The Royal Train
 

In the mid 90s Charlie Boy was down in Cornwall and my house at the time looked right across the goods yard, i was getting ready to go to work at about 1pm and i was watching the royal train push back into the yard.
We had just been given mobile phones so i phoned the supervisor to see where my freight train was he said right behind the royal train so i was filling my flask up in came my freight train stopped then set back into the yard the only thing was no one had taken the point clips off so the freight train broke the points has it went forward then when it set back there were three wagons plus loco off the road oops :eek: :eek:.
I phoned the supervisor back again and told him the problem but he did not believe me one hell of a mess.
Now Charlie Boy was booked to leave Par at 4pm his train is blocked in at St Blazey, they got the three wagons back on the the tracks but the loco was still off on one bogie.
Off they went to the B&W railway and got two wheel skids put under the loco (by the way this is a brand new 66 just come off the boat) they put the skids under the loco well they just bent like butter only ever made for small 20ton wagons years ago and they are trying to lift a 120ton loco.
In the end they pushed the 66 back on with the royal engine a 47 i dont know what damage was ever done to the 66 but it was done so that Charlie was not leaving Par :mad:.
If we had done something like that on our own backs i think a final warning would have been dished out :D.

ccmmick.

Good story commick, as I recall years ago jacks and wedges and crow bars were used for derailed waggons and maybe some locos.

Yes you are right wood blocks and heavy labour.
Wheel skids were in every yard but they were taken away as a lot of wagons were put back on the tracks and know one every new about it.
Today it is all done by hydraulics.

ccmmick.

Are skids the same as wheel skates ? (Forgive me I'm a suburban driver - Freight activities are a bit of a mystery :( ).

We use skates regularly as our DC motors have a habit of seizing solid when they 'die'. Fortunately the whole motor coach only weighs about 40 tons, so the skates seem to cope. To begin with the RSTs always cautiously tell us to keep the speed down to 5 mph, and then after about half an hour on the main line they change their minds and decide that actually '15 is fine'. Time is money nowadays. :rolleyes:

FP

No they are not. Wheel skates are still in use today skids went out years ago.
It is a device that is put on the rail under a wheel then the wagon is pulled back on the rails via the skid.
Hope that makes sense :D.

ccmmick.

OK - sounds like a very useful piece of kit. ;)

Just found this on google take a look.


http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...DZD2-Abo7bjhDg.

ccmmick.

Royal Train
 

One Friday evening I worked the Royal train from Didcot to Kemble ( to pick up Prince Charles) and then forward to Crewe.
As I arrived at Kemble with the ECS at about 2300 hrs there was a NR employee on the platform exhibiting a yellow hand signal to indicate to me where to stop the train and as I came to a stand opposite him he burst out laughing,on enquiring what it was he was laughing at he replied " you should have got here earlier mate you've missed all the fun!"
Apparently at about 2230 a couple had come out of the pub in the Station yard(on the Down side) and got into the backseat of a Jaguar car,the man was about 60 and the women about 20ish.After a few minutes the car alarm started,due to the bouncing movement of the car,and almost instantly the car was surrounded by "armed" police and soldiers(the security for Charles who had been hiding in the bushes).
I bet there were a few blushes !
The NR man said " he picked the wrong bloody night to have some fun in his car!"

Charles hides in bushes?!

Do the papers know about this latest scandal? it sounds like a scoop! :)

They went Into The Valley, did'nt they? :)

I believe that skids are still in almost daily use on the Blackpool Tramway. Derailments are common because of sand blowing into the rail grooves and causing the wheels to ride up. The Tramway engineers had the re-railing down to a fine art - time is money as they say.

Loco Jacks
 

On the Rhodesia Railways all locos had jacks. It was down to the crew to re-rail any derailed wagons. It could take 6 to 8 hours to get a recovery crew to you which would mean everything was at a standstill, single line working. If there wasn't enough sidings for the trains then a recovery train could not get through. So recovery teams would have to come by road. This could often mean dirt tracks, which if wet could cause more problems with heavy lorries getting stuck in the mud. So we would have to use jacks and crow bars and a bit of brute power. You can see the jacks on the front of the Garratt in the photo below

Thanks for that Syd. One tends to forget how self sufficient crews need to be in more remote places!

Best wishes,

John H-T.

You certainly had to know your stuff working for Rhodesia Railways, what with derailments and lions and other wildlife roaming about eh Syd.:)

"You certainly had to know your stuff working for Rhodesia Railways, what with derailments and lions and other wildlife roaming about eh Syd".

This is true Locojoe, but then we did not have to know all the routes and station layouts that the British crews had to know. The two largest stations in Rhodesia were Bulawayo and Salisbury. Salisbury only had 3 platforms and Bulawayo had 4. The only double line working was between the two cities, all the rest were single line. All of the signals were C.T.C color light working apart from the line through Botswana which had semaphore but for a long time that line was crewed by South Africans. On the main line from Bulawayo through Sawmills, Dett, Thompson Junction and Victoria falls and into Zambia, there was only one train every two hours. In the evening there was a mixed goods/passenger and one Mail (express passenger) train that ran over night. (Express passengers also carried mail and were timed at 45mph)
So as you can see we did not have as much to worry about as the British crews did. In all my time on the R.R. I never had to re-rail anything. We did however have to isolate the front end of a 15th Class Garratt once when I was still a fireman.

Away from this a bit
We had a driver at St Blazey called Dennis Mugford a real gent and he never had a failed train untill his very last week of service.
Now that takes a bit of believing but i assure you it is true.
Like i say he was a true gent and six months after retirement he died :( :(.

ccmmick.