Atlantic Coast Express centenary train

[editor]

This looks like a perfectly lovely way to spend a day:

A steam train is making the journey from London to Cornwall later to mark the 50th anniversary of the last Atlantic Coast Express (ACE).

Between 1926 and 1964 the line ran from Waterloo to Ilfracombe, Bude, Padstow and Plymouth.

Friday's anniversary run will not be able to retrace the full route though as many of the lines in north Devon and Cornwall have since closed.

Three locomotives will share the journey from London to Penzance.

There's a fantastic archive video on the BBC site.

Route: http://www.steamdreams.co.uk/executables/GT410WebContent.exe?ActionCode=Timings

 

[teuchter]

Was recently reading a great (and very detailed) account of this train here -

http://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/atlantic-coast-express.html

 

[toggle]

This looks like a perfectly lovely way to spend a day:

There's a fantastic archive video on the BBC site.

Route: http://www.steamdreams.co.uk/executables/GT410WebContent.exe?ActionCode=Timings

i was woken up by that coming past my house on friday and they ran another loco past the house yesterday. shame i'm working when it goes past tomorrow, or i'd try to get a pic of it going over the truro viaduct.

 

[editor]

Was recently reading a great (and very detailed) account of this train here -

http://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/atlantic-coast-express.html

Great photo from the article :

 

[Roadkill]

There's some nice footage of this on Youtube, such as this:



Shame it's got a diesel on the back, but at least there is still steam running down south. Around York it's been banned for much of this summer due to the fire risk - ostensibly at least: some people seem to think it has more to do with Network Rail's head honcho at York being anti-main line steam and looking for excuses to get rid of it.

There are also some lovely films of the last years of steam on the Southern Region:



If I had a time machine, one thing I'd like to see would be the last steam-hauled expresses, on the Waterloo-Weymouth route in 1967, when trains were packed with enthusiasts documenting the dying days of express steam trains and holding whip-rounds among the passengers for drivers who managed 100mph. Ages ago I scanned this from an old magazine feature looking back on that summer:

It's not a technically brilliant photo, but a mile or so after it was taken 35008 was timed at 99mph through Fleet station, making this one of very few shots of a steam engine actually doing the ton, or very near it.