Fleet news
3 fleet news items found.
More class 66 renumberings
Posted on Tuesday 29th July 2025 by Thomas Young
Following the regearing and renumbering of DB class 66 locos as 66651-66660 over the past year, the same is now being done to some of the GB Railfreight locos. With spare numbers in short supply, these 66/7s are also becoming 66/6s, with the numbers either being 90 or 100 less than before. A total of 12 are reported to be planned, the first two released being 66689 (ex 66779) and 66693 (ex 66793).
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Wagon News
Posted on Tuesday 11th February 2025 by Thomas Young
A couple of recent wagon developments are (I think) rather interesting. Firstly, a batch of 60 new steel wagons is in the course of delivery. These don't seem to have been mentioned in the railway press yet but visitors to LTSV may have noticed that the batch of numbers was added a couple of months ago. The frames for the wagons are being built by DB Cargo in Poland, then shipped to Stoke where they are fitted with 3-piece bogies recovered from withdrawn HTA coal hoppers. The interesting aspects are the numbering and the coding. The new wagons have been given the same BAA-T TOPS code that is applied to re-bogied BAA wagons, even though the latter were built around 50 years ago. This is presumably for operational convenience, as the new wagons are broadly similar in configuration and will no doubt work alongside (as well as replacing) the older types. The number range for the new wagons is 900400-900459. Again this appears to be to relate the new wagons to the older BAA types but it is notable that this is the first time since 2008 that new-build wagons have been given domestic numbers as their 'primary' identities. The new wagons do also have EVNs (European Vehicle Numbers) assigned, and these are applied externally, albeit smaller than the 900xxx number. Even here there is a mystery, with the wagons noted so far having a random collection of EVNs in the range 82.70.4614.044-129.
Also now arriving are a further batch of FEA-G intermodal twins from Astra Rail in Slovakia, numbered 81.70.4663.401-440, although here too there are some mysteries. The wagons were reported to be a follow-on to the large GBRf order and financed by Wascosa, with the end-user thought to be Network Rail. However, the wagons reported to far have been in intermodal use with GBRf. To be fair, this did also happen with the earlier 70.4524 FEA-Ws for Wascosa/Network Rail, and it could be that the specialised 'modules' for infrastructure use are not yet available. It is also reported that the wagons were actually built many months ago and have been in storage on the continent until now. More puzzling is what has happened to the last of the GBRf order. 200 wagons had been ordered, numbered 81.70.4663.201-400, with deliveries starting in September 2023. These continued until the arrival of 81.70.4663.321-340 in March 2024, after which no more have been seen. Could it be that the last 60 wagons have been cancelled? I hope to be able to give more details soon.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Wagon News
Posted on Tuesday 12th November 2024 by Thomas Young
I will be doing some general news round-ups shortly, but here are three recent wagon developments.
A new TOPS code of HRA-G has been applied to seven of the hopper wagons produced by shortening HTA coal hoppers about six years ago. These wagons have been used in glass cullet traffic (basically fragments of broken glass from recycling centres) from Tilbury, alongide some former RMC JGA hoppers. Two of the seven were previously HRA-O outer wagons, the rest HRA-I inners, though the HRA-G code has been applied to all, with just the new design codes of HR001C (inner) and HR001D (outer) providing the distinction.
The program to rebody former MRA side-tipplers as JNA-Y box wagons at Loram, Derby has been completed with a total of 300 wagons dealt with. By the way, see Site News for a development concerning both the HRA and JNA-Y fleets.
The latest issue of Rail Express magazine illustrates the first of 25 KEA-Z box wagons to be cut-down by W H Davis. Although it now looks like a low-sided box wagon (similar to various types used for ballast and spoil), the conversions are reported to be for steel slab traffic for Tata. Interestingly, this will be the second time these wagons have been used for non-bulk loads, as they were originally built to carry cast concrete segments for the Channel Tunnel construction project. This explains why they have TOPS codes in the K group, which is for specialised bogie wagons, whereas most similar box wagons were in the J group. It is not yet known if they will retain the KEA code, or whether modifications will be made to the drawgear (the batch originally featured both inner and outer wagons).
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Site news8 site news items found.
We do not use cookies!Posted on
Sunday 28th September 2025 by Thomas Young
If you have been using any of the LTSV websites over the past few weeks, you will probably have seen this come up:
This is not part of my website and it seems to come up when the site is temporarily unavailable. It will usually go if you refresh after a few seconds, although it will sometimes stick around for a few minutes. I would recommend that you do not click any of the buttons on this page, or use the back button.
I have asked my service provider to look into why this page is appearing, and I have also asked them whether it would be possible to replace it with a more helpful message, something like 'service temporarily unavailable'. It could be that heavy data processing requirements resulting from the very large number of records in the LTSV Rail Data website are the cause, in which case finding a solution may not be straightforward. I will provide an update as soon as I have any more information, and I apologise for the disruption caused.
To be honest, LTSV
does use cookies, but only session ones. These are essential for the functioning of the site and are only retained in your browser's memory (not saved on your device). When you close the browser window, the session cookies are wiped clean.
No notes have been left yet.
?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Catch up on renos
Posted on Sunday 15th June 2025 by Thomas Young
I've added 24 renumberings that have taken place over the past year and a bit. These include classes 66, 69 and 458.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
New photos, at lastPosted on
Thursday 12th June 2025 by Thomas Young
I'm still here! Some problems with my bus society work have more than doubled the amount of time I am having to spend on it, which has left precious little for LTSV. Still, the issues are temporary, although it may be a few more months until things get back to 'normal'.
The technical issues of earlier this year seem to have gone away. As far as I can tell, the root cause is the very large size of some of the database tables. As these are continuing to grow, it may be that I will need to makes changes to the coding to avoid the problems recurring.
A trickle of photos has come into my in-box over the past 11 months, and a batch of 90 has been uploaded today. Highlights are below.
Simon Burrell sent some photos of preserved wagons (plus a couple of more modern ones).
B782114 is a Palvan now preserved on the Mid Hants Railway.Paul Nicholls was in Scotland again.
The slope-gangwayed 380s are one of several classes of modern EMU used by Scotrail.David Hunt sent a couple of photos taken at Exeter.
This KEA is one of 25 of the type that have subsequently been reduced in height for steel slab traffic.Graham Goswell contributed some views of wagons stored at Healey Mills in the mid-2000s.
2-axle tank wagons like PR58276 have now pretty much disappeared from the network.Justin Whatley submitted some photos from the Mendips.
The green livery on Freightliner 66618 is giving way to the 'American' orange livery.Derek paid a visit to Westbury in February and photographed several locos and wagons, plus some on-track plant.
67023 has de-branded Colas Railfreight livery.
66315 is one of the more recent imports for GB Railfreight, numbered as 66/3s because the 66/7 series is full-up.
These two Colas track machines were delivered last year.Derek was out again at the end of May.
A pair of Ospreys had been red-carded and shunted into the siding at Basingstoke Station.
Recent rebuild 69016 was seen at Winchfield, returning from its naming ceremony at Waterloo.
No notes have been left yet.
?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Possible technical problems
Posted on Tuesday 25th February 2025 by Thomas Young
I have had various reports recently about problems while using LTSV websites, including slow page loading and some functions not working. Strangely these only seem to be affecting certain users and not others, which makes it rather hard to know how to provide a fix. If you do encounter anything not working (or not working well), I would be grateful if you could let me know about it, so that I can investigate further. An e-mail to tom at ltsv.com with details (such as the page title and your browser type) would be the best way to do this.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Various updatesPosted on
Tuesday 11th February 2025 by Thomas Young
As well as the Wagon News on the left, I have added two new book reviews and two new articles. Actually, the articles are not new, and they are not finished, but they've been sitting in my 'Work in progress' folder for far too long. Hopefully putting them out will give me the impetus to finish them off. By the way, I would always welcome feedback and/or corrections to any of my articles or profiles. This can be by adding notes, or by sending me an e-mail.
The new reviews are:
Speedlink, Volumes 1 and 2 by David Larkin
The Coaching Stock of British Railways - 1972-1982 editions re-issued
The new articles are:
Stock Classification - LocomotivesStock Classification - Multiple Units
No notes have been left yet.
?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Renos completed
Posted on Thursday 5th December 2024 by Thomas Young
I have completed inputting the renumberings for the HRA and JNA-Y fleets and the related status updates. This took a bit longer than expected because I am on reduced PC time at present following a back injury (or more accurately, a re-injury). There are several other things in the pipeline, including at least one new wagon profile article. Watch this space.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Unknown renumberings now known.
Posted on Tuesday 12th November 2024 by Thomas Young
A nice surprise in my in-box recently was a list of the renumbering details for the HRA and JNA-Y wagon fleets. Completed in 2019 and 2024 respectively, each type was the result of a sizeable program to rebuild existing wagons (110 HTA hoppers and 300 MRA side-tipplers respectively). However, it appeared that the tie-ups of old numbers to new ones were not known, or at least not published. I mentioned this recently when I encountered problems with how to show renumberings when one part was not known (see Site News 13th June). Now that we have the list, I will be adding the details to the database, with the first 40 HRAs done so far.
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
Catching up - PhotosPosted on
Wednesday 30th October 2024 by Thomas Young
71 photos have been uploaded today, including those received over the past couple of months.
First up are 13 more from the dregs (quality wise) of my 1980s collection.
The Basingstoke rail event of September 1987 brought a unique collection of 'alien' locos to the Southern Region.New contributor Nick Keegan supplied some photos of preserved wagons at Barrow Hill and The Tanfield Railway.
These two London Transport brake vans carry TOPS numbers LTM95802 and LTM95803, although my records suggest that they are actually LTE95801 and LTE95800 respectively.
Van B755543 was previously internal user 041604 at Sunderland South Dock.Simon Burrell sent in another collection of excellent photos, mainly from the early 1990s.
10 of the photos are of various variants of MGR coal hopper, a once bog-standard type that has not previously appeared on LTSV.
This Shark appears to have a yellow roof!Paul Nicholls has been to various locations recently.
This West Midlands class 196/1 was photographed at Shrewsbury.
This class 205/2 driving car is now at the Epping and Ongar Railway.
The large class 720 fleet now covers most of Greater Anglia's services.
The articulated class 777 units are now all in service on Merseyside.I have also resumed doing database updates, and I have recently added the Clayton-built class
18 and Stadler class
93 and
99 locos.
No notes have been left yet.
?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
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