Hungerford to Westbury (Heywood Road Junction) – Hastings DEMU cab ride – 24 March 2018

*The Sixty Marches* charter, Part 2:
Cab view from Hungerford to Westbury (Heywood Road Junction). 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 33 miles and 2 chains across part of Berkshire and most of Wiltshire, along first the Berks & Hants Extension and then the Stert & Westbury Railway, from Hungerford to Westbury (Heywood Road Junction). We climb alongside the Kennet & Avon Canal, past Bedwyn where the Network Turbo we’ve followed since Reading is turning back in the siding, to our respective summits at Savernake. There the canal passes beneath the railway in Bruce Tunnel at the site of Savernake Low Level station – and the remains of the Midland & South Western Junction Railway (M&SWJR which ran from Andover to Swindon) cross over us shortly beforehand and run alongside. We then descend, reaching our train’s maximum permitted speed of 75mph as we run through Pewsey station, before turning in to the Woodborough Down Goods Loop to allow faster trains to pass. Under way once more, our line descends and curves left after the site of Patney & Chirton station as we follow the ‘new’ 1900-built Stert & Westbury cut-off route avoiding the twisty route via Devizes whose closed remains climb up beside us. On approach to Westbury, we turn right at Heywood Road Junction in order to head for Westbury station rather than the avoiding line; as the video fades, we are signalled to the right towards Bath.
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Did you know? Crofton Pumping Station was restored and reopened in 1970 by Sir John Betjeman.
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During the weekend when this was filmed, the Great Western route via Didcot was completely closed for electrification work, with many diverted services vying for pathways over the “Berks & Hants” route.
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This outing began at Hastings and ran via Tonbridge, Redhill and Guildford to Reading, then via Hungerford (part 1) to the Westbury area (this video) 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 one occasion there was audio which we are not permitted to publish, in this case the soundtrack you hear on this video is instead an accurately synchronised audio recording made in the rear cab.
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0:49 – HUNGERFORD station
4:45 – Froxfield Bottom Lock (no. 70)
9:19 – Bedwyn station
10:40 – Crofton Lock Flight and pumping station
11:54 – Site of Grafton Curve Junction (M&SWJR)
12:32 – Site of Wolfhall Junction (M&SWJR)
13:09 – Savernake summits and disused station
14:29 – Burbage Wharf disused station
15:59 – Wootton Rivers Halt disused station
17:58 – Pewsey station
19:22 – Manningford Halt disused station
22:30 – Woodborough disused station and Down Goods Loop
28:00 – departure from Woodborough loop
31:46 – Patney and Chirton disused station
32:58 – Divergence of former line to Devizes
36:57 – Lavington disused station
40:32 – Edington and Bratton disused station
44:51 – Westbury HEYWOOD ROAD JUNCTION
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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 Hungerford to Westbury (Heywood Road Junction) – Hastings DEMU cab ride – 24 March 2018 канала Hastings Diesels Ltd