Atomic Systems

I am, for personal use, editing the 'Engineering Department' scenario from the Class 66 add-on (RailWorks) to be more correct for the era it is set in (Class 66s, and FGW liveried 166s and HTSs in 1991? Uh, yeah, right....), and in connection with that have some questions:

1. 1991 was AFAIK still (very) early days for the Class 166s, so most of the regional services, at least the ones to Oxford, would be composed of NSE liveried Class 47s and Mk I coaches. What would the compositions be like for these services (e.g. typical number of coaches, and which types)?

2. How would the various tracks be used? The way the scenario is, you're putting together a trainset for Engineering duty, mostly consisting of cement cars and open gondolas (OAAs) - this takes place in the area of Old Oak Common known as the 'factory' - which AFAIK was really the area used for heavy locomotive repair work. Would this area really be used to put together such a train in real-life, and if not, where in Old Oak Common would it have been most likely to have been put together (Old Oak Common did have a set of separate Civil Engineers sidings, I think)?

3. Roughly in the middle of the depot, just before the locomotive shed area, there are two sets of sidings called 'Pullman sidings' and 'Coronation sidings' - I assume that originally, these would've been used for their namesake trains, but of course these were long gone in 1991. In the scenario, these tracks are mostly empty, save for two rakes of Malachite Green(!) Mk1s, a rake of HST dining cars, and one rake of Class 165 middle cars. How were these sidings used in 1991, if they were used for anything at all? Is this possibly where it would be most prototypical to put together the construction train? Or would they, as is apparently the case today, also be used for storing charter fleet carriages in 1991?

4. According to http://www.class47.co.uk a large number of Class 47s had Old Oak Common as their home depot in 1991 (mostly Civil Engineers and Network SouthEast locos, and some Railfreight ones as well). The depot was at this time also the final resting place for scrap-ready Class 50s. Would there also have been other loco types stationed there at this time (ie autumn 1991) - possibly Class 37s and Class 08s?

I will fill you in with some details in the morning, having been based there until Jan 91.
Busy for the rest of the day.

Thank you, will look forward to that (I guess it didn't change that much between January and August 1991, other than perhaps arrival of the first Class 165/166s and scrapping of the majority of the Class 50s during the summer)

Ah well.. Guess not then

Sorry been a bit busy, give me an hour or so.

OK I'll be checking in when the football match and House MD har finished

1. 1991 was AFAIK still (very) early days for the Class 166s, so most of the regional services, at least the ones to Oxford, would be composed of NSE liveried Class 47s and Mk I coaches. What would the compositions be like for these services (e.g. typical number of coaches, and which types)?

47/7 (the ex Scotrail ones) in NSE livery and 8 MK2's normally 6TSO's and 2 BFK's in between them, but in reality, the formations changed quite a bit, as the stock was getting towards the same condition as the 50's.
There were a couple of MK1 sets, that were used on the peak hour Padd to Newbury services, that made the odd appearance as well.

2. How would the various tracks be used? The way the scenario is, you're putting together a trainset for Engineering duty, mostly consisting of cement cars and open gondolas (OAAs) - this takes place in the area of Old Oak Common known as the 'factory' - which AFAIK was really the area used for heavy locomotive repair work. Would this area really be used to put together such a train in real-life, and if not, where in Old Oak Common would it have been most likely to have been put together (Old Oak Common did have a set of separate Civil Engineers sidings, I think)?

Have a look here http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.5262 ... &abstate=A

The sidings towards the top, where the fuel tank is, is where the brakedown train used to be stabled.
The factory would not have been used for marshalling a train, as there is just not enough space.

Next to the fuel tank, is the factory, then the stores, loco servicing point, 3 roads, first two for fuel, last one for exams.
Next block was the admin, canteen uniform stores.

Scroll down on the map
Next you have the old DMU sheds, they are still used for the 165/66's.

Then the carriage sidings.
Then the shed with no roof, was the carriage servicing shed, below that, is the HST servicing shed.
The shed next to it is the HST maintenance shed.

Next one is new, so I am not sure what its for.

Below that is where the engineers sidings used to be.

More later, have to put the kids to bed.

In other words, the first set of sheds (one longer than the other) which are slightly askew just below the 'Factory', are the DMU sheds for the 165/66 DMUs, then come the carriage sidings, carriage servicing area and then the HST shed and HST maintenance
The new one you couldn't identify is probably the Heathrow Express shed?
The engineer's sidings would, in other words, be the row of tracks between the main tracks and the last shed (I am talking about the tracks just below the last letter in the street name "Old Oak Common Ln")?

The engineer's sidings would, in other words, be the row of tracks between the main tracks and the last shed (I am talking about the tracks just below the last letter in the street name "Old Oak Common Ln")?

Could be, that looks like the only bit that has really changed, you used to be able to run round at the lower end.

phill70 wrote:47/7 (the ex Scotrail ones) in NSE livery and 8 MK2's normally 6TSO's and 2 BFK's in between them, but in reality, the formations changed quite a bit, as the stock was getting towards the same condition as the 50's.
There were a couple of MK1 sets, that were used on the peak hour Padd to Newbury services, that made the odd appearance as well.

Yes - I can recall travelling in Mk1 SKs between Reading and Oxford in the very late 80s/early 90s. Very comfortable they were too

Hello,

Have a look on this website - don't spend too much time looking at the girls.....

http://midis.fotopic.net/

As far as I can remember the only mainline locos at Old Oak were Class 50, 31 and 47 in the 1980's and 90's. There were 3 depot codes utilised at the time, OC was Old Oak Common, OM was Old Oak Common Carriage Maintenance Depot and OO was Old Oak Common HST Depot. Of course, there were quite a few Class 08 shunters allocated around the various sites, but, I don't ever recall any Class 37's being strategically allocated there, they were generally based at Stratford in East London.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

37's were never based at old oak, but were frequent visitors, same goes for 56's.

In the main old oak had a couple of 31's, 47's and 50's, and a dozen or so 08's.

Even then, the depot was becoming a dumping ground for withdrawn or awaiting decision loco's, at the time there were a couple of 33's, about half a dozen 37's, three or four 50's, and eight or nine 47's.

When the 165/66's took over in early to mid 1992, the place was littered with redundant 50's, and 47's, and all of the rolling stock, and the 117/121, and what ever else was used.
http://www.class47.co.uk shows there were 62 47's based there 01/91-12/91 which would have been about right.

As a side note to this.

The 47/7's (EX Scotrail) were considered to be in worse mechanical condition than the 50's they were supposed to be replacing, old oak had 11 of them, it was quite common for the other 47/4's to be covering.
One of the night turns we had, was to take a 50, or whatever was spare, along with another 2 47's, drop one off at Reading, and the other at Oxford, and on the return run, pick up anything that had failed during the day, there was always something to bring back, I did that turn about 20 times, and never came back light loco.
A couple of the morning Paddington to Oxford services were used as test runs for repaired loco's, so would be double headed, and double manned in some cases, if you had 2 50's you could run on your own (good fun) but with any other combination you had to be double manned.

When did the last loco-hauled services between Paddington and Bristol TM ended, expect the sleeper-service off course. It has to do something with the electrification of the ECML and the IC225-sets as HST-sets became more available?

Now, i have been playing too many SimSig-simulations of the Bristol-Westbury-Exeter triangle (triple chain), and there are still quite some loco-hauled services, even down to Plymouth/Penzance.

Also, from the 1985 WTT (SimSig again), there's ECS from Malago Vale to Westbury as well an class 2 service, 2A01 if i recall correct. One of these changes to 1Fxx to Paddington and the other one goes to Weymouth i think, can't remember right now. Now, the question is, did the set returned to Malago Vale during the evening rush hours as i recall there was class 1 down to Westbury that then changed to a ECS to Malago Vale... Probably not so simple, but who knows...

I used to work at OOC as a driver during that period and here's what I remember.

USRailFan wrote:1. 1991 was AFAIK still (very) early days for the Class 166s, so most of the regional services, at least the ones to Oxford, would be composed of NSE liveried Class 47s and Mk I coaches. What would the compositions be like for these services (e.g. typical number of coaches, and which types)?

Most of the Oxford and Newbury stock was NSE MK1 or MK2 typically 8 to 10 coaches and 47 hauled. Mostly they were first and second opens with the odd corridor coach and a BSO. They were all stabled in the main carridge sidings.

USRailFan wrote:2. How would the various tracks be used? The way the scenario is, you're putting together a trainset for Engineering duty, mostly consisting of cement cars and open gondolas (OAAs) - this takes place in the area of Old Oak Common known as the 'factory' - which AFAIK was really the area used for heavy locomotive repair work. Would this area really be used to put together such a train in real-life, and if not, where in Old Oak Common would it have been most likely to have been put together (Old Oak Common did have a set of separate Civil Engineers sidings, I think)?

The factory was the loco repair shops, no coaching stock was held over there. The C pilot would occasionally shunt fuel tanks to the factory though but towards the end this came in by road tanker rather than rail.

You're right in saying that OOC had it's own engineers sidings; this was over by the 2 reception roads next to the Up Relief line, all engineers stock was held over there. We had a regular day turn which used to take the wagons to Reading engineers sidings. Any shunting would be done by the train engine for that turn.

USRailFan wrote:3. Roughly in the middle of the depot, just before the locomotive shed area, there are two sets of sidings called 'Pullman sidings' and 'Coronation sidings' - I assume that originally, these would've been used for their namesake trains, but of course these were long gone in 1991. In the scenario, these tracks are mostly empty, save for two rakes of Malachite Green(!) Mk1s, a rake of HST dining cars, and one rake of Class 165 middle cars. How were these sidings used in 1991, if they were used for anything at all? Is this possibly where it would be most prototypical to put together the construction train? Or would they, as is apparently the case today, also be used for storing charter fleet carriages in 1991?

The Corornation sidings was used mainly for storing stock either waiting to be reparied or surplus to requirements. Coaching stock used for trains was held in the main carridge sidings.The large building next to the sidings was a coach repair shop. We used to regulary shunt over there with the C Pilot. An episode of the Bill ( a UK police soap) was filmed there once. The Cororonation sidings later became the main holding area for the stock used in the Paddington remodleing.

USRailFan wrote:According to http://www.class47.co.uk a large number of Class 47s had Old Oak Common as their home depot in 1991 (mostly Civil Engineers and Network SouthEast locos, and some Railfreight ones as well). The depot was at this time also the final resting place for scrap-ready Class 50s. Would there also have been other loco types stationed there at this time (ie autumn 1991) - possibly Class 37s and Class 08s?

Typically OOC had mainly class 47s. These were used for the Oxford and Newbury services. There were a number of 47/8s for the Cross Country services to Birmingham. There was also a small number 47s which were used for the engineers turns, local trip workings to Willesden Brent and parcels trains. We used to have a number of 56s on
shed which used to work stone trains to Ripple lane and Harlow Mill and for the Bin Liners which ran from Brentford to Appleford and later Ruislip to Calvert. Other occasional vistors would include 31s and 59s. Finally not forgetting the 08s which were used for the A Pilot (Paddington Station), C Pilot (OOC yard) and the Southall Yard Pilot. The two Guiness 08's were also serviced at OOC.

A few notes about operations;

ECS would arrive from Paddington and then the train engine would uncouple and run light to shed or pick up another rake of coaches, the C Pilot would then go to the rear (London End) of the train and the push the stock into the carridge shed where they would be put on shore supply and then cleaned ready for the next service.

HSTs and DMUs had there own reception roads and would either wait there to be shunted by the HST shed drivers or would go directly to the servicing shed to be refuled or inspected.

Typically any shunting of coaching stock was done by the C Pilot. Any movements of locos' was performed by the shed drivers and the factory was shunted by the Pulman driver who also had a second man to help. The HST had it's own shed drivers as well.

During the early days of the 165s & 166s all the servicing was done by Aylesbury.

There is a good video on You Tube of OOC filmed in 1990; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNmgarpc ... qeAUwOMAHE

Hope this helps,

John.