One of the reasons for heading in this direction is that Immingham depot is the home to most of the surviving class 56 loco's. BR got 135 of these during the 1970's, and back in October there were 30-ish still in use with EWS. The figure at the moment i'm told is around 25, with it tipped to go down to 21 by the end of January, very much a case of catch 'em while you can! I shot no less than 7 class 56 hauled freights during my three hours at Barnetby, here's a couple of them: 56113 passes Westbound with an interesting short mixed freight. (Darn that post!) Loadhaul painted 56106 climbs past the station with coal empties. 56054 'British Steel Llanwern' passes with coal loads, this loco has an earlier cab design with a different horn grille in the nose to the other two. The week after I visited, the Scun-thorpe steelworks coal trains (see the pic of 56106) went over to class 66 haulage with new higher capacity HTA wagons...
Another common loco type is the class 60, here 60028 'John Flamsteed' heads east with a train that certainly won't tax the capabilities of one of these heavy hauling loco's! A more usual duty for the 60's through here is Iron Ore trains for the steelworks, here, 60092 'Reginald Munns' tiptoes into the loop past the signal I showed you earlier with ore loads. The wagons used on these trains are rotary dumped. 60099 'Ben More Assynt' has it's ore empties accelarating past the station on it's way back to the docks to reload...
The third common loco type seen here is the GMD built class 66, both Freightliner and EWS 66's can be seen at this location. Freightliner's 66561 rolls East with coal empties, this train was held here, and the wagons can be seen in the background of the class 158 pic I posted earlier. 66601 'The Hope Valley' Blasts uphill with a long train of oil tanks. EWS's 66104 heads west with power plant coal. Trains like this with class 66's and high capacity HTA hoppers have now taken over the steelworks coal trains as well. That should be enough to whet an appetite for a visit there, next I headed back to Doncaster, stay tuned for a bit more....
Had not previously paid any attention- Seeing the coal cars, I'm now wondering how they are emptied at the plants, etc? Do they have something similar to what we use- A rotary dumping machine? Boxcab E50
Boxcab, most are hoppers, and no coal flows are rotary dumped over here as far as I can tell. EWS and Freightliner both have different designs of high capacity hoppers for the power plant traffic, Freightliner's are clear for 75mph use, important on a busy mixed traffic railway: The older HAA hopper family has been around since the 1960's, some are only 45mph capable, which means they are used mainly on fairly local trips these days. This Pic shows the underside with the drop doors. One of the coal trains in my pics has these box body opens, these are unloaded by grab and tend to get used on new or movable flows to where there is no fixed unloading equipment or where it's not worth the cost of installing it. They are a multi-purpose wagon as well and get used on other traffic like stone. [ 15. January 2004, 18:47: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
Superb stuff Martyn! Barnetby is a cert for a visit from me as soon as the days get a bit longer (and drier/warmer)
From Barnetby it was back to Doncaster, where I had about an hour before the light disappeared completely. Fresh from the Doncaster paint shop was Wales & Borders 158832. From December W&B was taken over by Arriva, and these units have now lost the white "alphaline" decalling, this must have been one of the last units released in the W&B scheme. GNER runs most of the mainline services through Doncaster, this is one of their push pull sets arriving on a London bound train. An unusual visitor to Doncaster was 87001 'Stephenson', restored to it's original 70's blue paint. It was heading to Newcastle for a special event, and paused for a crew change.
As the sun dropped behind the works buildings, I took a few "arty" shots to round-out the day... Not all GNER trains stop at Doncaster, many pass though the centre tracks at high speed... Hull Trains also serve Doncaster, at the moment they use Anglia class 170 'Turbostar' units, but they have a fleet of new trains on order... I'll leave you with another GNER Eurostar set, this time not repainted into the blue scheme, as it glints in the sunset... Hope you've enjoyed the pics!
Certainly did, Martyn! You have shown what a good variety of locomotives, trains and paint schemes are around, and inspired me to get out more and capture some myself
