Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Preston, ex-Leeds was on time, but the 10:01 Southport to Blackburn was running a full 18 minutes down. There was also a delay to the 10:36 Preston to Leeds as there was no crew available for an on-time departure and the Blackburn to Southport return was late as a result of the lateness of the west-bound service. I was able to obtain a picture of the 142:049 on this service, and the one now operating the east bound Colne 142:020. It is difficult to ascertain if these changes, delays, cancellations and late running, are shared all across the network for which Northern Rail now holds the franchise, or whether the East Lancs Line is taking the brunt of these as one of the less important lines in their portfolio in their judgement. But on this occasion it was a minibus that was supplying the replacement bus service, but with no co-ordinator on duty, it was the Ticket Collector who was overseeing the service. Only two days after Arriva Northern Rail publicly put on display its new CAF-built 195 multiple units the RMT, who argue that these are the real reason for their dispute about driver only operated trains (DOOs), has again announced yet another one day strike on Saturday the 6 th , and this would be repeated on the 13 th . On Sunday the 14 th , there were also coaches replacing trains on the line but this was due to engineering work. Recently out-shopped from Arriva TrainCare’s works in Crewe had emerged the first fully refurbished two-car 158 unit, #845. It seems as though this two-car set had incorporated into it many of the features which would be standard in the brand new 195xxx units being built by CAF for Arriva Northern Rail. Already there had been an upgrading of many of these sets with seating to match the new stock and it was stated about 100 had already received this improvement. In total it was the company’s intention to treat 243 trains with this comprehensive upgrade which would include digital seat reservations, WiFi and USB sockets. With the new units destined for other services across the Pennines, it appears as though the best we could hope for on the East Lancs Line would be these refurbished sets which are themselves thirty-odd years old having been introduced from 1989 onwards. As they were passing through this renovation these units were also receiving the new operating livery. It was also during this month that Arriva were relinquishing their Trains Wales franchise. Observations made at Accrington Railway Station on Tuesday, the 16 th , showed that the problems were still persisting. The 10:26 Colne to Preston was again being replaced by a minibus, whilst the 10:36 to Colne was being terminated at Nelson due to late running and to make up time. The problems were not all due to staff shortages however, as over the weekend on Saturday the 20 th , through to Monday the 22 nd , buses would be replacing trains on the service between Accrington and Halifax, Bradford and Leeds. This was to allow work to upgrade the signalling in the West Yorkshire conurbation. The local service to Colne would not be affected by this scheme, part of the Great Northern Rail Project, but would have coaches replacing trains due to yet more industrial action on the Saturday. More and more units were now turning up in the livery adopted for the Arriva Northern Rail trains. The latest to be recorded are 150:116 and 156:491. The VTG tanker train had run only intermittently during the week, but on Friday the 19 th , it was noted being hauled by Colas Rail’s 70:801. However, on this occasion the train was lightly loaded being made up of only four bogie tank wagons, as easy task for the powerful Class 5 locomotive. It had been announced that the new maintenance depot on King Street in Blackburn had been highly commended in the ATKINS Infrastructure Achievement Awards of the Year. It took less than a year after the design work was completed that the depot had been finished. This was a notable achievement since the old coal concentration sidings in Blackburn were found to be badly contaminated. This required the removal of no less than 32,000 tonnes of material, but still the project was ready on time. These facilities, also part of the Great North Rail Project, would be capable of stabling and servicing up to 30 DMUs and providing some light maintenance. Once again on Saturday the 20 th , the RMT were staging another one day stoppage, with the usual suspects providing the vehicles to replace trains between Colne and Blackburn and Bradford and Blackburn. On Wednesday the 24 th , Colas Rail’s 70:801 was back in charge of a full length VTG tanker train, VTG being an independent company, which owns fleets of heavy duty railway wagons and tanks. These were designed to carry all manner of bulk cargos including aggregates, cement, chemicals, solid fuels, petroleum products, steel and intermodal freight (containers). On the following day Arriva Northern Rail’s woes were again in evidence. The 10:21 Blackburn to Southport train was running 13 minutes behind schedule, whilst the 10:36 Preston to Colne train was 16 minutes down and terminating at Burnley

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