Realtime Trains. A Revolution In Rail Fanning!

A revolution in railfanning in the U.K (Bear with me this is a bit long winded but worth getting to the end)


Now we have all had the situation sometime in the past where we have been stood by a rail line, perhaps waiting for a steam special or a special freight to appear, and waited for hours and nothing turns up! Or we have been within earshot of the line when something totally unexpected rumbles past and by the time you have fumbled the camera out of the bag it is gone. For myself I waited with some mates for 5 hours once for ‘Mallard’ to appear on a special unaware it had been stopped at Newcastle and also watched aghast once as ‘Duchess of Hamilton’ toddled past me on a positioning move as I sat in a pub beer garden with no camera or even a mobile phone with a camera.


Over the last few years the situation got better, particularly with the advent of text messaging and the start of a ‘Bush telegraph’ amongst railfans sending details down the line to warn their mates of things happening. The best example I recall was when myself and two train crew came out of a dockyard in the South West of England with one of our occasional ‘special’ freights. We had left the loco in Plymouth station overnight, which was a bit of a clue as our locos rarely go that far into Devon, but the following morning there were at least ten ‘spotters’ on the platform waiting for us to move. From then on every bridge, platform and cutting had people with cameras and camcorders peaking at Bristol Temple Meads station where we lost count.


The real revolution started in October 2012 with the launch of ‘Realtime trains’ an online database that shows train running data in real time on the Internet. It takes information from sources like Network Rail, TFL etc.


Using the advanced search option you can find out every train due to pass a certain location. Passenger, Non Passenger and freights are all displayed. You can filter out things you are not bothered about like regular passenger trains and spot anything interesting due on the day

Below is a typical page, Monday 6th of July, showing scheduled passenger trains from 06.00 to 14.00 due at Askam station.


These will always run but if it was the freight trains filter it will show all of the freight paths put into the timetable. Not all of these will run but once activated in TOPS the specific page becomes live. This page shows all of the freights that might run on Monday



Below is a typical page for 2C34 the Saturday afternoon loco hauled Carlisle to Barrow in Furness passenger train. In real time you could track its progress watching it lose a bit of time on its way down the coast. The beauty of this is that I know from experience that if I set off walking from my house when it shows passing Foxfield signalbox I only have to wait for a few minutes before it appears around the Golf Course curve having activated the treadle to drop the crossing barriers at the station.



Now the really great thing is that it works on your smart phone! So, for instance, I stopped for my lunch break at Lockerbie the other day, punched in the location and time, saw two freights due in the area and had the camcorder ready while I ate my sandwiches.

More in Mo'

Kev

 

So lets look at how it helps plan a full day of action on a specific line,


The 30th of June was looking like a fine day weather wise and opening the page for that day at Askam the first thing I spotted was something running as 281B really early in the morning. Weird but worth a look. Going down to the station I waited for the ‘peg’ to up and was rewarded with the Network Rail ‘Track assessment Unit 950 001’ a purpose built machine based on a standard class 150 DMU.



Moving to Sandscale crossing I caught 2C41 the loco hauled Barrow to Carlisle with 37 611 on the point and 37 419 doing ETS duties on the rear



This was followed by 6C53 the Crewe Coal Sidings to Sellafield flask working with 20 305 and 20 309 on the front.



Later on I was at Park South with its original Furness railway signalbox



Still ore in a minute

Kev

 

2C40 has just climbed the grade up from Askam and is starting to slow for the tight curve as it takes the single line section on the run into Barrow. This time 37 423 is doing the work with 37 606 on the rear



2C48 is seen rounding the Golf Course curve with 37 419 ‘Carl Haviland’ leading and 37 611 at the back and starts to slow for the stop at the station. Depending on the driver this is where you can hear a Class 37 really being opened up as it heads up the hill to Park South.



Now the highlight of the day was the Steam hauled ‘Cumbrian Coast express’ originally scheduled to be hauled by Royal Scot 4-6-0 46115 ‘Scots Guardsman’ but I was delighted when stood at Lydgate Crossing just south of Kirkby in Furness to see it was, in fact, Jubilee class 4-6-0 45699 ‘Galatea’ resplendent in ‘Crimson Lake’ livery. However it was obvious that all was not well with the loco and as it rounded the curve it became apparent that the left hand cylinder was leaking steam past the piston rod gland.



Now, Back to RTT, from the timings on the web with the train headcode as 1Z87 it didn’t take a lot of working out that as it was pathed through Barrow rather than the Dalton loop I had enough time to get to Dalton in Furness to film it there attacking the bank up through Dalton tunnel and station still with the steam leak

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As you can there were lots of families out to see the Jubilee passing



Video? Of course!



So at the end of the day loads of film shot, nothing missed Spot on eh?

Cheers

Kev

 

Oh. and as a bonus, here is action from the 27th of June with the 6K73 Sellafield to Crewe Coal Sidings and the Class 57 hauled Northern Belle luxury excursion train to Ravenglass both suffering delays due to a points detection failure at Salthouse Junction. Some of this was shot on the Toshiba Camileo camcorder which isn't anywhere near as good as the Panasonic and is going to be retired (well I've given it to the wife!)



You will notice these two videos are on Vimeo, I've set up a new channel on it called Cumbrian Coast rail which is going to concentrate on the stuff I shoot locally. The rest of the stuff will stay on Youtube for now

cheers

Kev

 

Not Problems. Just thought that the Cumbrian stuff and everything else were all getting mixed up and the youtube channel was a bit messy. With the exciting things coming up over the next few years class 68s, class 88s. DBSOs etc it made sense to have a discreet channel for it. I'm probably going to set up a discrete channel for Z gauge as well as I start to develop 'Tapton Junction' my new British layout in earnest.

Kev

 

I use the web version on my phone. It depends on Internet coverage obviously but if you have coverage you can track a train in real time as it approaches by refreshing the page. It is also handy when something is running really early or really late as it shows where a train might be stuck. the recent points detection failure at Barrow Salthouse junction meant you could see the 'Northen belle' held at Ulverston and how late it was running in real time.
Kev