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Fleet news
11 fleet news items found.
Crumbling Castles and Unwanted Unicorns.
Posted on Saturday 25th February 2023 by Nat37670
43005 was switched off yesterday joining already stored 43022, 43041 and 43160 as the run down of the GWR class 255 Castle fleet begins. The plan is for seven diagrams from May, three from September and full withdrawal in December this year. Coaching stock wise GW01 is stored and GW04 and GW13 have been disbanded.

In Wales today 769007 became the first Transport for Wales class 769 to be withdrawn due to the introduction of the new class 231s. The nickname unicorn used locally by those seeing these as mythical creatures due to their ultra poor reliability meaning they rarely show up. 769007 should move by road from Cardiff to Long Marston this coming week. The remaining seven sets are all to go by the May timetable change with the 769/4 sets staying longest.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Units in and out of service
Posted on Friday 17th February 2023 by Llamafish
The latter part of 2022 and the early part of 2023 have seen a few changes on the multiple unit front, with several new fleets coming into service.

Classes 196 and 197 have now started to enter squadron service in the West Midlands and North Wales respectively. This has meant that classes 170 and 175 from these regions can begin to be cascaded, with the class 170s moving to EMR at Derby. Rumours suggest that class 175s will head to GWR. In South Wales, class 231s have now entered service in the valleys.

GreaterAnglia continues to receive steady deliveries of class 720 units, with nearly half of the 720/1s and all but a few of the 720/5s now delivered. These have started seeing off the class 321s from the region, with eight of these now in warm storage in Wembley Yard.

11 of the 12 class 720s intended for c2c have now been released from Derby. None of these have entered service as of yet, but several members of the fleet can be seen daily on the WCML, undertaking testing and proving runs.

It was suggested that from the December 2022 timetable, LNR were to replace the class 319s operating out of London Euston with class 730/0s, whilst these were waiting to replace the class 323s on the Cross City line. However, this doesn't appear to have taken place, and the majority of the class 730s now delivered are currently based at Oxley for testing purposes.

Also based at Oxley for testing purposes are the first class 805s for Avanti West Coast. These will eventually replace the Voyager fleet. 805001 and 805003 have been on test between Oxley and Carstairs.

In Merseyside, the first class 777 has finally entered service, after various issues were sorted. This means that the elderly class 507 and class 508s will now gradually bow out of service.

There is also a fleet of similar vintage still in use in the south, these being the small fleet of class 313s that operate on the south coast. These too are now starting to be withdrawn, with class 377 and class 387s taking over their duties.

An important question remains though, will we see a class 701 enter service in 2023?

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Steel Coil Carrier Status.
Posted on Saturday 11th February 2023 by Nat37670
By the end of 2022 the entire fleet of ex BR steel coil wagons sitting on FBT6 bogies were out of use. Pool 2201 now described as FBT6 ON HOLD contained 220 vehicles, broken down as 47 BCA, 117 BLA, 56 BZA. These have all been marked as stored on LTSV.

A new TOPS code has been added, BCA-T. At the time of the report (3rd Feb) just 3 BCA were in active service to this code and a new design of BC005C. Surprisingly 2 of these refurbished vehicles were BAA prior, these being 900040, 900081.

BLA wise 11 examples were in traffic, all BLA-T with the newer bogies.

BZA there were 9 active these to a new code BZ002B, also rebogied but all still BZA-A, TOPS not failing in its inconsistent approach one would expect these to be BZA-T.

Away from the ex BR fleets a large number of BYA and BRA have been dragged out of store to help cover the shortfall. Examples that have been stored for 10 or more years have been dug out of bushes at Margam, Swansea Docks, Llanwern, Tees Yard and taken, most by road, to DB Cargo Maintenance at Stoke-on-Trent. A lot of these have been reinstated as open steel coil carriers by removal of the 3 roof sections and retaining the high ends. Being different to the BYA-O conversion a new TOPS code of BYA-C has been assigned and the design code of BY006E.

With DB Cargo being desperate for coil wagons further changes are expected over the coming months.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Wagon update updated
Posted on Wednesday 28th September 2022 by Thomas Young
Further to the news posted last week, user Llamafish has found some additional information on the ORR website. The Land Recovery wagons are actually coded JNA-V, rather than JNA-U, no doubt due to their shorter length. This makes the choice of JNA-X for the imminent GBRf batch more logical, since JNA-W had already been assigned for the Wascosa wagons. However, as mentioned, the JNA-X wagons do look very like JNA-Ts! Does anyone know what the difference is?

Talking of the JNA-X wagons, the ORR reports that the 50 wagons will be numbered 81.70.5932.757-806. There is therefore a set of 30 numbers that have been skipped (81.70.5932.727-756), perhaps for a follow-on order of JNA-U wagons.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Wagon news
Posted on Friday 23rd September 2022 by Thomas Young
Deliveries of new wagons are continuing at quite a pace. As well as the various types already mentioned, there are two new batches of bogie box wagons to add.

W H Davis completed another batch of 30 JNA-U boxes in August, these being 81.70.5932.697-726 finished in a grey livery with large 'Land Recovery Ltd' lettering. The numbers follow on from the large VTG batch currently being delivered and the intended use is carrying spent ballast from various points to Longport for recycling. The new wagons are similar to the 46 JNA-U wagons recently built by W H Davis for GBRf but are slightly shorter, with a 60 cubic metre capacity instead of 75. Sources differ as to whether the Land Recovery wagons make use of bogies and other components recovered from scrapped hoppers (as was the case with the GBRf wagons).

Astra Rail is building a batch of 50 wagons for Porterbrook to lease to GBRf. Although appearing very similar to the large numbers of JNA-T wagons, this batch are reported to be coded JNA-X. The number range is not yet known (publicity photos of blue 81.70.5932.757-4 have been seen) and delivery is expected this month.

Of other deliveries, the Wascosa FEA-W wagons entered infrastructure use at the end of June, following the temporary use of some as container carriers. JNA-T wagons from the large VTG order for 236 are still arriving, with a set of 30 delivered every 5 weeks or so.

Further to the recently-added photos of some FEA-S 'Slinger' rail delivery wagons at Eastleigh in 2017, Arlington Fleet Services has recently been converting most of the batch into standard FEA container wagons (the decks, cranes, generators and other equipment being scrapped). Rail Express magazine reports that 640931/936-943 are being done, with 640933-935 possibly to be added. 640932 has been retained by London Underground and converted into a concrete mixing wagon.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Tunnels on trains
Posted on Tuesday 2nd August 2022 by Thomas Young
Having covered the TML PXA/KEA box wagons (built to carry Channel Tunnel lining segments) in a recent profile, I now get to talk about some more recent cases of trains carrying tunnels.

I came across a photo of one of the ex-British Gypsum 40ft KFA/FBA container wagons taken at Tonbridge this May. The wagon had some curious and colourful modules on board.


FBA 600019 at Tonbridge West Yard, courtesy of Richard A Jones.

Some digging (sorry!) suggested that these were for use on a new flow carrying concrete tunnel lining segments from a factory at Grain (in Kent) to Ruislip, for use in HS2 (High Speed 2 rail line) construction. The paths for this working have been in place for a while but it does not appear to have started running yet.

The HS2 route features several tunnel sections, and this new freight working is presumably to serve the London tunnels (West Ruislip to Old Oak Common, and perhaps also the Old Oak Common to Euston ones). More tunnels under the Chiltern hills are already part-completed, and they used concrete segments produced in a plant near the southern portal, just north of Denham. Given that Denham is only a couple of miles from Ruislip, it is curious that they don't use the same plant for the London tunnels. By the way, if you watched the 'Inside the Factory' TV show about trains recently (with Gregg Wallace getting very excited witnessing a Greater Anglia 720 unit being built at Derby!), you would have seen the segment (Sorry again! I'm not doing these on purpose...) covering the HS2 Chilterns tunnels.

Another slight oddity is that there has recently been a flow of concrete tunnel segments into Grain. This carried parts cast at the Tarmac plant in Tallington (on the ECML north of Peterborough) and intended for use in the Thames Tideway 'Super Sewer'. The segments were loaded onto special modules carried by DB FCA container flats. At Grain the segments were transferred onto barges for movement to various other locations. The loaded train seemed to always run during the night, and I have not been able to trace the timings for the returning empties. It is believed that the workings may now have finished anyway. You can view a video of one of the loaded trains running in daylight at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRnbJwexUkY.
Note added Sat 27/08/2022 by Thomas Young
Category: Other/General
I passed through Tallington (at high speed) a couple of weeks ago. There was not much sign of activity but the wagons with their modules were still in the adjacent sidings.
Source: Observation

The end of the 317s
Posted on Thursday 14th July 2022 by Thomas Young
I have been advised that the final class 317 passenger workings are expected to take place this Sunday. So, another class bites the dust. Will they be missed? I was reminded of some articles written around the time that the first 317 units were built (1981) that berated the design for being ugly, with the appearance purely functional and no consideration given to aesthetics. The Southern Region class 455 units that followed were perhaps even worse, with their dangling 'bagpipes' on the front ends. The design was improved later in the 1980s, with Network SouthEast insisting on improvements that led to the relatively attractive class 321 units, at the expense of losing the end gangway connections.


The initial class 317 was not very attractive (although we all became accustomed to them), but it evolved into the much more attractive 320/321/322 family. Here a 317 passes a 322 last year.

I was going to add some comments about other ugly trains that remain in service, but the subject is very, er, subjective. And liveries play a large part as well. Anyway, not really news, so I'll leave it until I have got the forum up and working!
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Wagon updates
Posted on Monday 4th July 2022 by Thomas Young
The first of the MRA side-tippers to be rebodied has been seen at the former RTC in Derby. The new body has numerous vertical ribs but also a curious longitudinal chamfer, making it look a little like a hopper. This dispels my theory that the box bodies off MXA wagons might be used. The modified wagon had been painted in all-over yellow and appeared to be numbered 81.70.5831.001-9 with TOPS code JNA-Y. More details will no doubt emerge soon.

Some MRA wagons are destined to retain their side-tipping functionality, and work is to start shortly to fit a water-based dust suppression system to 100 of the wagons.

Delivery of the large batches (260 of each) of FEA-W and MLA-B/W wagons for the Wascosa / Network Rail / GB Railfreight contract is ongoing, with both being at about the half-way stage. More advanced are the outputs from W H Davis comprising FWA intermodal triples and JNA-U box wagons. The latter used some components from scrapped HHA coal hoppers, but another batch of box wagons is also under construction at Davis, these being all-new and for an as-yet unknown customer.

The next big batch of JNA-T boxes from Astra Rail has started arriving, with 30 blue wagons (81.70.5932.461-490 from an order for 236) delivered in late-April. Virtually identically to the earlier 5500 series of JNA-T wagons, the numbers follow on from the Wascosa MLA-B/W wagons, since the 5500 series has been (almost) fully used up. The intended uses for this new batch have not yet been announced.

There have been a few tweaks made to TOPS classifications over the past couple of years, the logic for which can usually be seen. For example, new sub-codes were added to BDA (and derivatives) and SSA types, to allow differentiation of wagons with lever-operated brakes from those with hand-wheels. However, a change late last year has me confused. New cement tank wagons 81.70.7829.031-053 were delivered with a new AARKND of JGA-P, and earlier examples 81.70.7829.000-030 were changed from JGA-N to JGA-P to match. This would seem to have been to remove the conflict of code JGA-N applying to two very different types (the 7829 cement tanks and the Aggregate Industries open hoppers). However, at the same time, an earlier batch of cement tanks (BLI11701-11730) were also changed, from JGA-M to JGA-N, while the AI hoppers (AI27101-27122) were left as JGA-N, meaning that the conflict has merely been moved! All three batches of cement tanks are broadly identical and of course should not even be JGAs at all, this code being for open hoppers. Codes JCA and JDA were designated for bogie powder wagons in the reshuffle of 1990, though the only other examples delivered were coded JPA! Am I missing something....?



Until last year, both of the types shown above were coded as JGA-N, which didn't seem right....



Now, both of the types shown above are coded as JGA-N, which also doesn't seem right! The similarity between the two cement tank wagons is evident, and they should surely have the same code.

In a further twist, the design codes for the BLI11701-11730 wagons were also changed, from JG016B to JG019A. This is presumed to relate to the reclassification, rather than to any modification, but again the logic behind the change is not easy to see.
Note added Tue 05/07/2022 by Thomas Young
Category: Other/General
Llamafish wrote to advise that the new JNA-T wagons are for use by Mendip Rail, and that a second batch of thirty (81.70.5932.491-520) has already arrived and was moved from Eastleigh to Whatley yesterday.
Source: n/a

Recent MU developments
Posted on Monday 4th July 2022 by Thomas Young
As planned, Southern ended its use of class 455/8 units at the timetable change in mid-May, and many have already been sent away for scrapping. The similar South Western Railway units remain in use pending the introduction of the class 701 'Arterio' units. The few remaining class 315 units were also expected to end service on TfL Rail, though this has not yet been confirmed. With the Elizabeth Line now running (albeit in three unconnected sections) all 70 class 345 units have now entered passenger service. Just three of the class remain in shortened 7-car formation.

East Midlands Railway has reformed some of its class 222 units, with two coaches from each of two 7-car 222/0 units (222005 and 222006) removed and used to increase the four former Hull trains 4-car 222/1 units to 5-car length.

Deliveries of various classes is ongoing, including the first of the class 398 tram/trains for Transport for Wales (delivered by road in May). The only new class to enter passenger service recently has been the 720/1 with Greater Anglia. Originally planned to be 10-car units, the order was changed to 5-car units, making them virtually the same as the 720/5 units, most of which are already in service.
Note added Tue 05/07/2022 by Thomas Young
Category: Other/General
User Llamafish confirms that a handful of class 315 units (along with a few 317s) remain available for service at present, though without booked duties. He added that the three 387/3 units remaining with C2C (303/304/305) came off service at the end of June and have moved to storage at Peterborough, pending enterering service with Great Northern. The other three 387/3s (301/302/306) have been used by GWR for some time but are also now heading for GN. I wonder if these will replace the 387/2s that have been 'loaned' from Gatwick Express to Great Northern?
Source: n/a

MU round-up addendum
Posted on Tuesday 26th April 2022 by Thomas Young
Further to yesterday's news item, Dan sent a couple of photos that are relevant.


The first 720/6 for C2C was seen on delivery at the weekend.


The rebuilt 458/5 units are quite different from their original form (see yesterday). Besides the blue livery, the gangway connection is now much more prominent, and the cowlings either side of the couplings have been replaced by over-ride protection plates. I wonder what they will look like after the next rebuild?! Note the different windows on the second coach, identifying it as a former class 460 vehicle.

Dan also corrected my notes about the class 456 units, of which only two have actually been scrapped. The remainder are in store at Long Marston.

Thanks to rogue246 for news that 2 more class 231 Flirt DMUs for Transport for Wales were delivered today, 231001 and 231003 being moved as a 5Q99 Ripple Lane to Cardiff Canton. Nat added that the new trains were unfortunately very heavily graffitied, presumably during their transit from Switzerland.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Multiple-Unit round-up
Posted on Monday 25th April 2022 by Thomas Young
Delivery of several large fleets of multiple units has been ongoing in recent months, although (as far as I know) only one type has actually entered passenger service - the Greater Anglia 720/5s, of which nearly 60 (out of 89 on order) are now in use. Other types that are still being delivered are CAF Civity DMUs in classes 196 (West Midlands) and 197 (Transport for Wales), Stadler Flirt DMUs in class 231 (Transport for Wales), Bombardier Aventra EMUs in classes 701 (South Western Railway) and 730 (West Midlands) and Stadler EMUs of class 777 (Merseyrail).

Not previously mentioned, C2C has also ordered some Aventra units, and the first of these was delivered a week ago (19th April). Originally planned to be formed as 10 of 6-car units, then changed to 6 of 10-car units and finally to 12 of 5-car units, with numbers 720601-720612. Partly because of this, the units for Greater Anglia that were switched from 10-car to 5-car will remain as 720/1 rather than being changed to 720/5. The number range will simply be extended to be 720101-720144.


Greater Anglia's class 720/5 units are the only recent type that is actually in service. 720538 was seen at Bethnal Green last July.

Although many of these new trains are not yet in service, withdrawal and disposal of older types is also ongoing. A handful of 315 and 317 units remain in service but are expected to finish in May and be sent for scrap. With the class 321 units, 33 remain in service (Renatus rebuilds 321301-321330 and ex-Yorkshire 321901-321903). The remainder were not PRM-compliant and have been withdrawn, although many have been put into store pending possible rebuild as hybrid-powered and/or parcels units. After a spell in Scotland covering for problems with newer units, no further use was found for the class 365 Networker Express units, and most have now been scrapped (a couple of cars have been preserved, while the last stored unit is due to be moved to Newport for scrapping tomorrow).


The Renatus rebuilds of class 321 have a distinctive livery, including black window surrounds.

Following South Western Railway's decision not to proceed with upgrades to the former Bournemouth units (class 442), these stylish trains have been scrapped, as have SWR's class 456 2-car units, which were all taken out of service in January. Withdrawal of the large fleet of SWR 4-car class 455 units should start once the new 701s enter service, while Southern plans to dispense with its 46 455s at the May 2022 timetable change. Southeastern still has a number of Networker class 465 units in store, but none have yet been scrapped, while 18 former South Western class 707 units are now here, with most repainted blue and put in service. The last 12 will follow when SWR can release them.


The 2-car class 456 units were normally used to bolster 8-car trains up to 10-cars.


The green livery applied to Southern's class 455 units made them look very different to the ones in SWT/SWR red.

The newest trains to be taken out of service are the Greater Anglia Electrostar class 379s, only built in 2010. These are being stored pending possible re-use elsewhere. The small fleet of 6 even newer Electrostars (class 387/3, built in 2016) are expected to become redundant at C2C following the delivery of their new 720/6s. Three of the 387/3 units have actually been in use with GWR for a while (alongside similar 387/1 units), and this may now become permanent.


It is to be hoped that a new home will be found for the 30 Electrostar units of class 379.

Finally, an oddity. South West Trains (as was) overhauled its fleet of 30 4-car class 458 Alstom Juniper units in 2013-2016, using cars from redundant Gatwick Express class 460 units to turn the fleet into one of 36 5-car units. South Western Railway has now started taking the 458 units out of service to allow them to be rebuilt (again) as express 4-car units!


I don't seem to have photographed any of the rebuilt 5-car 458/5 units in their blue livery, so here is a view of the type in its original livery and 4-car guise.

If you can correct or add to any of this item, please get in touch, or add a note. I will be reviewing wagon news shortly.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Site news
50 site news items found.
Another large data dump
Posted on Sunday 19th March 2023 by Thomas Young
I have dropped over 80,000 records into the database this week. These comprise a complete set of listings for all locos, coaches and units (including formations) as at January 2010 and as at November 2020. The former was chosen to slot in between the existing data sets for 2000 and 2019, while the latter was selected as the source (unusually) gave pool codes for most coaches and units. The listings table now has almost 400,000 records in it, which means that the Listings List page can be a bit slow to load. I will see if I can perhaps streamline the queries.

With my coding head now back in the cupboard, I am (finally) focusing on content. I have been refining some of the existing data, and I am also starting to look at articles and profiles. It's probably about time we had some new photos as well...
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Some new (and old) book reviews
Posted on Tuesday 7th March 2023 by Thomas Young
I haven't added any book reviews for a while, though this is more down to a lack of bookshops than to a lack of new books! Having found an excellent second-hand bookshop surprisingly near to my home, I am today adding reviews of three titles I found there. I have also done a write-up on Hugh Longworth's recently revised DMU masterpiece. Click on either cover image to read the review, or head to the Reviews List page to see them all.


If you like 'proper' DMUs, you will like this book!


I am trying to brush-up my knowledge on pre-Nationalisation wagons and this looks like a good place to start.

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Help is (finally) at hand
Posted on Monday 6th March 2023 by Thomas Young
The Help section of this website is now available. Besides reminding users of some of the built-in assistance, there are also two user guides. The first covers the basics of how to use the site to find information. The second looks at creating a user account and adding/editing your own information. A third guide, intended for Site Editors and Admin users will follow in due course.

Both of the guides have lots of screenshots, giving step-by-step guidance for some of the more complex processes. They can be viewed on-line (in sections), or downloaded as complete PDFs. The PDFs are both over 80 pages long, but I have included internal hyperlinks in the contents pages.

I wouldn't say that you need to refer to these guides in order to use LTSV-RD, but I would hope that they are useful, given that they took me a while to put together. I'm sure most users will find out something they didn't know. The Help page can be found in the Home menu, or from the link in the menu at the foot of every page.

Having crossed off another item on my to-do list, I reckon the next job will be to look at increasing the amount of LTSV-RD content that can be downloaded, including improving some of the earlier PDFs. Then I must get on with finishing the articles that have been shown as 'In Preparation' since this site was launched...
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Still more to do (false summits)
Posted on Tuesday 21st February 2023 by Thomas Young
It looks as though the numerous updates of last week have not caused any serious problems. However, my thinking that this would be the end of development work (at least for a while) proved to be misplaced. I had started work on the User Guide / Help pages and this involved going through each process step by step. In so doing I have found several little things that need fixing or which could be improved. I'll be making these changes on the local copy as I go, and hopefully both the Guide/Help and the revised pages will be finished and uploaded within a week or so. There will then be one more largish job (other than data) still to do, and that is to improve and increase the downloadable content.

A potential issue arose today when my webhost advised me that the version of PHP that my website uses is now out of date. I either need to upgrade to a newer version, or pay a hefty monthly fee for 'extended support'. I have been through this a couple of times over the years. One upgrade did require me to rewrite the code on a lot of pages but I believe this will not be necessary this time. I have looked at the specs for the software and the changes don't seem to involve any features that I use. There was a lot of technical stuff that went over my head though! I'll upgrade the software sometime in the next week or so, and fingers crossed, nobody will notice anything!

By the way, it may seem a bit odd to be writing the 'manual' for a website over two years after the site was launched but I had my reasons. Mainly it was because I wanted to include screenshots in the help pages and it seemed logical to wait until the appearance and functionality of the pages was more-or-less finalised before doing these. The upgrades of last week should be the last major changes for a while, so I am now pressing ahead. The other reason was that I figured that a well-designed website should be usable without referring to help pages. Not sure I achieved that!
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Functionality Improvements now online
Posted on Thursday 16th February 2023 by Thomas Young
All the page files that have been changed over the past few weeks have now been uploaded. As I said, you might not notice much in the way of differences but there are lots. For more details, take a look at the About - What's New page.

Given the amount of changes, I would not be at all surprised if I have made the odd slip-up. If you spot anything odd or that doesn't work, please let me know as soon as possible so that it can be fixed.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Functionality Improvements almost ready
Posted on Wednesday 15th February 2023 by Thomas Young
I have now completed all the changes I plan to make at this stage. I'm going to do a bit more off-line testing then upload the whole lot in one go. If everything looks OK, I will then post some information about what has been changed.

I have today added another couple of forum posts as part of my 'Developer Blog'. The first looks at the approvals model used for contributed content on this website (Why did I make the approvals system so complicated?!), the second considers a newly-discovered problem with some old numbers (Should be S2526S, not S2526S! A tale of pre-Nationalisation numbers).

The latter post mentions the excellent books by Hugh Longworth about coaching stock inherited by BR. I have just acquired another of his books, this being an updated version of the one covering 1st generation DMUs, first published in 2010 (and which I missed at the time). This looks to be another invaluable reference work and I will be adding a full review shortly.

Finally, my attempts to buy the said DMU book led me to write a further forum posting (Where have all the bookshops gone?). It's more of a rant/moan really but there you go.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Improvement works still in progress
Posted on Saturday 11th February 2023 by Thomas Young
Functionality Focus Fortnight has now lasted almost four weeks and I am not finished yet. 75 files (over a quarter of the total) have been revised, some of them drastically, although this will scarcely be noticeable. A lot of the changes are just about improving processes, error-trapping, date-checking etc. The changes are still only on my off-line copy for now. I'll update when they go live.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Progress update
Posted on Sunday 29th January 2023 by Thomas Young
Work on the functionality enhancements (see news for 22nd January) is ongoing, but it may now take slightly more than a fortnight since I have also been tackling one of the data jobs mentioned mid-week. A (1) has been added to all of the numbers that were re-used (of which there were 2,720) and about half of the numbers that were reverted. There are another 250 still to do so I should be done in a couple of days. I also corrected quite a lot of sightings and listings that were linking to the wrong instance of a number.

I then wrote a long forum posting about the problems dealing with reversions in particular. The way they are implemented on this website is consistent with database logic, but that is not always the same as human logic! Anyway, writing the post helped me to see a potential solution, and this is currently being tested off-line.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Some planned data changes
Posted on Wednesday 25th January 2023 by Thomas Young
Work on the functionality improvements is ongoing but today I want to mention some planned changes to data. There are three changes, all arising from user feedback, though none of them are particularly major.

UIC type codes to be added
Firstly, a user asked if UIC type codes (such as Ealnos) could be included. The simplest way I could think of achieving this (without making any changes to the database structure) was to add the codes to the batch descriptions. For example, the batch of wagons numbered 81.70.5500.000-073 now has a description of 'Bogie Open Box Wagon [Ealnos]'. Note the square brackets. This enables you to search for UIC type codes. You could (for example) enter [Ealnos] in the search box on the batch list page, though in reality searching for Ealnos will provide the same results. Perhaps more usefully, you can find all batches that have had a UIC type code added by simply searching for [ or ]. I have only added codes to a handful of batches so far - more will be done in due course and the idea may also be applied to the type descriptions for TOPS and design codes.

Preserved steam locos to be added
Secondly, a user asked if mainline-registered steam locos could be added, so that full consists for sightings of railtours could be reported. It was suggested that these could use the TOPS numbers, as these are (unsurprisingly) what is shown in TOPS reports. (In case you did not know, all preserved locos permitted to work on the mainline are allocated an individual TOPS number, in classes 98 (for steam locos) or 89 (for diesels). The numbers are not carried on the locos themselves, except inside the cabs). The LTSV-RD database is capable of handling steam loco numbers so I am currently looking at how they could be added. For example, whether I should include just mainline-registered or all preserved locos.

Re-used numbers to be clearly indicated
To reduce the chances of listings and sightings being linked to the wrong instance of a number, I am adding a (1) after any number that was later either re-used or reverted, in much the same way as was applied to TOPS codes here last year. For example, what was displayed as 15001 will now display as 15001 (1). There are a couple of thousand numbers that need changing this way and I am working my way through them. The idea is that, if you are entering a sighting or listing and one of the numbers comes up with a (1) after it, it will indicate to you that there are later instances of the same number. In most cases, the later number is likely to be the one you actually want!

The re-use (and reversion) of stock numbers is a real pain when trying to record everything. There are lots of listings and sightings that evidently link to the wrong instance, most of them having been added by me! For example, I found some Mk1 Corridor Composites that were shown as being in Caledonian Sleepers livery, and some Mk1 suburbans that were apparently allocated to Neville Hill in 1989! I am fixing these errors as and when I find them, but please feel free to let me know if you spot something that is evidently wrong. See it, say it and so on.

I should perhaps clarify that I only consider a number to be re-used if it is re-used in the same series. For example, Fruit D van 92001 and 100mph bogie brake 92001 were both in the BR coaching stock number series, so the latter is counted as a re-use. The electric loco 92001 and the car-carrying wagon RLS92001 (plus class 9F steam loco 92001) were each in a different number series so they are not counted as re-uses.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Functionality Focus Fortnight
Posted on Sunday 22nd January 2023 by Thomas Young
Over the past couple of years I have divided my LTSV-RD time between working on data (numbers, listings, TOPS codes etc), content (photos, news, articles etc) and design (functionality and appearance). In terms of functionality, a lot of small improvements and critical fixes have been made 'on the fly', but some of the more involved changes have been added to my to-do list, which already had other items that had not been completed before launch. To clear the list, and hopefully make the site a bit easier to use, I have decided to spend a couple of weeks working solely on functionality improvements.

The changes are widespread but not fundamental - most pages will still work basically the same way as before. But many small things, such as the ways dates are entered, will be improved. I am working on an off-line copy of the site so you will not see any changes just yet. Once the changes are complete and tested, I will upload the whole lot in one go.

If you have any comments or suggestions for changes, this would be a good time to pass them on.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
More photos added
Posted on Saturday 14th January 2023 by Thomas Young
The third and final bundle of Derek's photos from 2022 has just been uploaded, with 206 images taken between July and December.


A pair of class 325 post EMUs was caught at Watford Junction. I have always liked these units, and it occurred to me that the inclusion of 'proper' buffers does give them a slightly more traditional look than most modern EMUs.


An engineering train seen at Wandsworth Road included one of the FZA switch carriers (as mentioned here last May). Perhaps more interesting was that one of the accompanying spacer wagons was RRA-S 400003, one of the last of the former SAA wagons still in use.


Some of the recent JNA-T batches are illustrated for the first time, firstly with this rake of silver VTG 81.70.5500.7xx wagons at Wandsworth Road.


At Eastleigh was one of the FAA well wagons now used with Cowans-Sheldon cable-drum carrying modules.


Preserved at Swanage is 'Blue Spot' fish van E87929. These wagons make an interesting study of BR numbering policy. Initially given coach numbers and regional prefixes, they were later considered to be freight stock but the numbers were not changed. This led to some curious anomalies.


The ubiquitous JNA-T box wagons seem to now dominate stone traffic at Westbury, but at least they are in several different liveries. Numbers are now in the 81.70.5932.461+ range, since the 70.5500 range has (almost) been used up.


Still at Westbury, and still on JNA-Ts, 81.70.5500.732-9 is one of a batch that has Cappagh lettering.


Also at Westbury were some track machines, including one of the impressive Matisa P95 track renewal machines. This photo shows most (but not all!) of DR78822.


Back at Eastleigh, a train of YVA (ex BDA) cable-drum carriers was seen, together with their support van.

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Memories of warmer days
Posted on Sunday 18th December 2022 by Thomas Young
The second part of Derek's latest batch of photos has just been uploaded and comprises 138 images taken between March and June 2022. Some highlights are shown below.


Seen at Willesden Junction was a rake of MMA-A box wagons. Apart from the livery and ownership, these are identical to the JNA-T types, though they are much less common 'down south'.


Also at Willesden Junction were some IDA-Q Lowliners as part of a Tesco train.


Wickham built 5 passenger railbuses and one track recording car, with similar bodywork but a very different underframe. Only the latter survives and Derek found 999507 at the Lavender Line.

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Icons and distractions
Posted on Friday 16th December 2022 by Thomas Young
As regular visitors will know, I am rather easily distracted. A request from a member of the National Wagon Preservation Group for graphics of a TTA tank wagon lead me to look into a plan I have had on the back-burner for a while. It involved making coloured icons from scratch, rather than from Trainz models. I figured it would be rather laborious so I was putting it off while there was much else still needing doing.

It turns out that the process is fairly quick, particularly if decent source drawings are available. So, I have just added two icons for TTA wagons, plus a third of the unique MVA bogie box wagon.


BPO green, but without the shield logo.

ESSO grey

One of the two losers in the MUA vs MVA vs MXA battle

As a result, the planned update of fleet news is delayed. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause....
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Time for more photos
Posted on Tuesday 13th December 2022 by Thomas Young
I have just added 146 new photos, with some more to come shortly.

First up are 7 sent in by Dan Adkins a few months back. These cover some of the Turbostar varieties and also a surprising survivor.


The livery may look rather like Greater Anglia, but this 170/2 is actually with Transport for Wales.


Although photographed in 2012, this 'Tope' ZCV on an isolated piece of track at Ince Moss is still there today. More surprisingly, it is the very last survivor from over 800 such wagons rebuilt in 1989-1991.

Kieran Fallows provided an update on his 'Project: Railfreight' collection.


OBA 110443 (bought last October) now carries the classic 1980s Railfreight livery.


A new addition is OAA 100036, seen just before it was moved from Whitemoor to the Great Central Railway.

Paul was in Yorkshire in October and photographed several types of unit at Leeds.


A 331/1 in Northern Rail livery.


Also in Northern colours, the 333 units have the same rounded fronts as the now-departed Heathrow Express 332s.

I had a quick visit to Hornsey to try and catch some more ECML units in the brief winter sun.


Open-access operator Lumo uses new class 803 units.


I caught one of the LNER 800 units this time, though the light was already fading.

I then received a pack of 3 CDs from Derek Everson, full of photos taken over the past year or so. As usual, they are from Eastleigh and other locations around London and the South East. The first 82 photos to be processed cover the period from late-2021 to February 2022


Unusual visitors to Eastleigh were some of the DRS PFA wagons that originally carried Cawoods coal containers.


These odd-looking wagons have tilting beds to enable them to carry trackwork (such as points and crossings) that would otherwise be too wide. Can they also carry sheets of glass though?!

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
I have ballsed-up the side menus!
Posted on Sunday 11th December 2022 by Thomas Young
I've made some more cosmetic changes ahead of starting on the screenshots for the user guides. The side menus have been tidied up, with some items re-arranged and a few removed (pages for 'Duplicate Numbers', 'Names' and 'Liveries' were initially planned but now seem unlikely) and coloured balls added to each item. Some sort of marker is required (for when the text wraps) and I had initially used hyphens. These have now been replaced by little balls, with a nominal colour-coding scheme. Green is for pages that I see as being the primary content of this site. Yellow is for index pages or pages with data that could be considered to be secondary. Red is for pages that are not yet available. I had also made a blue ball but I figured that just made things look complicated again!

Another change is that I have added more columns to the All Numbers page. To avoid the page getting too cluttered, these are accessed using tabbed dividers at the top of the table. The page is now divided into four sections. The original columns are (mainly) now in Main, while Renumberings, Photos and Stats will show other relevant columns.

I have been trying to make the revised top menus work more like the buttons that they have been styled to represent. However, for now they will only work if you click on the actual text in the 'button', not if you click on a plain part.

Do let me know if you approve of these changes, or more importantly, if you don't.

Finally, I have started preparing a new batch of photos which should be added in the next few days.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Active membership still low
Posted on Tuesday 29th November 2022 by Thomas Young
This website has now been live for almost 2 years and I am slightly disappointed that only 64 people have registered for an account in that time. I had expected the uptake to be a little higher by now. More significantly, most members have yet to contribute much (or anything in many cases). There are just three very active members who have added thousands of sightings, listings and notes, for which I am of course very grateful. But it would be really good to have a few more people on board. I appreciate that some of the processes for adding sightings etc are a little bit complicated, though there is always a reason for this. If anyone out there would like to contribute information but is unsure of how to go about it, please get in touch and I will provide some guidance. Similarly if there is some technical issue causing problems then please let me know about it so I can fix it.

On a related topic, the help pages have still not been created. The issue here is that these will include screenshots and it seemed pointless to produce these until the page designs had been finalised. As seen with the recent menu restructuring and other changes, things have not quite settled yet. There are also small changes that come about from 'live' operational experience. For example, working with renumberings recently made me realise that there is a type of display missing, namely to see all the renumberings to or from a given batch of numbers. This would be really useful to identify missing or incorrect renumbering data, and I have some ideas about how it could be incorporated.

I have set myself a target of completing all the outstanding functionality work by the end of this year. Hopefully this will include the help pages and user guides (one each for browsers, contributors and editors).

Finally a reminder that you do not need to register for an account to view data on this website. All data can be viewed without logging in, the only exceptions being moderated content that has not yet been approved.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
More renumberings added
Posted on Sunday 27th November 2022 by Thomas Young
As the pages for adding and editing renumberings seem to be working I have started attacking the back-log of changes over the past 3 years. This will cover things like 450/5s back to 450/0s, 156s to 156/9s (and back again), 153s to 153/9s, 319s to 769s, 56s to 69s plus various HST coach rebuilds. Renumberings have been a bit less rife recently (compared to the 1980s and 1990s for example) but it is still going to take me a few days to get everything up to date.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Additional numbers
Posted on Saturday 26th November 2022 by Thomas Young
The revised pages for working with renumberings should be able to handle instances of stock that carries two different numbers, as well as straight-forward renumberings. To test this, I have added the EVNs (European Vehicle Numbers) for the MXA bogie box wagons, together with most of the associated 'renumberings'. A forum post gives more details about Additional Numbers.

Also posted on the forum (pending the creation of proper user guidance/help pages) are some notes about how to use the new Photolinks feature.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
More site changes
Posted on Wednesday 16th November 2022 by Thomas Young
A large number of page changes has been uploaded today. The functionality for adding photolinks has now been properly enabled, while I should also now be able to add and edit renumberings (see below for more on this). There is also a new page that shows a summary of the most recent data additions and edits. There are several other changes, including some rearranging of menu items. For more details, see the What's New page.

Because so many pages have been changed there is an increased risk that I have made a mistake or two. If you spot anything that doesn't look right, please let me know and I will sort it out.

Renumberings are still causing me problems, mainly in that I can't work out how to display 'non-standard' renumberings. These include changes that were not one-to-one (like the PJAs to WIAs), or that were cancelled, or that were additional numbers (like the HKAs, MXAs and various track machines). I hope to tackle this before the end of the year. Fortunately the majority of renumberings were one-to-one and these display more-or-less OK.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Identities added to some older photos
Posted on Friday 21st October 2022 by Thomas Young
I can now tick one small job off my to-do list. Some time ago, user Llamafish used his detective skills to work out the identities of the stock in about a dozen 1970s and 1980s photos that I had published on this site. The numbers in the photos were not readable but, by using allocation histories and also by looking at details such as livery, nameplates, fittings and even rust and dirt, he was able to work them out.

I had put off updating these since the process involved re-doing the photos with new data blocks. Still, they have now been added - one example is shown below. Many thanks to Llamafish for his persistence.


Thanks to some investigation, I now know that the only class 123 DMU my dad photographed was 52094!

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
New article added
Posted on Saturday 15th October 2022 by Thomas Young
Sorry for the lack of new content lately. I had been working on some of the remaining missing features but I was getting annoyed that I couldn't get them to work the way I wanted. So I decided to take a break and concentrate on other projects, of which I have a lot. Fortunately, they are mostly quite small and should be easy to complete. Mind you, I have also embarked on some major home repairs/improvements which I have been putting off for ages.

Until 'normal service' is resumed, can I offer this in the way of diversion. It is an article I wrote about a year ago about trains in East Germany in the 1980s, and more specifically about some expeditions that my dad took me on. I don't intend to cover non-UK trains on LTSV-RD, but I didn't really have anywhere else to put it, and it might be of interest to some. Click on the photo or the link below, and you will then also be able to download a PDF version.


Steam behind the Iron Curtain - East German Railways in the 1980s

As an aside, I would quite like to publish some more 'texty' articles, to give visitors something to read rather than just lots of data. If you have any suggestions for topics, or would like to submit something yourself (ideally with suitable photos), then please get in touch. Possible subjects could include reminisces about holidays or days out, reports on open days or events, or anything really.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Site changes
Posted on Friday 23rd September 2022 by Thomas Young
I have today added a couple of batches of new wagons to the database (including individual numbers). The menu restructuring and other changes, which I promised 'in a few days' exactly a month ago, are not yet on-line. I am currently rebuilding the photolinks feature (which was never fully implemented) and I will upload everything in one go when this is completed. Further to the news item of 5th September, all coach suffix letters have now been removed.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Suffixes and searches
Posted on Monday 5th September 2022 by Thomas Young
A few days ago I decided that it would be best to drop the letter suffixes from the numbers of coaches inherited by BR. For example, ex-LMS coach 31401 was shown as 31401M. These suffixes were carried on many of the actual coaches, but not consistently. More importantly, their inclusion in the number rather spoiled the searching facility, where searching for 31401 would not find 31401M. Several thousand instance of suffixed numbers have already been done, with just a few of the Southern items remaining.

Having said that, I then decided to make changes to the search facility on the All Numbers page. Because diesel and electric loco prefixes were to be left as part of the numbers (eg D9000, E3101), the search needed to be revised to take these into account. This has now been done. If you search for a number, you will also see any results that have the number with any leading and/or trailing letters. As such, I could actually have left the coach suffixes in! Anyway, let me know if you get any unexpected results.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
A large bundle of photos
Posted on Saturday 3rd September 2022 by Thomas Young
I have been sitting on some of Derek Everson's photos for a while so I thought I would clear them out today. I was slightly surprised that the total came to 516, taking the number of photos on this site past the 8,000 mark.

The photos date from between late-2016 and late-2021 and, as usual with Derek, many were from his regular visits to Eastleigh. Other locations such as Westbury, Acton Mainline, Willesden Junction and Winchfield also appear. Some of the highlights are shown below.

Wagons from two batches originally bought for use on London Underground renewal work were seen at Eastleigh, including 5 of the 10 JJA Autoballasters and a couple of FEA-S 'Slinger' wagons.


Various types of OTP (On-track Plant) were photographed, including tampers, cranes and rail grinders.



The class 56 locos extensively rebuilt as class 69s can now be added to those covered on LTSV-RD.

Among many JNA-C 'Falcon' wagons photographed, this one stood out for having been repainted in a slightly brighter shade of yellow. NLU29024 had in fact been modified in about 2014 for use with the GW mainline electrification High-Output Plant System (HOPS). It seems to have since reverted to standard.

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
50 photos added
Posted on Tuesday 30th August 2022 by Thomas Young
Another 50 photos have been added, most of which were submitted in the past month. First up are 3 photos by Dan Adkins showing class 730 units on test. Dan sent these in last November but I somehow managed to lose them. Two of the photos were actually taken in March 2021, and it is interesting to note that almost 18 months later these trains are still yet to enter passenger service.

I had a holiday in the North-East of England in early August, and took a few photos. However, this was not a 'hobby holiday', so I left my big camera at home and used my phone instead. As a result, the photos are not of the best quality. Subjects included stock at the North Tyneside Steam Railway, and the Metro trains that are due to be replaced over the next year or two.


Nathan sent in some excellent photos taken in the South West, including a Stegosaurus at Cardiff and a Flirt at Bristol. My favourite is a close-up of the dinky/dumpy 'power-pack' car in the middle of the class 231 DMU.


Dave Elison supplied some photos of Manchester Metrolink trams, following a request for one to illustrate my article on other UK rail systems.

Paul Nicholls visited the Isle of Wight and photographed the 'new' class 484 units converted from former London tube trains.

I had mentioned seeing some 'Mega-3' wagons at York to Dan and he supplied a suitable photo, along with others of IETs of classes 802/2 and 803.


He also photographed a BEA with unusual bogies. Sources vary as to how many (and which) BDAs were so equipped, and what the make of bogie was. However, they have been fitted since the wagons were converted in the 1970s, and they are not deemed to warrant separate design codes.

Paul was back, with a photo of a 170/6 at Oakham. He commented that I had not yet illustrated any of this family of DMUs, so I will look at addressing that next time around

Next I had another rummage in Huw Millington's Flickr collection to show some bogie pressure tank wagons, these being the subject of another forthcoming Profile article.

To bump the batch up to a nice round 50 photos, I tacked on one photo by Derek Everson of a preserved Southern Railway BY van.

To see all the new photos, click here or click on the Photos button in the top menu.
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Slight site changes
Posted on Tuesday 23rd August 2022 by Thomas Young
Several features of this website have been marked as 'under construction' since the site was launched 18 months ago. I've had my coding head on recently and a couple of the outstanding items are now available.

First is a forum, intended for any information that cannot logically be placed as a note, or for more general chat. The forum is unmoderated (registered users can post stuff and it will be visible straight away) but it will be monitored and any inappropriate posts will be removed. The forum can currently be found in the Home section (but see below).

Also now available is a list of current members. This just lists the member's usernames and shows when they joined and how many sightings and notes they have posted. Further functions are shown for Admin users but it is interesting to note that a small proportion of the 49 current members are responsible for the majority of the added information. The member list can be found in the Home section.

The third change is the addition of a galleries page, to show details of other websites with photos of UK rolling stock. I decided to move these from the existing links page to make it easier for me to add more, and to enable users to sort/filter the results to find galleries with particular photos. There are 24 galleries listed so far, with more to be added soon. I will also be removing these sites from the other links page, which will be retained for links to websites that are not (only) photo collections. The galleries page can be found using the 'Links - Photos' link which is currently in the Articles section.

I have some other work in progress, including another page giving an overview of recently added/edited data. I am also changing the main menu structure to make it more logical, and tidying up the code on multiple pages. These changes should be uploaded in the next few days.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
A few more tweaks
Posted on Saturday 6th August 2022 by Thomas Young
I have made some small improvements to a couple of pages. User will probably not notice any differences, unless I have mucked up. As usual, if you encounter anything strange, or if you have any comments or suggestions, please get in touch.
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41 new photos
Posted on Tuesday 2nd August 2022 by Thomas Young
41 more photos have been added today and are (again) a rather mixed bunch, coming from no fewer than 7 different people.

The first 6 were taken by Alan Webster in 2005. He sent them to me in 2016 and I put them aside pending the launch of the new website. Then I forgot about them. Sorry Alan!


The numerous Sea Urchin conversions had already gone by the time I started photographing wagons. This is Transrail-branded T110169 at Newport.

Next up are 5 from Dave Warby's Flickr collection that I saved a year ago then also forgot about!


Vacuum-braked tank wagons were rare by 1990, when Dave found TEX54808 at Fishguard Harbour. No TOPS code is carried but there is an 'AFI' branding on the solebar, suggesting this was a TTF

Brian Rolley kindly gave me permission to use some fascinating photos he took at the Allied Steel and Wire works in Tremorfa, Cardiff. These will be featured in an upcoming Profile article.


These very short bogie wagons originally had tanks and carried Chlorine. Bought for internal use, they were converted into flats.

As well as the tunnel-related photo (see today's fleet news), Richard A Jones allowed me to use a couple of his photos of recently-delivered multiple units.


It is hard to make units with end gangways look attractive, especially when they carry a livery like this! Two West Midlands class 730 units were seen on test at Crewe in May.

Paul visited the Maidenhead Beer Festival in July and sent a couple of photos of GWR units.


A lovely view of a class 800 at Paddington. The white visible around the various recesses makes me wonder if the green livery is vinyls rather than paint.

Derek made another of his regular visits to Eastleigh and photographed various wagons, including several brand-new FWA container triples.


These YEA wagons appear to have been modified. The side rails for the travelling gantry manipulator have been removed, while the rail load is being held in place by new bolsters.

Finally I again dipped into Huw's magnificent (and growing) Flickr collection of 1980s photos for some more images for the upcoming profile.


This is what the ASW wagons mentioned above looked like before their tank barrels were removed.

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Progress IS being made...
Posted on Thursday 28th July 2022 by Thomas Young
I hope that users of this site are clear that LTSV-RD is very much a work-in-progress. Some of the content and functionality has yet to be added and (more significantly) there is masses of data that has not yet been inputted. I am working on it, but it is sometimes disheartening to consider how much still remains to be done. For example, over the past few days I have been having a push on the numbers that have not yet been assigned status codes (q.v.). After plodding through hundreds of records, there were still over 11,000 remaining. On the other hand, this does mean that over 97 percent of the numbers in the database DO have a status code. I am also cheered by the fact that users Nat37670 and Llamafish are helping out, and in fact they have been responsible for a staggering number of updates, for which I am extremely grateful.

Completion of the work on status codes will enable a clearer distinction to be made between stock that still exists and stock that has 'long gone'. A page listing just 'current' numbers will be created, which should be easier to use than the main numbers list. It will almost certainly be much faster too. As always, I would be glad to receive any comments or suggestions (or even complaints). Otherwise I will just carry on doing what I think you want me to do!
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
An Origins story
Posted on Tuesday 19th July 2022 by Thomas Young
I have been adding some notes about wagons that ended their days in internal use at the South Wales locations run by Allied Steel and Wire (later Celsa). This actually relates to the origins of this website. Back in about 2008 I was researching TUA tank wagons for a profile article for my old LTSV Wagons website (the article has still not appeared by the way!). I found a mention of one of the tank wagons in a posting on the RMweb forum (which is primarily about railway modelling). The post reported that the wagon had been acquired for internal use at Tremorfa, and it also had a lot of information about other ex-mainline wagons that went the same way. I realised that this information might be useful to me in the future, so I saved a copy, but then I got to thinking about how I could reference it so that it could be easily found later. Information often seemed to turn up in unusual places (such as a modelling forum) and often covered several different topics. There was also the consideration that these sources may not be permanent. Websites don't last forever, and even major forums sometimes have a clear-out, with older posts being lost. My first thought was to create a private document, to link snippets of information to particular numbers, batches, TOPS codes etc. Changing this to a database seemed logical, followed by the idea that the information might be of interest to others as well. So I decided to turn the database into a website, and the final change was to enable users to contribute their own bits of information, adding to the pool of knowledge. I then spent the next 10 years or so (not continuously!) planning the database and collecting and inputting data. And here we are....

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Sorry, a funny thing happened whilst I was on the RMweb forum. The posts about Tremorfa included mention of several ex-Murgatroyds/ICI BP bogie chlorine tank wagons that had been acquired. These wagons had recently been on my mind after I had seen some photos of them in Huw Millington's collection. I had also made an icon of them from the BR diagram. Now the RMweb forum is one of those websites that has a lot of adverts, including videos. Normally I find these annoying but here, the videos were at least relevant. The one that was playing as I read the post was about a model layout called Shenston Road, which was fantastically detailed and featured a steelworks and lots of interesting wagon models. And then the video showed a train on the layout, hauled by a 47 and comprising the very same chlorine tank wagons! What are the chances? Presumably the models were scratch-built.

Anyway, this is in danger of turning into another ramble. So I'll stop.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
New profile, photos and icons added
Posted on Thursday 14th July 2022 by Thomas Young
Second update. In fact a triple update, comprising three elements.

Firstly, the new profile on pre-1990 bogie open wagons is now available. Click on the link below to view it, or head to the Profiles index page to see them all.

Profile 62: Early (Pre-1990) Bogie Open Wagons

Secondly, 21 more photos have been uploaded.


I found some photos taken by my father in 1965 of the Consett Iron Ore trains. Partly because of this, I have decided that these wagons could be covered in the new profile!


The other photos are from the collections of Huw Millington (16) and Dan Adkins (1) and are also for use in the new profile.

Finally, I have added another 63 new icon images. The subjects this time are 'ferry wagons', most of which seem to be tanks.


Design Code IBE263 Tank Wagon. BR diagrams are never fully to scale, and some are notably not even in proportion. This one looks a bit suspect!


Design Code IBE376 Tank Wagon. Looks a bit unbalanced!

No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Looking and learning
Posted on Thursday 14th July 2022 by Thomas Young
I am still a bit unwell unfortunately, but I have been able to get on with some work. Over the last few days I have been researching and writing a new profile article about pre-1990 bogie open wagons. As usual, this has involved looking at lots and lots of photos, re-reading lots and lots of books and magazine articles, and also going through some of the thousands of BR diagram book pages on the BMRG website. Doing this has taught me a few new things, not usually learned directly but by piecing different bits of the picture together. For example, comparing photos with the listings data on this website, or relating news items from magazines with known changes in the data. This is a bit like detective work, and it is one of the aspects I enjoy. Anyway, since I still haven't built the forum, I will mention a couple of these 'discoveries' here.

1. Some batches of wagons had a mixture of disc and shoe braked bogies
Quite a few wagons built in the 1980s and 1990s used recycled running gear, usually from scrapped tank wagons. Bogies fitted to tank wagons included a variety of different makes and models but most shared a similar basic design, making them rather hard to tell apart. However, they also came in both disc and shoe braked versions, and these are usually easier to distinguish. I had not previously realised that some of the batches of new wagons built in the 1980s and 1990s used bogies with both brake types, though not on the same wagon of course. These include the numerous TML PXA and Railtrack JNA box wagons, most of which are still in service today.


This KEA-Z clearly has shoe brakes, while the similar wagon it is coupled to has disc brakes.

2. Bogie wagons with disc brakes all seem to have 'opposed' brakes
Looking at photos of TML and Railtrack wagons with disc brakes, I was puzzled that the bogies at one end seemed to have wheelsets with discs while the other always had plain (or 3-hole) wheelsets. I had read (in an excellent article about bogies in Rail Express magazine) that there was a thing called 'opposed disc brakes', but it did not explain what this was. I eventually realised that each bogie had brakes on the wheels on one side only. The discs always seem to be fitted to the bogie at the right-hand end, whichever side you looked at.


This is one of the numerous JNA-A wagons, initially operated by Railtrack. The wheelsets on the bogie at the right-hand end have brake discs, while those on the left are plain.

3. The ARC 270xx wagons had bogies of two types
Procor built 17 box wagons for use by ARC in 1986/87 and photos suggested that these were fitted with boxy Schlieren M25 bogies. The Metro Enterprises PO Wagons books had shown them having BSC Axle Motion bogies, which I had always taken to be a mistake. The 2nd edition of this book showed just the two outer wagons having Schlieren bogies, but this still seemed wrong. I then found some early photos on Paul Bartlett's website which clearly showed that five of the inner wagons did in fact have Axle Motion bogies (similar to those on the PTA wagons the new batch was intended to work with). This in itself is a little odd, as the Axle Motion bogie was unlikely to still be in production by 1986. Perhaps the bogies had been made earlier as spares for the huge PTA fleet, or perhaps they were recovered from the few tank wagons that had been so fitted. Either way it would result in a limited supply which could explain why such a small batch of wagons did not all have the same bogie types.

I do not yet have any photos of these wagons that I can use, which is a pity as the next discovery also related to them.

4. Some of the ARC 270xx wagons were re-bogied after a derailment in 1989
Photos on several websites (such as Martyn Read's and Andy Jupe's) had shown the former ARC wagons in storage in the 2004-2007 period, and it was notable that several were by then mounted on Gloucester GPS bogies. I then read about a derailment and subsequent collision at Taplow Bridge in 1989 which had damaged several of the batch. The numbers mentioned happened to be the same as those noted with GPS bogies, so it seems safe to assume that the replacement bogies were fitted when the wagons were (eventually) repaired in 1991.

I was also reminded of two other points, both of which you need to bear in mind when looking into wagon details.

1. Books (nearly) always contain mistakes
Harsh but true, even the best books are likely to contain a couple of mistakes (for example the Metro books were pretty good but, as seen, not fault-less), while some others had loads. I can't really criticise, since my own website no doubt has many errors itself. However, I have the benefit of being able to correct these once found. The brave authors and publishers of wagon books in the 1980s and 1990s may have made a few mistakes, but a partly-wrong book is better than no book at all. And perhaps the errors came from the information that they were supplied with. Still, I have learned that I should try and check facts, either against other publications or on-line photos, whenever possible.


Among the best, but not infallible, Metro Enterprises published several wagon books in the late-1980s and early-1990s.

2. The allocation of design codes was not very consistent
By this I mean the application of the principle whereby the 'diagram' part (eg PG016) distinguishes major variants, with the full 'design code' (eg PG016D) being used for minor variations. To give two contrasting examples, Procor built a series of box wagons in the 1980s to the PX029 diagram. However the PX029A/B/D Sheerness wagons were 62ft long, while the remainder were 52ft long. I would consider that a major difference! On the other hand, 3 large batches of PTA tipplers were built for British Steel in the 1970s. Each batch comprised three types (inner, fixed outer and rotating outer), and each sub-type from all three batches appears to have been identical. However, the design codes started a new diagram for each batch. As far as I can see, PT002A, PT003A and PT004A were all identical, as were PT002B, PT003B and PT004B etc. Of course, the TOPS code reshuffles of 1990 threw the system into further disarray by keeping the numerical part of the design codes the same. For example, PX046A became JN046A, even though there was no JN045 diagram.

My final point in this ramble concerns on-line photo galleries. There are now loads of photo collections available on-line which feature wagons, admittedly mainly from the digital camera era. These have proved invaluable when researching details but there is a major problem. The ability to easily find photos of any given type of wagon depends very much on how the user has chosen to name and organise their photos. Flickr is the most common provider of on-line galleries and their model only seems to support a single layer of albums. So a user may create an album called JNA, but that could contain anything from 1980s-built box wagons to the hordes of JNA-Ts delivered over the past few years. Within that album, the photos are shown in order of filename, which may or not relate to the wagon numbers. But that is assuming that the user has created an album called JNA. Lots of users have albums called 'Wagons', or 'Bogie Wagons' or 'Private-Owner Wagons' or any combination. Worse still, the photos may only have been put in an album called 'Stratford July 2016' or whatever. With Flickr, the albums seems to be arranged in the order they were added, rather than by their name. Some users have been very careful and created their albums in such a way that the resulting order is logical, but many do not.


After the demise of Fotopic (way back in 2011!), Flickr has become the defacto standard for on-line photo galleries. It offers lots of display and organisation options but I still feel it lacks some flexibility, while the usefulness of any single gallery is very dependent on how the owner has organised it.

What all of this boils down to is that it can be very hard to find photos of a particular type. I have a number of 'go-to' Flickr sites, which have lots of photos and sensible organisation (these are listed on my Links page in the Articles section). Beyond that though, finding stuff is often down to luck or perseverance. For the new profile, I spent a while hunting for photos of former TML box wagons in Boulby potash traffic. I did find some other stuff that interested me (Diesel Brake Tenders in the 1970s for example) but no potash.

I had considered the possibility of setting up a Flickr group with a photo pool, but these don't seem to allow the use of albums/folders at all. My other plan, which I will proceed with, is to improve my links page by running it off a database table and adding more sites. You will then be able to filter the list of sites to show only (for example) sites with photos of wagons taken in the 1980s at at least medium resolution and with downloading enabled. However, I think that the most useful thing I could do would be to get the existing 'photolinks' sections fully working. This allows links to individual photos to be referenced to any given stock number and/or TOPS or design code. I won't be using it to add links to every photo on-line of a JNA-T wagon (for example), but I will add links to photos that are rare or interesting, and over time this should build up into a useful resource for future research. I will pick-up on this work once I am feeling a bit better - it will require my coding head which is currently stored unserviceable!
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More icons
Posted on Tuesday 5th July 2022 by Thomas Young
It's been almost a year since I added any new icons. I have been looking at tank wagons recently (thanks to Huw Millington's photos) so I have made up a set of icons covering various design codes in the TBx, TCx, TDx, TEx, TRx and TSx series. There are 81 in total, plus I slipped in 3 more of PXx wagons, including a pair of unusual-looking hot ingot wagons. Samples below.

Design Code TB001A Bogie Tank Wagon - Chlorine

Design Code TE016A Bogie Tank Wagon - Class B

Design Code TR020A Tank Wagon

Design Code PX009A Bogie Hot Ingot Wagon - Insulated


These images are derived from the drawings in the BR diagram books, so detail is somewhat basic (typically omitting all underframe parts), but they have all been cleaned-up, and re-sized to a consistent scale. Having said that, the images shown above have been set to shrink-to-fit, so may not all be to the same scale...

I will be adding the new icons to the relevant designs, batches and TOPS codes shortly.
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LTSV is unwell
Posted on Monday 4th July 2022 by Thomas Young
I have been rather poorly for the last couple of weeks, meaning that work on LTSV has slowed down. It doesn't seem to be anything more than a cold/flu, but it is proving very hard to shake-off.

One thing I have been doing is to have a proper look through the 1,600+ wagon photos on Huw Millington's Flickr site. What sets this collection apart from most others is that the photos were mainly taken in the 1980s. Going through the photos has impressed upon me the quality of the images and also the breadth of coverage. Huw evidently got around a bit, and almost every type of private-owner and ferry wagon in use at the time was photographed, including some real rarities. Most of the types are of course now long-gone and the collection has become a very valuable record of the time. The good news is that Huw has decided to make a start on scanning the rest of his photo collection. So far added are 94 images of BR-owned air-braked wagons, including such delights as ODA, OEA, ex-BCA, ex-BLA and BXA types, again mainly taken in the 1980s. Huw has created a separate album for the new additions, which can be found here.

Somewhat related to this, I am currently working on getting the photolinks function to work, meaning that links to individual photos of interest can be added to relevant numbers, TOPS codes or design codes. I also hope to upgrade the listing of other on-line photo galleries, making it easier to find sites containing particular types of photos (eg '1980s Wagons').
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Unexpected side effects
Posted on Thursday 23rd June 2022 by Thomas Young
I made some changes to my website configurations today, to enable error messages to be shown when a user tries to access a page that doesn't exist. Unexpectedly, this seemed to knock-out most of the thumbnail images shown across various pages. I eventually tracked this down to my using a lower-case letter S instead of a capital in the image filepaths. It seems that the configuration change made the case sensitivity more strict. Anyway, I think I have now fixed all the affected pages but please get in touch if you find anything amiss.
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Is it time for more photos yet?
Posted on Saturday 18th June 2022 by Thomas Young
83 more photos have been added today and are a rather mixed bunch.

Nathan sent some excellent photos taken a few days ago at Margam.


A couple of the recently-rebogied BLA-T wagons were seen.


A Westerleigh to Robeston tank train contained various types, in various liveries and conditions. This was one of the cleaner ones.

Paul also sent a couple this week, including a Stadler 755/4 seen today.



I then continued with the clear-out of my loco photos from the past 15 years. Covered this time are the second-half of the 66/7s, along with some 67, 70, 73, 86, 90 and a single 92.


Probably the most interesting photo in this section is a First Scotrail class 90 at Wembley.

Finally I made another raid on Dave Warby's Flickr collection to illustrate some Southern Region multiple-unit types that I have not been able to cover with my own photos.


I have taken hundreds of photos at this location (Lewisham), but none of a class 415/1!

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More photos plus one and a half new profiles
Posted on Thursday 9th June 2022 by Thomas Young
A relatively small batch of 28 photos is being added today. 19 were taken by Derek in Eastleigh recently. Subjects include all three wagon types being supplied under the Wascosa / Network Rail deal.


Several FEA-W wagons were caught, all of which had 'Salmon' flatbed modules installed.

Next are 9 more from Huw Millington's collection.


This wagon never entered service in the form shown here, but it had an interesting life.

Using Huw's photos (plus some others), I have written a new profile, giving a detailed look at the 200-or-so 2-axle vans that featured in the TOPS-era private owner fleet. Click on the image below to view this, or head to the Profiles list page.


Profile 61 : 2-axle Private-Owner Vans

I have also taken the opportunity to update an earlier profile, with much more detail and lots of photos.


Profile 8 : POA/SSA Scrap Metal Wagons

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Site access problems
Posted on Sunday 5th June 2022 by Thomas Young
Some users reported difficulties accessing certain pages on LTSV-RD yesterday. I am not aware of any issues or service outages so I am going to assume that these were just passing 'blips'. Please contact me if you experience any problems.
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Second update - Sightings list improved
Posted on Monday 30th May 2022 by Thomas Young
The sightings list page was getting embarrassingly slow to load (between 12 and 20 seconds) so needed looking at. It is now working much faster (about 0.5 seconds), and still retains all the existing sort, search and filter functions as before. This required changes to the database and to all the pages related to adding/editing sightings. The pages were tested but (as usual) if you come across anything broken or strange, please get in touch.
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Yet more photos, old and new
Posted on Monday 30th May 2022 by Thomas Young
Here comes another set of 63 photos, covering a broad range of subjects. I know it is not time for another batch yet but adding photos is relatively quick and easy, unlike the other fixes and enhancements that are on my 'to-do' list! Some of the highlights are, er, highlighted below.



Paul Nicholls sent some photos covering new units (such as the Stadler 755) and an old one (a 1960s railbus at the East Anglia Railway Museum).



Dan visited London this month and photographed one of the South Western Railway class 701 units which may one day carry passengers! He also sent some photos of the three FZA wagons, following some correspondence about them.



Next up are another 32 photos taken by my father in the 1970s and early 1980s. Some are not great, and the subjects cannot be positively identified in a few, but I hope they are of interest nonetheless.



I had another dip into Dave Warby's excellent Flickr collection to pick-out some more gap-fillers, ranging from antique grain hoppers to recent Mk5 coaches.



Huw Millington (of Brickset fame) has a collection of 1,600 wagon photos on his Flickr site, which are special because most are from the 1980s. He kindly gave me permission to use some of the photos here. This first set of 10 looks at private-owner vans, never the most common type. To see the whole collection, use the link on my links page.

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More old photos (and one very new one)
Posted on Tuesday 24th May 2022 by Thomas Young
Today is a special day for my local station of Abbey Wood, as it has seen the much-delayed start of passenger services over the new Elizabeth Line.


I didn't get up early to ride the first train, but here is 345018 at Abbey Wood in mid-morning.

The other 86 photos being added today are all from the 1980s and 1990s. I am surprised at how many photos from this era I keep finding, and there are still a few yet to add.


17 photos are from an open day at Stewarts Lane depot in April 1988, where the displays included some track machines such as USP-5000C DX77315.


Six photos from the south end of the West Coast Main Line in March 1987 include classes 85, 87, 310 and 313. Here is 310074 near North Wembley.


On 2nd May 1987 I went out to photograph the Three to the Sea railtour, since class 20 locos were rarer than hen's teeth in London. Unfortunately my best shot was lost thanks to a passing EMU.


Various other London locations were visited that day, accompanied by two friends. Where are they now?


Next up is a bunch of photos from the Railfreight exhibition at Cricklewood in 1989. Among the exhibits was the innovative Trailer Train.


Wrapping this batch up are five photos taken on preserved lines in the early 1990s, including an XP64 coach on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

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Raising the profile of profiles
Posted on Saturday 21st May 2022 by Thomas Young
There are 60 Profile articles on LTSV-RD, each covering a type or group of types. The first 59 deal with wagons, while just one has so far been added on other stock (EMU class 313). The profiles vary in length - some are quite detailed while others are very brief indeed - and they have not been updated in a while. All of this will be addressed in due course. What occurred to me recently was that the profiles were somewhat isolated from the rest of the site. For example, you could be looking at the page detailing TOPS code MTA and there would be no indication that a profile covering this type was also available.

To rectify this, I have added links that encompass most of the TOPS codes, batches, designs/diagrams, Fishkind names and lots that are referenced in the existing profiles. Hence if you were looking at the detail page for design code BA001A (for example), there will be a section headed Profiles which will contain a link to the article on BAA Bogie Steel Wagons. Some items may link to more that one profile, for example TOPS code YXA crops up in four different profiles. I have also added 'backwards' links, meaning that if you are looking at the profile on BAA Bogie Steel Wagons, you will see links to relevant batches, design codes, TOPS codes etc. As always, please let me know if you encounter anything odd or obviously wrong.

In case you hadn't come across these profiles before, take a look at the Profile List page. Work on various other improvements is still on-going....
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Another load of downloadable PDF pages added
Posted on Saturday 7th May 2022 by Thomas Young
Another 9 pages have been added to allow PDFs to be produced of various lists. These are for the Batch List, Coach Type List, Design/Diagram List, Listing List, Lot List, Number Series List, Number Status Code List, Photos List and Pool List. I have also fixed (hopefully) an issue with the page breaks on the Sighting List PDF. In all cases, the links above will take you to the web version of the page. There, you can set any filters and/or sorting that you want, then click on the PDF icon to generate the report.

I have tested each of these pages but please let me know if you find anything wrong, particularly concerning line- and/or page-breaks.

There are a few more list pages that require PDF versions, then I will start work on the detail pages (for example to produce a PDF showing all information about a particular number, TOPS code, diagram etc).
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More downloadable PDFs added
Posted on Monday 2nd May 2022 by Thomas Young
A couple more PDF documents have been added, these being for Numbers and Sightings. Links to the PDFs can be found in the introduction text of the relevant data pages (Numbers and Sightings). As before, these are 'dynamic' PDFs, so they will include the latest data and will use any user-selected filtering and sorting.

I am still getting to grips with the process for constructing these documents, and there are some quirks (particularly to do with page breaks), so please let me know if you spot anything awry.

Note also that the PDF for numbers can take a while to generate, depending on how many results you have. I managed to run a report of all B/DB-prefixed BR wagons in the database (113,766 records) but it took a whopping 97 seconds to generate. Mind you, it did have 1,836 pages! Anything larger would probably hit server time-outs. Fortunately, the file sizes are reasonable, so downloading should not be an issue. For example, the 1,836 page Numbers report weighed in at 8.75MB.

A minor associated change is that you can now filter the sightings list by year of sighting, for example to see all sightings in 1987.
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Yet another bunch of photos
Posted on Friday 29th April 2022 by Thomas Young
My excuse for adding another 164 photos is that I had a local day out yesterday and photographed quite a few freight trains.


66798 took a crane and some bogie boxes from Eastleigh to Hoo in the morning (shown here), then returned in the afternoon with Autoballasters.


An Allington to Whatley train was notable for including a single HHA-E ex-Freightliner 'shorty' in amongst the usual HOA-B and IIA-B hoppers.


17 of the 20 JNA-A boxes rebuilt from JSA coil carriers were seen working from Cliffe to Stewarts Lane. These wagons are now in their third lives, having been new as Iron Ore tipplers, ironically with bodywork very similar to that now fitted (see also Fleet News of 6th December 2019).


Plasser track maintenance trolley DR98219 was caught moving from Clapham to Hither Green, while similar DR98218 was photographed earlier going the opposite way. A swap over?

I also turned my camera on some Southeastern units (which I usually ignore).


Class 375 units are split into four different sub-classes. This is a 4-car, dual-voltage (though not used as such) 375/6.


The mainstays of Southeastern suburban duties are the class 376 Electrostars and class 465/466 Networkers, examples of both types being seen at St Johns.

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More photos. Now 7000 plus
Posted on Tuesday 26th April 2022 by Thomas Young
Another bundle of photos has been added, with none from Derek this time. I might be doing this instead of tackling the harder jobs, but a couple of the photos are quite topical.

The first 4 are from Paul Nicholls and include the dinky little class 139 trains.


Unlike anything else on the rails, the two class 139 'units' are Parry People Movers, with a small LPG-powered engine, a (relatively) large flywheel (1m diameter and weighing 500kg) and no traditional buffers or couplings. They are only used on the self-contained Stourbridge branch.

Dan sent a couple of topical views, and these will be shown in fleet news. After that are 28 photos I took in Lewisham last week.


I have somehow managed to avoid photographing any class 375 units until now, even though I see them all the time. They don't usually pass through Lewisham though, and this was an ECS working.


A couple of GBRf's class 66/7 locos carry the 1987 Railfreight livery, which suits the type quite well. 66793 has Construction sector markings.

Finally I have dug out another dozen photos taken by me or my father in the late 1980s. The quality is not great but there is some variety.


When we visited the National Railway Museum in York in 1987, the adjacent stabling point contained a variety of locos (08, 20, 31, 45 & 47) plus this unidentified shunters truck, which was originally a demountable tank wagon.


I think I was trying to be 'arty' with this shot of a class 110 DMU, also unfortunately unidentified.

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Yay, more photos
Posted on Tuesday 19th April 2022 by Thomas Young
Another set of photos has been added, this time totalling 133. The first 110 are more from Derek Everson, taken in May/June/July 2021.


Of interest among the wagon photos are some of the large batch of FWA triple sets currently being delivered for GB Railfreight.


Derek also included (perhaps inadvertently) some loco and unit photos. New types not previously shown include 57/3, 88 (above) and 321/9.

Nigel Longdon sent six recent photos from Eastleigh.


Some of the recently-delivered FEA wagons for Network Rail are temporarily being used on intermodal traffic by GB Railfreight. This photo also shows that the wagons are lettered as FEA-W as originally planned, though they were put on TOPS as FEA-S.

Dan recently had a trip to Blackpool, to do the Heritage Tram Depot tour at the Rigby Road depot (which he thoroughly recommends by the way). On the way back, he photographed some unit types that have not previously been shown on LTSV.


Various stored trams were seen, including Balloon car 726.


The CAF Civity units used by Northern are quite distinctive and come in diesel and electric versions. This is a class 331/0 EMU at Salford Crescent.


A couple of weeks previously, Dan had caught one of the Merseyrail articulated class 777 units passing Northampton on delivery.

I still have lots more photos to add but I should probably focus on data and PDFs for a bit first.
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LTSV-RD on PDF
Posted on Monday 18th April 2022 by Thomas Young
Before I get back into the swing of updating the data on this website, I thought I should make some progress with making the content downloadable, especially as I had promised that this would be done during 2021! I have added a couple of test pages today and, so long as there is no negative feedback, these will be developed and extended to cover other aspects of the data. The pages done so far are the Fishkind list and the TOPS class/code list.

If you would like to assist with checking that these work OK, head to the respective list pages (links above), where you will see a small 'PDF' link at the top of the main data table. There are a few things to note:

1. When you click on the link it will open a new browser window (or tab) and display the PDF in it. The PDF can then be printed or saved if required.
2. The PDF should show the same as the equivalent webpage, with the same sorting and filtering applied.
3. The PDF with all TOPS codes runs to 72 pages but has a remarkably small file size.
4. There are some small issues with formatting, which will be addressed soon.

If you do encounter anything odd, please get in touch.

Also coming up soon are more photos, including another large bundle from Derek, all taken in the second half of 2021.
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171 new photos added
Posted on Friday 8th April 2022 by Thomas Young
A batch of 171 new photos has just been uploaded. The first 7 are from Paul Nicholls and show part of the former GWML Electrification High-Output System at Stanford-le-Hope in Essex.


This Windhoff MPV carries numbers DR76901 and 99.70.9131.001-8.

Both Dan and Nathan have photographed examples of the recently arrived Wascosa MLA-B wagons for Network Rail.


Dan caught 81.70.5932.218-7 in a train passing his usual haunt at Northampton.

Nathan also found some of the converted BYA-O wagons at Port Talbot. They were in 'slab' mode, hence did not have the curious plates that earned these wagons their Stegosaurus nickname.


966041 at Port Talbot.

The remaining 160 photos are all by Derek Everson, and taken in January-April 2021. Subjects include barrier wagons on EMU deliveries, various engineers wagons, the Heathrow tanks at Colnbrook and a variety of intermodals at Eastleigh.


Rail Adventure bogie flats and vans are being used on deliveries of class 701 EMUs to South Western Railway.


Super power for a pair of FCA wagons now fitted with Super Tench, mesh-sided modules.


Coalfish wagons (TOPS codes MHA and MPA) are now rapidly being withdrawn and scrapped.


Tank wagons arriving at Colnbrook, with fuel for the nearby Heathrow Airport.


Container trains may seem a bit boring, but Derek found that they often contain several different types of wagon.

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Normal service will be resumed shortly
Posted on Saturday 2nd April 2022 by Thomas Young
Apologies for the lack of updates recently. I have hardly even looked at LTSV-RD over the past couple of months, as I have had to prioritise work on another web project (actually a replacement for my original 'LT Service Vehicles' website, which became more urgent following the discovery of some security issues with the old version).

The good news is that the work has now been completed, and the site went live yesterday. I don't have plans to create any more new websites for the time being - I've done four over the past two years. As such, I hope to have a lot more time to devote to 'content', across all four sites. There are also some outstanding (as in unfinished) features on LTSV-RD and I will be looking at those too.

I was pleased to see that a number of users have continued adding data (mainly sightings and listings) and I am very grateful for these.
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