The BeerTrain

Over 5 years since my last visit to Bavaria, with a little bit of Franconia thrown in (last visited over 17 years ago!), it was going to be a pub outing (from Heaven & Ale, Barnsley) but striking Railway workers (both here & in Germany), added to a Lufthansa ground-crew dispute put paid to that. Single manned then! Tuesday 16th April 2024 To avoid the above disputes I would have to travel down to Stansted Airport to get a (Ryanair) flight to Nuremberg, this added an additional overnight stay in Cambridge so involved an extra hotel, luckily my Priv railway passes meant this was the only additional cost involved. Unit  Barnsley - Wakefield Kirkgate 1717 Nottingham - Leeds 11miles Unit   Wakefield Kirkgate -  Wakefield Westgate 1840 Knottingley - Leeds 1mile I'd spotted that the 1945 ex Leeds was consisted with the booked class 91 so headed to Wakefield. I killed the 50 minute wait with a pint in the excellent Harrys Bar, followed by another in the quirkily...

Over 5 years since our last tour (the Robin Reliant of 15/02/1997), I was rather hoping to hang up my hat where 33111 Charters were concerned - other people in our  Class 33/1 Preservation Society  had other plans!  I agreed to look into the planning & timing side of things but passed the advertising/bookings & seating plan operations over to Dave Fry (thanks Dave).  We were taking the opportunity to use one of our own loco's (33108, on hire to Fragonset) on the tour which would feature a pair of class 33's from the Fragonset mainline pool with Riviera stock from Crewe CS. As I had been involved in the Epic that was the "Skirl o'the Bagpipes" in 1995 which took Crompton's North of the Border for the first time, we would take the chance to turn left at Gretna Jn & bash all new track for class 33's all time! To achieve this end an overnight start was required to give us the time we needed once in the South West of Scotland, so not wanting to leav...