Freight train fire near Milton Keynes disrupts services

From: BBC News

A fire on a freight train in Buckinghamshire is causing major disruption on the rail network.

All services have been suspended on the West Coast Mainline following the fire at Castlethorpe, near Milton Keynes, said Network Rail.

Fire crews have been working to put out the blaze on board the train, which was travelling between Crewe Basford Hall and Felixstowe.

Three fire engines were called to the scene at 09:34 BST.

A Network Rail spokesman said it was hoped services would soon begin returning to normal.

 

Update 12:45 The locomotive believed to be involved is Freightliner Class 90 Electric Locomotive 90044

 

Update 14:30  From the Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Website

Tuesday 30 August, 9.34am: Fire in traction unit of a freight train, on the West Coast main line, near Shades Bridge, Castlethorpe, Milton Keynes. One appliance and crew from Newport Pagnell (call sign FJC 14P1), two from Great Holm (call signs FJC 11P1 and FJC 11P4), one from Bletchley (call sign FJC 12PW2), the Specialist Equipment Vehicle from Aylesbury (call sign FJC 21S61) and the Operational Support Unit from Broughton (FJC 13S6) attended, along with Station Manager Paul McShane and Station Manager Steve Wells. Firefighters arranged for electricity to be isolated to the line while they used four sets of breathing apparatus, one hose reel and a dry powder extinguisher.

Railway Video – Acton Mainline

GB Railfreight Class 66 Diesel 66740 still in the livery of former owner Freightliner passes through Acton Mainline Station with an infrastructure working.

First Great Western Class 43 HST Diesel Power Cars 43063 & 43036 Storm Past Acton Mainline Station on a working to London Paddington.

These are just a taster of the 13 videos from my visit to Acton Mainline that I have uploaded to my Youtube Channel.  To view the full collection, please click here.

 

Railway Photography – Acton Main Line

My latest trip took me to the West of London to a little station called Acton Main Line.  The station is located on the Great Western Mainline and is the first station out of London Paddington.  Train services are provided by First Great Western who operate a 30 minute service between London Paddington & Greenford, this is the only service that stops at the station and does not run on Sundays.

Passenger services passing the station are operated by First Great Western, Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express.  Freight services are operated by EWS (DB Schenker), Freightliner, GB Railfreight & Hanson.

Acton Mainline is also host to a freight yard operated by EWS (DB Schenker) which is used by a large volume of stone trains serving the nearby terminal.  There is also a freight avoiding line that passes between platform 4 and the yard which is used by freight trains accessing/exiting the North London Line.

Stock Seen at Acton Main Line

Locomotives: Class 43 HST, Class 59 Diesel, Class 66 Diesel
Multiple Units: Class 165 DMU, Class 166 DMU, Class 180 DMU, Class 332 EMU, Class 360 EMU

Photographs

As usual, here is a little taster of the images I captured.  The full gallery of images can be found on my Photobucket site here.

First Great Western Class 43 HST 43037 passing Acton Mainline Station

DB Schenker Liveried Class 66 Diesel Locomotive 66152 at Acton MainLine Yard

A Skoda, Football Fans and a Shed

Two shifts for the price of one this week (Oh how I love overtime).

Friday

Pretty much an uneventful shift for once.  Once again working platforms 4-7 so should have been busy but, due to delays elsewhere, many of the trains we should have had were swapped to different parts of the station.  My Railway Enthusiast side reared it’s head as I made a quick dash over to platform 12 to help barrier the Mk3 “Pretendolino” set powered by Freightliner’s 90048 (Thank God for camera phones).

Freightliner Class 90 Locomotive 90048 on the Pretendolino Set

Saturday

Problems on my inbound journey saw me arrive at work with 10 minutes to spare (2 Hours to do a 45 minute journey, thanks London Underground).

After signing on and checking the plan for the evening, I realised that I would be “controlling” the team and it was my responsibility to make sure that we checked as many trains on our assigned platforms as possible.  A quick check of our daily orders showed that we would be fairly busy, which can be a blessing or a curse.

First half of the shift passed without incident and after a quick bite to eat it was back to the coal face for the second half.  News reached us that we were expecting between 400 and 1000 England fans returning from Wembley, luckily this is where planning came in and we heralded the arrival of extra staff from Birmingham and Manchester to make up the staff shortage we were suffering.

After the first train of our second half, the rail enthusiast in me kicked in again as we had a visitor.

EWS Class 66 Diesel 66183 after arrival at Euston

EWS Class 66 Diesel 66183 arrived on platform 16 with the return leg of UK Railtours Midland and Great Central No.2 Railtour. Cue me crossing the bottom of the platforms with my phone in hand to get a couple of shots before it vanished to Wembley Depot (this job does have its benefits).

A welcome break from the norm but it was back to work as the first fans arrived for their trains home.

A couple of trains passed until the first issue of the evening an old favourite of mine, adults travelling on child tickets.  After the usual questioning the “children” bought adult tickets and continued on their way with a flea in their ear about not doing it again.  The first batch of England fans came and went unusually happy after what was a poor showing by the team, some even offering to share their beverages with us(No dry trains tonight),an offer that we cannot accept.

In this job, you get used to dealing with the same problems on every shift with the most frequent being people on Advance tickets that have missed their booked train.  Tonight would be no different except for one passenger who tried to board an Anglo Scottish service 2 DAYS early!! A quick bit of friendly discussion about her options and she decided to buy a new ticket so I passed her on to the Train Manager rather than making her go back to the booking office and thus missing the train.

Football fans and trains passed and it finally became time for the last train of our shift and also the day.  Normally this is not a problem but the powers that be decided to board a semi-fast local service in the adjacent platform.  Cue revenue officers trying to differentiate between our passengers and those for the local and you can picture the chaos.  Luckily we managed to gain control and checked the vast majority of passengers right up to departure when a gentleman approached me with a ticket for a train that didn’t exist….

The gentleman asked me where his train was departing from and upon checking his ticket found out that he was travelling from Bournemouth to Wolverhampton routed via Reading on a CrossCountry Trains ticket.  Unfortunately we had no-one able to sell a ticket for him to continue his journey so he had to return to the booking office, all the time pleading with us to let him travel.

My only question with this passenger is, how did he get to us in the first place?  The routing of his ticket should have taken him from Bournemouth to Southampton and then via CrossCountry through Reading to Birmingham and change there for Wolverhampton.  For this passenger to be in front of us he would have had to miss Southampton, continue on to London, cross London and walk up to us, all the time with a ticket that should have been checked on the train from Bournemouth and also rejected at the ticket barriers on both National Rail and London Underground.

Luckily there were still services via another operator to Birmingham so I hope the gentleman managed to complete his journey with no further problems.  Anyway, for me that was the end of the shift and the commencement of a 1.5 hour journey home, thanks again London Underground.

Railway Photography – Stratford (London)

Time for me to share another one of my hobbies – Railway Photography.

I was lucky enough that SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) wanted some new crockery so I duly volunteered to go shopping.  Needless to say that, instead of travelling to my local shopping centre, I took the opportunity to travel a bit further in pursuit of a few photos.

My travels took me to Stratford in East London, soon to be home of the 2012 London Olympic Games.  After purchasing the aforementioned crockery, I spent an hour and a half at this busy location capturing both passenger and freight workings.  Stratford is a busy interchange station and sees regular local and Intercity services run by National Express East Anglia from London Liverpool Street to Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, Stowmarket, Southend & Shenfield alongside those of the Docklands Light Railway, London Underground and London Overground.  Stratford International sees regular Southeastern “Javelin” services from St Pancras as well as Eurostar services which do not stop here.

Freight workings are operated by DB Schenker (EWS), Direct Rail Services (DRS), Freightliner and Hanson.  Freight workings are mainly Container traffic, Aggregates & Building materials.

Stock Seen at Stratford

Locomotives: Class 59 Diesel, Class 66 Diesel, Class 86 Electric, Class 90 Electric
Multiple Units: Class 315 EMU, Class 317 EMU, Class 321 EMU, Class 357 EMU, Class 360 EMU, Class 378 EMU, Class 379 EMU

Photographs

To whet your appetite, here are a couple of the shots I managed to capture:-

London Overground Class 378 EMU 378201 at Stratford Station

Freightliner Class 86 Electric 86638 Double heads a container train through Stratford

To see the rest of the images I captured at Stratford, please visit my Photobucket album here.