08/07/2011 The Northern Belle comes to town.

Today I took a trip across London to meet The Northern Belle charter from Nottingham at Kensington Olympia.  Arriving in plenty of time I managed to capture some good images and video of both the passenger and freight workings through the station.

Dead on time at 11:59, DRS Class 47501 ‘Craftsman’ complete with Northern Belle headboard, rounded the curve to the south of the station and drew the immaculate Pullman stock into Platform 2.  I managed a quick photo and then dashed to the other end of the platform to capture 47832 ‘Solway Princess’ on the other end of the train.

It was now that the heavens chose to open and I found myself trying to get a photo in a torrential downpour, the results of which can be seen below.  8 minutes after the train arrived, 47832 ‘Solway Princess’ drew the ECS & 47501 ‘Craftsman’ from the platform and headed away to stable until the return working.  I managed to capture some video of the train both arriving and departing and I will post this tomorrow.

Photographs

DRS Class 47 Diesel 47501 'Craftsman' at Kensington Olympia

DRS Class 47 Diesel 47832 'Solway Princess' at Kensington Olympia

To view my other images from Kensington Olympia, please visit my Photobucket Gallery.

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

Railway Photos and Video

Although from time to time I will post my own photographs and video files on this blog, my main collections have so far not been linked.

To view my Railway Photographs, please visit my Photobucket site here.

To view my Railway Videos, please visit my Youtube channel here.

I will be updating these sites as time allows me to go out and obtain more material.