The LNER Encyclopedia

I passed the Potter Group site near Ely on Tuesday and was fascinated to see a totally new rail-yard under construction, within a new security compound, on the site of the former Beet Factory coal yard - TL 561 807. Four class 442 emus are stored at present elsewhere on the site, with a Class 47 in use as a mobile generator, I'm told. The 'new yard' can be seen from a public footpath running around part of the site. I counted 13 new buffer stops in a row, with a 14th siding possibly partly obscured from my viewpoint. A new green fence has been erected around the sidings and the place festooned with security cameras and movement detectors - being installed yesterday by Absolute Surveillance Systems Ltd of Newton Heath, Manchester, whose website states that all of its installations are now being fitted with Adpro Fastrace, with IntrusionTrace software for sterile zone monitoring! It is understood that these sidings may be for the 1,000-odd coaches and DMUs due to be withdrawn over the next three years? Can anybody confirm this, please? I recall seeing photographs of withdrawn EMU stock being stored on now lifted sidings close to the station level-crossing in Ely, awaiting a final journey to nearby Snailwell scrapyard - but that site no longer has a direct rail connection and has long stopped breaking-up rolling stock, I believe, due to new EU regulations?
Tuesday was an interesting day as I also saw a DRS Class 68 hauling a dead Class 90 ( sans pantograph ) past the Potter Group site, and I also found a rusting pile of 2 foot narrow-gauge track units on the nearby Roswell Pits nature reserve site - a flooded former brick clay pit.

Nimbus wrote:A new green fence has been erected around the sidings and the place festooned with security cameras and movement detectors - being installed yesterday by Absolute Surveillance Systems Ltd of Newton Heath, Manchester, whose website states that all of its installations are now being fitted with Adpro Fastrace, with IntrusionTrace software for sterile zone monitoring!.

Welcome to britain 2016 style folks, sounds like they've overlooked the patrolling compound guard, trip flares and dummy machine gun towers dotted around the outside perimeter??.

How free & easy it all was in years gone by?. Connington condemned sidings containing about 8-9 roads usually full of condemned B.R.Mk1 coaches in B.R. maroon or British Rail blue/grey liveries and situated on the Down side of the running lines about midway between Huntingdon & Peterborough were as far as I know totally open to the surrounding fields and railway mind you they were situated 'in the middle of nowhere' but that was back in the late 1960s & 1970s.

Mickey

Just off out for a cycle ride to see the next delivery of stock...

Back in the early 1960s redundant coaching stock was stored on a siding near the fuel depot off the Alnwick branch and redundant 16t minerals were stored on sidings which in reality were the remains of the Cornhill line which branched off from Alnwick station.

G'day Gents

When you say 'A 1,000 odd coaches and DMU's' are life expired, can you let us know what these my be, living om the other side of the world it's hard to keep up on what may be ready for scrap, (probably everything BUT the Pacers)

I have heard that the cl 442's and Eurostar's are being withdrawn, and replacements for the 313's have been approved, about time to, they must be 40 years old now.

manna

manna wrote:I have heard that the cl 442's and Eurostar's are being withdrawn, and replacements for the 313's have been approved, about time to, they must be 40 years old now.

Initally I didn't use to like the class 313 duel voltage EMUs cos when they originally entered service on the GN inner suburban services during the 1976-77 era they replaced the Craven DMUs and also the Brush class 31 loco hauled 'block ender' coaching stock passenger workings that usually worked the weekday morning & evening 'peak hour' services between Moorgate or Kings Cross suburban to either Welwyn Garden City or Hertford North.

Fast forward to the mid/late 1990s and I became re-acquainted with them again after a gap of about 17 or 18 years when they took over the running of the services on the North London line during the late 1990s-2000s initally running from North Woolwich and later on from Stratford Low Level to & from Richmond which they appeared to perform well on and funny enough they were good to see again like old friends after not previously seeing them since 1979.

Mickey

Manna,

I understand that the about-to-be withdrawn units concerned are all the 'second generation' Abellio company dmus, from Class 150 - 156, plus the Class 90 electric locomotives and push-pull stock from the Liverpool Street - Norwich service. I understand that the Class 365 electrics from the Kings X - Kings Lynn service may be going, too? Class 170 units have also been listed, but they would appear to probably have a life elsewhere in the country ahead of them - although the scrapping of the first Eurostar unit last week ( made up from two different half-units ) may signal a radical scrapping programme nationally? The major problems appear to be that: a) there are no yards left to store stock, most having been covered in starter-home housing estates, and b) EU environmental legislation re plastics and oils means that 'scrapped' vehicles now have to be carefully dismantled over a longer period, with few yards set-up to do this at the moment. ( The infamous carriage incinerator at Snailwell being long-gone! )

Interesting indeed, it is known that that the owners of the 442 units are reluctant to send them for scrap and have started to place them in storage at Eastleigh and now it seems at Ely, where these units will re enter service is anybody s guess, one idea put forward (and thats all it is) as that they could be used on the Waterloo to Exeter services and diesel hauled beyond Basingstoke, no I don't think so either. There are other units that will be taken off lease in the coming years that the owners will be reluctant to send to the scrap yards. The 365 units from GN and the 30 refurbed 321s, the 360 and 379 fleet from Anglia come to mind and they will have to be stored somewhere until and if new homes can be found for them. Some of these could end up at Ely if these new sidings are there for that purpose.

G'day Gents

Thank you for your replies, it all helps to give me an idea what's going on, some are so 'new' that I'll have to Google them, the 150 and 156's should be refurbished so that they can replace the 'Pacer' units, but 'Pacers' are so cheap to run.........

I can remember going out to Neville Hill one morning to work a unit, it was a brand new 156. still had plastic on the seats and floors, mind you that would have been 1989/90 !! life goes by so fast.

manna

I heard yesterday that a number of the TOCs that have 'swanky' new liveries applied to there rolling stock are gradually 'doing away with' the 'yellow warning front ends' to there units & locos which I assumed was a mandatory requirement on all traction??.

About a year ago a dark green'ish class 66 went passed my box without any yellow warning front end at all on the loco which I thought was a bit odd at the time??.


Mickey

The new sidings are still not in use, with men and machines seen working on them recently. There are now six class 442 units in store next to the Norwich line. These are hauled up and down a few hundred yards, on a rota basis, by 47812 to stop them rusting up and to run the on-board electrics for a while. They are certainly very good-looking and hold the world speed record for any third-rail unit of 108 mph. It's the second-hand primary electrics which are the problem, having - in typically Southern style - been taken from the 4-REP units they in effect replaced, so are now around 50 years old...
Incidentally, the footpath running alongside the Lynn line from Queen Adelaide level-crossing, through a wood, across the Peterborough line, across a field, over the Ely West Curve line, and into eastern Ely is presently under threat of closure by Network Rail and Cambridgeshire County Council, due to NR carrying out a policy of 130 footpath closures in eastern England by the end of next year. Unfortunately NR have already blocked several right-of-way footpath crossings without having obtained the correct documentation first and have now found themselves under fire from many quarters and an official investigation by the Office for Road and Rail! ( Re- Prickwillow 1 and 2, and Ely North Junction foot-crossings ). The 442's can be viewed, across four tracks, from along this somewhat overgrown public footpath, just before it doglegs into a wood.
As for Mickey's comment about reduced yellow warning aprons on train fronts, I am not certain what the Rail Group Standards are on this now, but they can probably be found on-line somewhere. Three headlights in a triangle is certainly now a rule, but many units don't comply. I saw the 'last' class 66, 'Evening Star', go past the other day. The Brunswick green paint looked black in the murky Autumn daylight. I think it did have tiny yellow aprons at both ends, although hard to see!

By the way, the 442's in store at Ely are 412, 415, 416, 420, 422 and 423. ( 24-9-2016 ).

The reports of the 442 units being moved up and down sidings at Ely are in line with reports of off lease units of this type undergoing nightly runs from Eastleigh to Basingstoke and back to keep them in good condition. Is something in line for these units we don't know about.

Nimbus wrote:As for Mickey's comment about reduced yellow warning aprons on train fronts, I am not certain what the Rail Group Standards are on this now, but they can probably be found on-line somewhere. Three headlights in a triangle is certainly now a rule, but many units don't comply.

I am really not exaggerating but sometimes at night some locos and even DMUs have front head lights that are so bright I have to turn my head away because it's absolutely blinding if you even momentary look at them head on!!!.

Back when the line was fully open before last April (Woodgrange Park-South Tottenham section) we use to get a class 66 on a stone empty heading back towards the western sometime after midnight and that thing along with the other 2 front head lights had a single blinding head light on the front (in the 3 lamps triangle) and it would seriously 'hurt your eyes' if you looked at it as it was approaching so I always turned my head away when that thing was approaching the box plus there are a couple of DMUs that have horrendously bright head lights as well!!!.

Back in the day on the GN out of Kings Cross pre-electrification in the late 1960s & early 1970s a Cravens unit would show either a class 1 or class 2 head lights with I presume were 100w light bulbs??. Thinking about it the light bulbs in a Brush type 2 (class 31) 4 digit headcode box may even have been 60w bulbs because they never appeared to be to bright when you opened the back up of the headcode box to 'set up' the headcode??.

Mickey

Mickey, would a class 31 have enough spare power to light a pair of 100w bulbs ?