Diesel group at Llangollen?

Hi,
Does anyone know why 37 901 is not at the Llangollen any more, and why
all of the Mainline Diesel fleet is for sale?

Seems like a major falling out has occured?

Rob.

"Robert Wilson" <robwilson@remove.brushhead.co.uk> wrote in message
news:CtmdneiPt_yXsFnVnZ2dnUVZ8g6dnZ2d@posted.plusn et...
> Hi,
> Does anyone know why 37 901 is not at the Llangollen any more, and why all
> of the Mainline Diesel fleet is for sale?
>
> Seems like a major falling out has occured?
>
> Rob.
>
What, a spat amongst anoraks, never.

In article <1hf92yqqlcea9$.fr3kaltlvos4$.dlg@40tude.net>,
Chris Tolley <cjt.7@supanet.com> wrote:

> But if [the LlR] aren't going to be a pre-1947 railway, then what do they
> think the GWR would have done if it hadn't been nationalised? It surely
> wouldn't still be a steam railway, would it?

It would be a diesel hydraulic railway, of course!

Sam

On 9 Sep, 11:12, Sam Wilson <Sam.Wil...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> In article <1hf92yqqlcea9$.fr3kaltlvos4$....@40tude.net>,
>  Chris  Tolley <cj...@supanet.com> wrote:
>
> > But if [the LlR] aren't going to be a pre-1947 railway, then what do they
> > think the GWR would have done if it hadn't been nationalised? It surely
> > wouldn't still be a steam railway, would it?
>
> It would be a diesel hydraulic railway, of course!
>
> Sam

OTOH it did attempt Gas Turbine power when the other grouped co's were
experimenting with EE 1Co-Co1s; Truthfully, though I think you'll
find it would have been a lot of DMUs. (AEC Railcar experience)

In article
<9ecaf96d-abe4-4285-b27f-e0da9b580ddd@k13g2000hse..com>,
Stephen Allcroft <stephenallcroft@lycos.co.uk> wrote:

> On 9 Sep, 11:12, Sam Wilson <Sam.Wil...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > In article <1hf92yqqlcea9$.fr3kaltlvos4$....@40tude.net>,
> >  Chris  Tolley <cj...@supanet.com> wrote:
> >
> > > But if [the LlR] aren't going to be a pre-1947 railway, then what do they
> > > think the GWR would have done if it hadn't been nationalised? It surely
> > > wouldn't still be a steam railway, would it?
> >
> > It would be a diesel hydraulic railway, of course!
>
> OTOH it did attempt Gas Turbine power when the other grouped co's were
> experimenting with EE 1Co-Co1s; Truthfully, though I think you'll
> find it would have been a lot of DMUs. (AEC Railcar experience)

It would have been Different, anyway!

Sam

Chris Tolley wrote:



> given that the real GWR finished more than 60 years ago,
> and the number of folk who genuinely remember it is now in

> terminal decline.



Well-said Chris. I am one of those folk, having been born in

1934, but my only memories of it are the GWR' s twice daily

passenger and once daily freight trains which ran between

Chester and Manchester via Newton-le-Willows and our 2 or

3 times per year family outings to Prestatyn via Chester.

At Chester, or passing through, I would see many GWR engines

at work in and around the station or at rest on the nearby shed.



I do have plenty of memories of the post-nationalisation Western

Region of BR, which, to many die hard GWR enthusiasts, I met in

my active railway modelling days, ought never to have existed

and is an era best forgotten.

> But if they aren't going to be a pre-1947 railway, then what do

> they think the GWR would have done if it hadn't been nationalised?

> It surely wouldn't still be a steam railway, would it?



Not a bit! Until the closure of the Ruabon - Barmouth line in 1965

we enjoyed many excursions from such unlikely starting points as

Accrington, Rochdale and Wigan NW to Barmouth. Some were steam

hauled --- always with a loco change at Chester --- but many were

in dmus, mostly with a far superior view out of the windows. These

brought pleasurable comments and even gasps from the mainly

Lancastrian passengers as we rolled by Bala Lake or along that shelf

between Dolgellau and Barmouth Jn which followed the meanderings

of the Afon Mawddach. I'd venture to suggest that had that line stayed

open for a few more years the introduction of a mainly dmu-based

service would have led to increased patronage and train frequency.

> As someone who goes to these places with a raised interest in
> photographing the goings-on, I am always somewhat disappointed when
> a
> train appears in my viewfinder, and the face it presents is the
> slab-end
> of a tender. (The only more disappointing face is a plastic stick-on
> one. Grrrr...) Diesels have the virtue of looking reasonable
> whichever
> way the train is going.



Me too, but I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that a tender-first run
is

the only practicable one if there are no turntables or, as is
sometimes

the case, a turntable at one end of the line. The great majority of
steam

worked preserved railways lack a turntable and many of them house or

even own Pacifics or 2-10-0s which were never seen there or even

barred from there in steam days.



But I prefer such situations to the alternatives of no steam haulage
or

even no railway.



Oh! A final thought. Are there enough genuine, preserved ex-GWR

passenger coaches and goods wagons to go round or will we have to

accept GWR-liveried GWR locos pulling GWR-liveried BR Mk 1 stock?
This is a genuine question and nothing in my writings above is meant

to be sarcastic.




Regards,

DigitisED (Eddie Bellass)

Eddie & Margaret Bellass,
Merseyside, United Kingdom.

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free and checked
by a leading anti-virus system - updated continuously.

> With their diesels gone, all they've got to offer is ex-GWR steam locos,
> which are of no interest to me at all.
> And I thought they were a forward looking railway - it seems the Llangollen
> is about as forward looking as the Taleban.

Slightly unfair, I think- if you have an asset like Llangollen
station, which is a nice example of what the Great Western did for
market towns, or indeed a nice little country station like Carrog,
then you make the most of them- incidentally, the last guide I read
about five years ago pointed out that Glyndyfrdwy has been restored to
resemble a BR-era London Midland station as found on some of the
branches off the coast. The Llangollen have in many ways been in the
vanguard of showing just what a preserved railway can do for tourism
in a rural area and what can be achieved by building good relations
with local authorities. There does seem to have been some sort of
spat between the diesel group and the railway proper, but equally a
railway of that length will always need one or two Type 3/4 locos to
cover for steam failures.