Observation Day – Cardiff & the Valleys

“Take the long way home”
Wednesday 24th July 2024 saw 5 members of the Solent Branch and one MHR visitor travel to Cardiff with a view to exploring the Valley lines and seeing the various new types of rolling stock TFW are introducing. We caught the 06.59 from Romsey to Cardiff and then proceeded to Taffs Well via Ninian Park passing one side of Canton depot to see the new class 398's in their purpose built depot (not yet electrified) and could identify all bar 2 of the first 17 that appear to have been delivered namely 3 and 13.

We then went down to Barry Island and back to Barry in search of the numbers of the stored class 756's and of the dozen or so stored we only managed to identify 2.

We then travelled to Bridgend and back to Cardiff to pass the other side of Canton depot. After a break at Cardiff Central to catch the 197's and 231's that were running,

5 of us set off for a trip up to Rhymney and back. On the way back we got an email from John Goodrich (Solent Branch) informing us that there were going to be no trains from Salisbury to Romsey so we abandoned the idea of visiting more valley lines and returning on the 19:30 as planned. Instead we caught a train to Reading and thence to Basingstoke, by which time we established that there was an Eastleigh to Salisbury shuttle running so we went from Basingstoke to Eastleigh and waited for the next shuttle. A bonus sighting coming in to Eastleigh was the GBRf hired new Class 18 Shunter (18015) which was scored by all five of us. In addition our train was stopped at Shawford and we were advised by the driver to look out of the window to see a steam train pass! This was in fact 44871 working a diverted RTC Dorset Explorer service. Notably no-one questioned our use of this route from Cardiff to Romsey as no-one checked our tickets so did not know we were off route. Our sixth member of the party opted to leave Cardiff ahead of us at 15:30 and only found out about the disruption around Trowbridge. He travelled on through to Salisbury where the train was terminated. Eventually passengers wishing to travel on to Southampton and Portsmouth were asked to join a two car DMU which left full and standing complete with a pilot and proceeded to run wrong line through the area around East Grimstead where the broken rail had been discovered!
The party of five finally arrived at 21:51 some 4 minutes ahead of our booked time had we travelled back via the booked route!
All in all a good day with the added bonus of some unexpected travel, sighting 44871 in action and scoring our first Class 18.
Any one for a return visit next year?

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