Reading to Hungerford – Hastings DEMU cab ride – 24 March 2018

*The Sixty Marches* charter, Part 1:
Cab view from Reading to Hungerford. Filmed from Hastings Diesels Limited’s preserved Hastings DEMU on Saturday 24 March 2018, during the outward leg of The Sixty Marches private charter.
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In this video we travel the 26 miles and 55 chains from Reading to Hungerford. We depart from Reading platform 8 and proceed onto the Westbury Lines, through Reading West, and turning right at Southcote Junction following the Reading – Taunton Line through Newbury to Hungerford. The Reading – Hungerford and Reading – Basingstoke routes were built in 1847/8 by the “Berks & Hants Railway”; the Reading – Hungerford – Westbury route is still known colloquially as the “Berks & Hants” although it does not go into Hampshire at all! Some of the running, particularly near Theale, is a bit slow as we are following a stopping train (a Network Turbo which we see leaving Reading just as we also depart, and which we catch up with again at Newbury and will see again turning back at Bedwyn). There is a bit of rain in the Kintbury / Hungerford section but we hope it won’t spoil your enjoyment of the journey.
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Overhead Line Electrification works were taking place on the GWR network, with work visibly in progress during the Reading – Newbury section; and over the weekend when this was filmed the Didcot route was completely closed for electrification work, with many diverted services vying for pathways over the Berks & Hants.
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This outing began at Hastings and ran via Tonbridge, Redhill and Guildford to Reading, then via Hungerford (this video) to the Westbury area where we turned right at Heywood Road Junction, through Bradford-on-Avon and Bath to Filton, through the Severn Tunnel into Wales, to Maindee Junction (Newport) for the line through Abergavenny to Hereford; the return journey was via the same route. We intend to produce video footage of the entirety of the rest of this journey to Hereford.
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Video footage is from an unattended unmonitored forward-facing cab-camera in motor coach 60116 Mountfield. The soundtrack mostly comes from the camera in the leading cab; however, on a few occasions there was radio usage or (at Newbury) chatter via the cab window which we are not permitted to publish, in these cases the soundtrack you hear on this video is instead an accurately synchronised audio recording made in the rear cab.
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0:00 – READING station
2:03 – Westbury Line Junction
5:20 – Oxford Road Junction
5:33 – Reading West station
7:13 – Southcote Junction
13:21 – Theale station
17:11 – Down Towney Loop
18:26 – Aldermaston station
20:10 – Midgham station
22:58 – Thatcham station
26:16 – Newbury Racecourse station
27:17 – site of Newbury East Junction
28:36 – Newbury station
34:20 – site of Enborne Junction
39:19 – Kintbury station
44:20 – HUNGERFORD station
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Video, soundtrack and captions © Copyright 2018–2019 Hastings Diesels Limited.
https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/
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Travel on our train! See our Railtours webpage at:
https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/railtours/
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Equipment: video by GoPro Hero3+ camera with focus modification, suction-mount and extra batteries; back-cab audio by Tascam DR-44WL courtesy of https://twitter.com/MoreToJack ; video production by Da Vinci Resolve (free).
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Here are the actual timings for the day’s outing:
https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/diary/2018-03-24_actual-timings
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Here are annotated extracts from the Network Rail Section Appendix:
Outward: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nexbk2jdnmph69u/2018-03-24_Hereford_sectional-appendix-OUT-annotated-fixed.pdf?dl=0
Our return journey’s route was changed just a day or two before the trip because of a bridge strike — from Hereford to Filton Abbey Wood we were supposed to have been routed via Worcester and the Gloucester area to Yate and Bristol Parkway, but as things turned out we had to retrace our steps via the Severn Tunnel. The following shows our original route.
Return: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kana0042y09fy13/2018-03-24_Hereford_sectional-appendix-RTN-annotated-fixed.pdf?dl=0
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Видео Reading to Hungerford – Hastings DEMU cab ride – 24 March 2018 канала Hastings Diesels Ltd