Wales v England
3rd February 2001
I checked my watch. 04:58, time to abandon my nice warm bed and hit the road
to the station for the 05:55 Wales and West departure. We'd originally planned
on taking the 06:13 Virgin service but recent events have left me with a deep
distrust of their reliability. Twenty or so passengers boarded, many dressed
in the red, green and white of the Welsh rugby team and taking advantage of
this through service to Cardiff for a full day out in the capital. One of
them maintained the rugby tradition by cracking open a can of beer as soon
as he'd taken his seat... at 05:55!
We too were making for Cardiff, but not on a 158 when there was the tasty prospect of a loco hauled run down the Marches line. But the departure time of 07:57 came and went, then the monitor flashed up an expected arrival time of 08:12, a suspicious increment of a quarter hour. Then it was 08:27 and we were sure that the inevitable day's farce had come early. Eventually it was announced that the delay was down to locomotive failure and the expected time went to 08:42 then 08:52, back to 08:42 and shortly afterwards six coaches backed into platform 11 to reveal 47 705 at the front. We were pleased it was a locomotive with train heating capability as were chilled by now!
The train was surprisingly quiet, comprising about ten rail enthusiasts, twenty or so followers of the game with the funny shaped ball and a couple of normal passengers. We boarded the front coach, Rhymney line veteran Sarah, No 5378. The remaining vehicles were 5029, 13227, W17056, 5335 and 5331. We were underway at 08:46 and it was good to be riding in a Mk 2 again, after the hard seats and sterile air conditioned interior of the 158.
We enjoyed a lovely run through the pastoral border countryside on a line unchanged since steam days - country stations, signalboxes and Great Western lower quadrant semaphore signalling. It's a shame that loco haulage is only available on special trains. Ours was very quiet as far as Hereford, where an 66 058 on a steel coil train passed the other way and a Freightliner 66 504 was loitering light. A large crowd joined at Abergavenny and we were full and standing from Cwmbrân.
At Cardiff Central we just had time to sprint over to platform 6 for a grab
shot of 60 049 departing.
In the distance, 37 611 awaited platform clearance to run in to form
the 11:50 to Rhymney, brought closer by my lens on full zoom. Behind it was
a rake of four Mk 1/2 coaches in Regional Railways livery, sorely missed on
the North Wales Coast. It was good to see them again and to savour the prospect
of a ride as we gazed up the tracks.
37 611 passes the train that brought us here. We sprinted to the far
end for another grab shot before clambering aboard. Seconds later, we were
off.