Class 31 Tour?
 

I've heard that it's to do Essex branches, not heard anything recently.

Welcome to the Forum Tim.

Sorry, I don't have any details of this railtour.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

Hello Tim and welcome to the Railway Forum. Sorry but I also don't know anything about this railtour.

Hello and welcome to the forum Tim.

I Love the Class 31's, and also Southend when a kid, so Very interested in this tour and will have to search for the details.

Looked on the Pathfinder Tours website - nothing there

They said about this initially (I assume after dozens of queries) on The Mersey Mancunian of 24th January 2009, about all we were told is that it is hoped to be some sort of collaboration with A1A using 31s on an Essex branches tour, with details being known in the next few weeks. It'll be 3 weeks since then on Saturday, so I'm not expecting owt to be mentioned until Monday 16th February 2009. Possibly to ensure that they get The Cwm and Go sorted first.

I don't want to miss this though, a rare opportunity to get the branches down there done on something proper rather than sitting on a variety of 315s, 321s and 360s!

31s, lovely, book me a ticket. Been a long time since I last sampled 31s on the mainline :(

Class 31 Tour
 

Yes

It is a long time since we sampled Class 31s on a tour.

I did hear in the past, if this is correct, that EWS would not sign Class 31s? If this is true, either a crew hired in from West Coast Railways, Freightliner or GBRF would be used?

West Coast men sign 31s. Last proper tour would have been the Lancashire Witch, with 31128 and 31454, which was brilliant! :cool:

It still sounds like EWS would not be involved with providing a crew and the WCR would, they seem to sign most classes of loco.

EWS men don't sign them to my knowledge. WCRC had a small fleet of 31s for working the Royal Scotsman a year or so back, and with them being a tour provider they'll have men who still sign them. Of course since the demise of FM Rail, all the drivers have spread out, I know of a few ex-FM drivers who are with DRS now. The one signs just about every loco!!

It doesn't matter to me where the crew come from, just so long as they are in control and everything goes okay.

slightly off topic, there were no less than 5 class 31s at Derby today !

Class 31's
 

I was lucky enough to be on the RAILWAYS COAL-STONE HAUL out of Bristol which was headed by 31105 and 31285 with a Class 50 Defiance on the tail end.

Was a decent tour from what I've heard, it's a pity Network Rail won't let their 31s work any tours.

Oh yeah, me and a couple of friends watched that at Yate. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera or camcorder with me to record it. But it put on a damn good show, I was very impressed and wished I could have done it.

That 50 was 50049, which sounded good even for crawling along freight lines!

On the way from Yate to the Tytherington quarry 50049 suffered a loss of water with a broken radiator pipe. A quick fix was done and water was supplied via a garden hose at Engine Common, If you know the area, it's the house with a old red phone box out in the field. That man sure saved the rest of our trip. The two class 31's gave no problems.

Apparently one of the 31s had a flashover somewhere, might have been after the tour mind. We did wonder why it was a bit late coming back from Tytherington, that clears that up!

I have recently looked on Pathfinder Tours website and the proposed date for this tour has dissappeared, does anybody know any further details?