The ACE was one of the Southern's premier trains on their South Western main line, carrying many portions offering a direct train from London to the many seaside resorts on the Southern's system in the South West. On Saturday a recreation ran, with Bullied unrebuilt pacific 34067 "Tangmere", from London Waterloo to Exeter. At Exeter a diesel was added to the rear and the train continued to Okehampton. The diesel led back to Exeter, and then Tangmere took the train back to London via the Great Western main line. Here's a few pics during the day... The outbound trip is seen here passing Pinhoe, nearing Exeter. Seen across the fields, Tangmere leaves Crediton on the way to Okehampton 37308 brings up the rear, the cows had been spooked by the steam loco! 37308 is leading back into Crediton. The crew have just handed in the single line token from Okehampton at the signal box. Tangmere rolls past on the rear of the train...
Beautiful, Martyn Good to see scenes recreated that were once commonplace. Perhaps cows were used to steam locomotives back then
Lovely Martyn - I know Crediton quite well and have my own nice black and white photo of the signalbox - but only with a dmu (or Barum single unit) in the vicinity. Two things - how did the pacific turn to head the train back to London? Secondly, it might be instructive to mention for anyone who wants to know that Okehampton had to be the final destination as that is as far as you can go now! Would that you could still reach Ilfracombe and Padstow! Ben
No need to turn the steam loco, the 37 pulled the train back from Okehampton to Exeter and the train returned via the Great Western route to Paddington, so other than adding and removing the diesel at Exeter there was no need to change the train formation at all during the day. (Which is a big change from the original ACE!!!) The original plan was to try and take it to Barnstaple, or as close as Network Rail would allow (the river bridge is apparently not maintained to loco-hauled standards any more) but they obviously had issues with the pathing it I would guess. The tragedy with some of the closed lined in the area is that they would likely not close now if the had remained open back in the 60's. North Devon and Cornwall still have poorer road links than most of the county, and the area's are growing, that's besides the holiday traffic. (The Newquay branch has a single car unit except for summer Saturdays, when the run the branch with 2+8 car HST sets!) If Beeching were happenning now, I would imagine that passenger service would stay to Bideford and Ilfracombe, served from Barnstaple (and maybe a faster service on the Barny branch by closing some of the more pointless stations!), the through route to Plymouth would stay, and East of Exeter the Lyme Regis branch. I would be tempted to serve Wadebridge and Padstow from Bodmin Parkway, as other than Launceston (which could be served from Tavistock with a connection to the former GWR branch) there are no other major population centres on the Southern routes! The current sprinter fleet is actually pretty well maintained, speedy and comfortable, plus cheap to run!
Are there many active signal boxes left these days? I'm sure that they are slowly going away with some sort of computer automation? Many of our towers have suffered from such a fate. Boxcab E50
Crediton got re-signalled in the 1970's, there was a junction further West, and double track between the two places, but the current track layout has a pair of parrallel single lines to Crediton, where the junction now is. Crediton got colour lights at that time, but they are controlled from the signal box there, as the branches are both worked by single line token. Interestingly it seems that many places that retain mechanical (semaphore) signalling over here are tending to keep it, as it's longer lasting! (No need to replace rotting wiring after 30+ years!) [ 07. October 2003, 10:53: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
Over here, as fast as possible, they get rid of anything and everything that is human operated. (Then wonder why the economy suffers.) It's more expedient to automate, reduce payrolls, and then write off costs via the tax structure through depreciation (deductions) allowances. Sadly, there is not a tower (signal box) left in service anywhere within several states of my residence. Boxcab E50
I think the key in this case, is that the cost of fully resignalling something like this is quite large compared to the rolling cost of just paying a couple of guys shifts each day. The line isn't that busy, or intensively worked. As it's a branch, working in a fully timetabled environment, there is less advantage to having someone have an "overall" view of the system either, which I guess is one of the big drivers in US railroading.
Over here, on most branch lines, the only life you'll see is the couple of people on train crew. No other line side actions. Exception perhaps being track inspection or a rare maintenance crew. Instructions are radioed and the crew copies them on a pre-printed (track warrant) form. Boxcab E50
To give you a bit more of an insight, here's a couple more views of Crediton, taken between the special going up and coming back, from the footbridge. This is the normal scene at Crediton, the Exeter bound train calling on the left, and a Barnstaple bound one on the right. The guard of the Exeter bound train is on the platform checking the doors brfore departure. The stations on this line are unstaffed, and the guards are responsible for operating the doors and selling tickets. This Barnstaple bound train has just picked up the single line token from the signalman on his steps, and the guard is leaning out to give him a wave as he passes. This train will cross over to the right hand line in a moment, which is the single line to Barnstaple, the single line on the left is the Okehampton line. In the UK, we would not have a line with more than one passenger train moving on it, that has no signalling system. There are branches down here (including some passenger ones) that have no signalling, but these are operated on a "one train in steam" basis. One possible interesting case is Coombe Jcn on the Looe branch, I believe passenger trains are regulated there by "Stop and phone for permission" boards. Quite rare in the UK.
