Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveJ
I have to agree with Trev - for me one of the best things about being interested in railways from an early age was the need to travel the country looking for those rare types that you never got on your home territory.Not only did you get to see rarely glimpsed motive power (and that was a real thrill in itself) you also got to find out a lot about this country of ours.Of course the world was a lot bigger in the early 60s than it is now - a trip to Scotland was a real adventure,by train or car.
It was a real treat to go hundreds of miles away and feel that you were in foreign lands - maybe that's difficult to understand today with mobile phones,motorways,laptops and all the paraphenalia of modern life - back then you were lucky to have a notebook and pen,let alone a camera or pair of binoculars.
Times change I guess,but I find it a shame that you can see a 158 in Penzance and a 158 in Inverness half a day later.
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Bear in mind though that it is impossible to see every class 66 in every part of the country. You aren't going to see the 66/3's outside of the north east coal flows - the 66/4's mainly ply the WCML and, as of very recently, the Tilbury - Daventry route too, but almost nowhere else. Freightliner's intermodal 66/5's, which accounts for a good 40-50 locos, cannot be seen at places like Barnetby, despite the amount of freight going through there. They tend to stick to the WCML, GE, and ECML, with a few flows elsewhere. The 66/6's conversely never get used on intermodals and generally stick to oil and coal traffic. You can go several days without seeing one of them at all at major junctions on all main lines. Even GBRf's 66/7's seem to be divided - as a rule of thumb (which I have only ever seen 2 exceptions to) the newest 66/7's (718 upwards) will almost always be used on the priority long distance container traffic, leaving the lowest numbered (701-717) to work gypsum trains, engineering & ballast trains, etc. At Hoo Junction, which I pass regularly, there is often a GBRf 66/7 from 701-717 lying around, but never one of the higher numbered ones, which I need to travel to Stratford or beyond to find. Not as simple as it first seems....
