The BeerTrain

Where to begin? where can you begin when dealing with an all-time first for Class 33's and all the planning that goes into such a unique endeavour. I suppose at the beginning. I think it was a Tuesday night when five of us met for a beer in one of the pre-eminent Real Ale pubs of London at that time, the White Horse in Parsons Green. Myself (Poodle), Samways, Pinker, Kapur & Paul Smith. A few beers in, and the conversation drifted towards the end of the BR Special Trains Unit, which was winding down and would be handing over the reins to Watermans Railways shortly. Kapur, never one to keep the noise down after a few liveners, was outraged that the Steam fraternity were marking the occasion with a number of Steam Charters on the final weekend. I think he said there were 10 sets of stock and nine were already spoken for. Someone must do something Diesel hauled! "What can we do" I said, "We haven't even got any paper to write anything down". See that beerma

Another (non-Easter) trip for the narrow gauge Alco's on the Peloponnese, south of Athens. A Roadshow of 31 Bashers including Flossie & Shovel accompanying me for most of the trip.  The really good news was that the main daytime hauled turn, although still terminating at Pirghos, then formed a service to Kiparissia. No more taxi's required to the hotels in Olympia, the Ionian hotel outside Kippy station very much back in use! Thursday 4th March 2004 91107       Doncaster – Kings Cross   0746 Newcastle – Kings Cross   156m 319429     Kings X TL – Luton Airport Parkway   1004 Brighton – Bedford   30m G-EZJB   Luton Airport – Athens   1340 Luton – Athens With a full evening here in Athens I expect we had a night in the Posh Brewpub in the City Centre, hellfire range of German style beers, including a great Schwarz (Black) beer & food like Schweinhaxe's to eat. A home-from-home! Friday 5th March 2004 A9106 is attached to the stock for the 0939 Pireaus - Patras Alway

I was working in Rail House, Crewe, planning all the Charter services for Res/EWS when the idea of a central office was proposed. The final choice of Doncaster pleasing no-one in the offices at Crewe or Nottingham (most of us had already relocated once already when our offices moved away form London!). I had just finished training all the staff in the Charter trains section & we were finally fully staffed - however within weeks of the announcement of "everyone should move to Doncaster" most of our staff decided to go back to previous posts in the West Midlands or North West, even if they were lower graded. A huge number of the experienced staff also didn't see Doncaster as a viable option. It became clear over 2 or 3 "brain-storming to set up the new office" meetings, held in a local hostelry with free Beer all evening as the enticement to attend, that the Canadian couple in charge of setting up the office were NOT going to take notice of anything we told th