Home»All my photos»Royal Sovereign goes East 16 March 2022

Preserved electric locomotive No 87002 was to head (or more precisely push) a Crewe to Norwich excursion for Intercity Railtours, comprising a rake of beautifully restored Mark 3 FOs and a DVT. Having travelled with three of Hosking’s Locomotive Services brands (Saphos, Staycation Express, Midland Pullman), I decided to sample this one.

With the Driving Van Trailer leading and the loco pushing, we stormed up the bank from Crewe, reaching 72 past Basford Hall, 101 at Betley Road and 108 at Standon Bridge on the downward slope. With six more pickups to make by Watford Junction and taking the Northampton diversion, there were to be no long stretches of high speed running, but we were in no doubt that we were in the hands of a 110 mph locomotive. Leaving Watford Junction on time we proceeded to weave a way through the Willesden knitting which pleased the track bashers aboard, then through onto the North London line and onwards to Stratford, reached 12 minutes early.

Now on the Great Eastern main line, we reached 71 at Ilford but there were no more fireworks just yet as we were on a busy suburban railway with a lot of container freights as well. Once beyond Shenfield we reached 89 at Margaretting but slowed to the fifties through Chelmsford. We were back up to 94 by Hatfield Peverel but checked through Marks Tey and Colchester before touching 102 before Manningtree and 99 before Ipswich. Having left the suburban and freight traffic behind, we had a fast run to the outskirts of Norwich, but then sat for a while outside Crown Point depot with a grandstand view of a great many of the new Stadler Flirt units which now dominate the Greater Anglia franchise.
After 274 miles of travel we had reached the old Norwich Thorpe station, where in the 1950s I had come from our holiday near Yarmouth to cop Britannias. When our train had left for servicing, I was able to study the four types of Flirt on offer. The all-electric Class 745 comes in two layouts, both with 12 coaches. Ten units are Inter City for Liverpool Street – Norwich services and another ten are for Stansted Express. The Class 755 bimodes come in 3 and four coach lengths, but as their power packs are a short separate vehicle in the middle of the unit, they could be called 3.5 or 4.5.

I decided to ride one of these across the Norfolk Broads to Great Yarmouth and back, and impressive they were. I would like to have gone down to see the sea but there was no time, and with grey skies, wind and rain it would not have been a pleasant experience. Back at Norwich, a row of four Flirts at the buffers prompted thought about an appropriate collective noun for Flirts ….
All too soon our train was back in the station, headed in by the DVT as the train had not been turned. So we were hauled past the Crown Point Flirtilla rather than pushed, and on up towards London. I did not do any recording on the return, but noticed that we lost time on the GE section, arriving around 20 late at Stratford. I feared we would lose more time on the North London line but we made steady progress and were back on time for our crew change at Wembley Central. No Northampton diversion in this direction and we reached Basford Hall well ahead of time, but as usual we were held outside Crewe to ensure that we were just a little late into the platform. The day produced about as much fun as you will get when there is no steam engine on the front.