…just passing time
Changing trains at Crewe
© Geoff’s Rail Diaries 2022
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
13 October 2022
route, and various other oddities. Something rather different
was D1924, one of the Locomotive Services fleet, which made
a brief appearence before trundling off to the depot. It’s soon
time to make our way to platform 11 for our train - but not
before an unbelievably grimy pair of class 56s pass through on
the railhead treatment train.
I first saw a class 47 (they were Brush type 4s then) in 1963,
when they were practically brand-new. Nearly 60 years later,
D1924 looks just like they did then, and very different from the
modern liveries on the ‘normal’ trains. Changing trains? Yes,
they have, haven’t they!
We’ve booked seats (for a very attractive fare) on the 15.09
from Crewe to Edinburgh Waverley. To get to Crewe, we’ve
used buses (free for us ancients) and a train from Stafford. On
such a journey, there’s plenty of scope for things to go wrong,
so we’ve left home much earlier than strictly necessary, ‘just in
case’.
Inevitably, instead of missing connections, we’ve made
connections we didn’t expect to make, and have arrived in
Crewe much too early (which, given the way fares and
reservations work these days, is hugely better than arrving a
minute too late. We could have caught the 13.09 to Waverley -
but it would have cost a small fortune. We’ll sit in the very
pleasant warm sunshine and watch the world go by!
Crewe is, of course, a very busy station, and there are lots of
trains to see. Admittedly, they all look very similar… Most are
Pendolinos, like the one we’ll catch. There are also numerous
class 350 EMUs, several 175 DMUs on the Manchester-Cardiff
