IET Cl.800 East Coast workings

[Ian Prince]

As a forward looking society, we should be embracing the introduction of the IET units as these are the future, whether we like it or not.

There are numerous training runs being carried out on the East Coast Route, at present with Kings Cross, Peterborough, Newark, Retford, Doncaster IET depot, Shaftholme Jct, York, Heaton etc being turnaround points, seeing test workings.

In future years a database of such workings may be useful to researchers, just as test trains for the HST and IC225 sets that occurred in the past and are often now difficult to accurately source. Even records with online resources such as Railcam often fail to have any user input as to the units concerned, so here is somewhere we can actively show how the RCTS is the ?leading railway society? and trailblaze such records for future posterity.

Even tbose who despise these units, seem to be recording them, so we should take the lead.

I suggest that all such ?East Coast? records are compiled here.

Times, headcodes, destinations and origins, unit numbers and where differing, individual coach numbers. Obviously there are many unplanned times and changes and these too could become part of such a database. A bit like the Cl. 90 EC workings that are already being recorded here.

[Train Spotter]

Saturday 23rd February 2019....

The following test trains was observed at Doncaster

5Q11 0852 Ferme Park Leeds 800202

5Q02 0903 KX Doncaster 801102

5Q03 1129 Doncaster KX 801102

5Q12 1141 Leeds Doncaster Carr IEP Depot 800202

[Ian Prince]

Unidentified Azuma in LNER colours at Retford platform 2 on 25th February 2019 11:55am 5Q13/14 from and to Peterborough
Unidentified Azuma in LNER colours at Retford platform 2 on 19th February 2019 10:58am
TPE liveried cl.802 802201 north of Retford on 18th February 2019 15:11 5Q96 Kings Cross 12:45 to Doncaster Carr IEP depot having stood in Babworth loop for a while.

[Train Spotter]

5Q05 1745 Leeds Doncaster Carr IEP depot Cancelled

[Ian Prince]

The number of times workings get cancelled or start at any seemingly random time after that booked from Doncaster IEP, is very at odds with the absolute precision of timings of Japanese trains back in their homeland.

Admittedly these at present are training and test runs out of the public domain. Such changes happen so regularly though that reliance on any booked workings in recent months has been pure guesswork.

[Ian Prince]

5Q15 13:09 Peterborough to York 11th March 2019 in LNER silver/red stripe branding. Running 18-27 minites late.

[Ian Prince]

5Q12 11:45 Leeds to Kings Cross today, 21st March 2019. 800103. 5Q12 11:45 Leeds to Kings Cross

[Ian Prince]

Cl. 800 in LNER livery (5Q11 09:03 Kings Cross to Leeds) 22/3/19

[pdeaves]

LNER-liveried 800206 passed through Reading this afternoon (5 July) heading for Eastleigh.

[pdalhss]

On Tuesday June 18 I saw an Azuma going through Reading station at high speed on 5Q80 Doncaster Carr - Long Marston at approx. 11:00. I was unable to identify the set as I was on the opposite side of the station. I was later informed that the set was displayed alongside a GWR IET at the Rail Live event. I have seen no reports on this working in the RO or any other magazine, or indeed on the Rail Live event apart from the Hydrogen Class 799.

Did anyone see this working or on its return working sometime after the 20th, when Rail Live closed, and identify the set?