some of the details and a notebook full of mostly illegible snippets is open to interpretation, but hopefully this article will give a reasonably accurate account of that unit’s first few months, before I was pulled away for the somewhat warmer climes of Australia by the year’s end.

Early days

The two Class 210 DEMUs were built at BREL Derby Litchurch Lane Works as a trial for a new generation of DEMUs. 210001 was a four-car unit, initially made up of DMBSO numbered 53001, TSO 57001, TCO(L) 58000 and DTSO 54000, with a 1,125hp Paxman 6RP200L engine and Brush electrical equipment, and consisted of First and Second Class longer distance seating, with a toilet and luggage area. This unit had done a stint in p a s s e n ge r J

Cité du Train T

Yinka Jan Sojinu visits the large French National Railway Museum in Mulhouse and is suitably impressed.

he most impressive national railway museum of France, situated in the eastern Alsace region’s historical heavy and textile industrial city of Mulhouse (pronounced in the same way as Toulouse), carries the rightful name Cité du Train – Patrimoine SNCF (City of Trains – Museum of SNCF heritage). It offers both dedicated enthusiasts as well as the wider public a beautifully preserved selection of old and contemporary rolling stock exhibits, and even claims to be the largest of its kind in

46 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED December 2020

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December 2020 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 47

46 Testing the Class 210 DEMU

62 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED December 2020

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continental Europe. It was visited by around 106,000 individuals in 2019. After months of forced closure due to the coronavirus situation this year, the museum reopened its doors to the public on June 8, and the author took thankful advantage.

History

In the years following the retiring of steam, more than half a century ago, a group of French railway enthusiasts that became known as the Association Française des

Amis des Chemins de Fer (AFAC), came up with an idea of preserving some of the most important examples of French rolling stock, those that had been pivotal for the overall development of the country’s railways.

These extensive efforts, led by Daniel Claire and historic railway specialist Michel Doerr, gradually managed to gain the support of the SNCF’s equipment and traction department, which began to shelter valuable items of rolling stock in Chalon-sur-Saône, some 37 miles south of Dijon. J

The staircase up to the museum’s scale model exhibition provides great views of part of the Les Quais de L’Histoire section.

From left to right are Class 241 P.16, Class BB 9291 and Class Baldwin Mikado 141R 1187.

(All photos author)

December 2020 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 63

62 French National Rail museum www.railwaysillustrated.com

ING HELPIDON ALYC CHALLENGE THE £100K

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THE RAILWAY

WORLD – PAST,

WIN! An SVR Driver ExperieDiesel Royal Ope ning nce

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PRESENT AND FUTURE

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G Prevala iew 2020

APRIL

• 37025 Histo ry • Class 37 Land cruise

Yinka Jan Sojinu visits the large French National Railway Museum in Mulhouse and is suitably impressed.

Model Spot

A subscription to Cavalex Steel

74 Gillingham to Sheerness

FOR CAF NEWP ORT

THE RAILWAY strated.com www.railwaysillu

PLUS

Stephen Roberts examines the Sheerness branch line that connects it to the mainland, the county of Kent and to London.

Network Rai

ern ter Shed North 70 Years of Leices Museum PLU d’s White S head e effort Irelan visits a UK-wid My signal box abandons Blackpool Grand Central

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Model Spot

Recreating late 1990s

Spanish Class en 58s scrapped EXCL hav Alyci don’s Year – post-StoneResto May 1980 to USIVE! ring the May 1981 Grand Central SVR’s Falling Sands Viadu Blackpool traini ct ng begins

Class 37s

Coronavirus - a major thre at to railways

MAY 2020 £4.80

Chris Nuthall recalls his time as a GEC junior engineer working on the prototype Class 210 DEMUs in the early 1980s.

62 Cité du Train – Patrimoine SNCF

IBE AND R S SC

£4.80

46 Testing times with the Class 210

We profile the Irish 121 Class in both model and prototype form.

E AV

Editor Mark Nicholls ponders the huge problem of attracting passengers back to the rails during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

52 Model Spot – CIE 121 Class

NOVEMBER 2020

38 Confidence is key

SU B

Features

offers great savings on cover price. See pages 44 and 45 for details.

With Stadler's bi-mode units now fully in command of Greater Anglia regional services, Class 755 755411 approaches Morston Hall Road Crossing on September 28 with the 2R23 1628 Felixstowe to Ipswich service. (Paul Biggs)

RHTT SEASO N UNDERWAY

George Browning

COLAS HS FOR IM TRTs AINS

THE RAILW AY WORLD

Steve Donald

– PAST, PRESE NT AND FUTU RE

www.railway sillustrated. com

£9m BO FO R HERITAGEOSST ECTOR FEATURE Gillingham to Sheerness or my latest ‘Portilloesque’ excursion I am taking in a Southeastern route between Gillingham and Sheernesson-Sea. This involves a bit of main line, a branch, a change of train (as there are few direct trains betwixt Gillingham and Sheerness) and a whiff of a Parliamentary line. The main line bit, the Chatham route, sees trains running from London St Pancras and London Victoria through Gillingham and on to Sittingbourne, then continuing on to destinations such as Faversham, Whitstable, Margate, Ramsgate, Canterbury and Dover. For the branch to Sheerness, the vast majority of services will require a change at Sittingbourne.

Gillingham to Sheerness FEATURE History

The Chatham main line is named after Chatham, one of the Medway towns. The section of line we’re interested in was constructed and opened by the East Kent Railway in January 1858. The EKR was renamed the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) the following year. Its opening saw inaugural stations at Rainham and Sittingbourne, with Gillingham (originally named New Brompton) welcoming passengers a few months later, in July 1858.

The Sittingbourne & Sheerness Railway (S&SR) was opened in 1860 and became part of the LCDR in 1876. Queenborough

station was there from the start, with the terminus at Sheerness, although today’s station is later (1883), the original terminus having become the freight depot. The branch was electrified in 1959 using the 3rd rail electrification method, with double track also introduced from the junction up to near Swale. Services from Sheerness reached an apogee at that time, with three departures per hour.

Gillingham

Trains departing London pass through the Medway towns of Rochester and Chatham, then through the Chatham and Gillingham Tunnels before arriving at Gillingham

station, 35 miles from London Victoria. The station opened as New Brompton in July 1858, then was renamed New Brompton (Gillingham) in 1886, and finally became Gillingham in 1912. It’s commonly referred to as Gillingham (Kent) these days to distinguish it from Gillingham (Dorset).

There are three platforms, two for London-bound services and one for coastbound destinations further out in Kent.

The station, which underwent a significant facelift between 2010 and 2012, is in a cutting, with the main entrance at street level above where tickets, a waiting area and a BeeZoo Espresso Bar can be found.

Steps lead down to Platforms 1 and 2, which

share an island, and separately to Platform 3, which has its own entrance barriers.

There’s also a passenger footbridge with lifts connecting the platforms further down.

There are waiting areas toilets on both 1/2 and 3, plus an additional shelter on 1/2.

Near to the station is Gillingham EMU Depot, where Class 466 Networkers and 376 Metro Electrostars are maintained along with other units. The junction for the depot is south of the station, as is the junction for the Chatham Dockyard Railway, which has a collection of locos and rolling stock. The dockyard itself closed in 1984. Heading out of Gillingham there’s a view of Priestfield, the home ground of Gillingham FC, on one

side, with the Medway on the other.

Gillingham is the largest of the Medway towns, which consist of Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham if you’re heading west-east, and rather merges into Chatham. This is an area of much military heritage. Not only are the Navy dockyards and depot shared between Chatham and Gillingham, but the The Corps of Royal Engineers (1716) also has its barracks at Brompton (Gillingham). In 1911 the Engineers founded the Air Battalion that in 1912 became the military wing of the Royal Flying Corps, which in turn became the Royal Air Force, so all branches of the Forces are represented. J

FRONT COVER: Class 37 37688, prior to its repaint, at Kidderminster on May 19, 2018 during the Severn Valley Railway’s Diesel Gala. The railway is one of those to benefit from the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund and has received £906,000. (Nick Edmonds)

All GA Class 720sto be five cars

Gillingham to Sheerness Once an island popular with tourists, Sheerness is now better known for its various industries. Stephen Roberts examines the branch line that connects it to the mainland, the county of Kent and to London.

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CIE 121 Class Testing BR’s Exploring theClass 210 DEMUs The France Sheerness branch National Rail Confidence needed to win way Museum back passenge debut for rs

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74 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED December 2020

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74 The Sheerness Branch www.railwaysillustrated.com

December 2020 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 75

hydrogen

Class 799

2020 £4.80

F

DECEMBER

MAIN PICTURE: Southeastern Class 395 Javelin 395011 waits to depart from Rainham for London St Pancras International on January 29, 2020 with the 1616 service.

(All photos author unless stated)

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