Welcome to your bigger and better value TRACTION package

It was a case of ‘some you win, some you lose’ around here on Saturday, July 12. The eagerly awaited return of a ‘Whistler’ to Skegness did not materialise when the railtour with 40 145 was sadly cancelled a couple of weeks beforehand due to pathing and timing issues. However, East Midlands Trains use of a loco-hauled Nottingham-Skegness seasonal additional service (see T166), was introduced that day and is booked to run each Saturday now until September 6. The locos used were West Coast’s 47 787 + 47 851 (in reverse order to their debut appearance on Bank Holiday Monday, May 26). They were also used the following Saturday and got pressed into service on Sunday 20th too on Nottingham-Grantham ‘shuttles’ during a local industrial dispute. The need for the additional seasonal service is obvious - some 230 passengers using it on July 12. On that same day more than 100 people were crammed into a single-car Class 153 on another service! Try to use the Nottingham-Skegness loco-hauled service if you can as we really need to encourage more TOCs that this is a good idea. But please behave responsibly when you are travelling on trains such as this - they are hard won but easily lost! For those of you interested in the BR blue era and, in particular, modelling it, there is a useful new forum available for exchanging ideas and ‘gen’: www.brblue.co.uk TRACTION is pleased to sponsor the site’s ‘Sound and Vision’ section. It’s a while since we’ve been out and about with a TRACTION sales stand, but we will be at the Midland Railway - Butterley’s big Gala event on Saturday, August 23, and I hope to see you there.awaiting permission from Network Rail to run this additional service. Like I said, this really is a time for initiative.