Plans for the railway

2018-12-08

Yeah I know I talk about a lot of embedded stuff on here, but I do still think about my Model Railway. I was at the Model Railway show in Peterborough today, where I picked up a lovely boxed Dapol "Yorkshire Voyager" set. It prompted me to think about what I'll run when my railway gets rebuilt and I figured I should write it down for posterity.

The model a fictional station set somewhere around Leamington Spa circa 2002/2003 (which is when I lived there as a student). At that time, Leamington Spa was served by the following operators:

Virgin Cross-Country
Chiltern Railways
Central Trains

Virgin were running 220 Voyager and 221 Super Voyager sets at that time, but they still had the last of the Class 47 + Mark 2 sets, plus a brief period running HSTs (both in Virgin West Coast livery, and borrowed from GNER and Midland Mainline). You also might have seen some 158 Express Sprinters.

Chiltern Railways were running 168 Clubmans (I have one of those) and 165 Network Turbos.

Central Trains were running old 150 Sprinters, 153 and 156 Express Sprinters and maybe some new 170 Turbostars.

Here's my money-no-object rolling stock wish list:

Virgin Cross-Country 4-car Voyager (purchased x2)
Virgin Cross-Country 5-car Super Voyager
Chiltern 3-car 168 Clubman (purchased)
Chiltern 2-car 165 Network Turbo
GNER or Midland Mainline HST with two Class 43s and seven Mk3 coaches (TF-TF-TRFB-TS-TS-TS-TGS)
'Fun size' Virgin HST with two Class 43s and five mixed Virgin/Swallow Mk3 coaches (TF-TRFB-TS-TS-TGS)
EWS Class 47 with six mixed Virgin/Swallow Mk2 Coaches (RFB, TSO, TSO, TSO, TSO, BSO)
Central Trains 2-car 170/5 Turbostar
Central Trains 1-car 153 Sprinter
Some sort of heritage steam special, with a mix of early BR coaches