Last weekend's railcar gala turned out to be a success with almost everything going according to plan and even the weather played its part until the rain arrived on Sunday afternoon. We would, therefore, like to say a big thank-you to the staff and volunteers who made it possible and the visitors who made it worthwhile.
All of the operational railcars in our fleet (namely the class 104, class 108, class 109 and the hybrid class 127/108) played a part in the gala, with the class 104 making its debut for 2024 following a protracted 'C' exam. Prior to the event it had been given an external makeover including white cab roofs of the type that were applied to Buxton-allocated units in the 1970s and 1980s...
Some of the trains included a tail load that consisted of a hopper wagon and a guard's van (aka brake van) in which passengers were allowed to ride. The pattern of operation was such that the class 104 made good use of its 600 horsepower to take the tail load in the uphill direction from Llangollen to Carrog...
and then busied itself with some Carrog <-> Corwen shuttles while a lower-powered unit arrived and took the tail load back to Llangollen...
There's no modern-day push-button control for us. Instead, coupling and uncoupling require some physical effort...
At Llangollen the tail load was shunt-released by class 08 shunter no. 08202...
As is usually the case at gala-type events we made use of some of the non-standard destinations on the destination blinds for the benefit of photographers...
Perhaps this one was a mystery tour?...
Had the following occurred 'back in the day' they might have resulted in interesting "Where am I?" quiz questions. Firstly a train bound for Corwen passing one bound for Norwich...
Secondly a train bound for Wrexham General passing one bound for Crianlarich!...
The class 104 had a brief spell on the naughty step after it became apparent, during the Saturday evening trains, that vehicle 50454 had almost-flat batteries. Fortunately, it managed to complete the service and some investigation on the Sunday morning revealed that the generator had not been charging the batteries because its field had become completely demagnetised. A brief application of some volts jolted it back into life and it performed satisfactorily from then on.
Last, but not least, one of our long-standing drivers, Brian Nicholls, had made the difficult decision to retire from driving DMUs after completing his two turns at the Railcar Gala, ironically because the road travel to/from Llangollen has become too difficult and time-consuming, especially on weekdays.
Brian's DMU-driving career spanned approximately 22 years and 15000 miles, and two of his claims to fame occurred in 2005 when he first of all became only the third group driver to achieve 1000 miles in a single season and then went on to set a driver mileage record for that season of 1270 miles!
We wish him well and are pleased that he intends to continue to help out with things at our Pentrefelin depot.
Thanks to John Joyce and Mike Martin for supplying the pictures that were used in this edition.