News

“The All Good Things” and “The Blaze of Glory” - two tours featuring the ACTS Class 58s!
Posted 25 April
As hinted earlier this year, we have pleasure in providing details and a booking form for Mercia Charters’ “The All Good Things” and “The Blaze of Glory” railtours which both feature Class 58 haulage in the Netherlands.

Run over two days of the weekend in June (21 and 22), the tour also features representatives of ACTS’ Class 6700 diesels and 1250 electrics and covers literally hundreds of kilometres. The Class 58 is expected to be the main train engine on both days and it has been requested that a different loco is used on each day. Fast mainline running with the occasional branch line and photo stops have all been requested and with ACTS expecting to finish with the Class 58s this year, this looks like a tour NOT to be missed! Ironically, the Saturday tour covers much of the route of the “Veendam Shuttle” – the route plied by the 58s on a daily basis. Even if you can only manage one of the two days, we still strongly recommend it. Full details of the proposed routes on each day, along with a set of maps, can be found on the ACTS Farewell additional web page on our site and we will post updates on our website as soon as the information becomes available.

For full details of the tour, including an outline route map, please see the new ACTS Farewell page of our website, and you can download a booking form here.



Heljan Update
Posted 25 April
Further to the information posted earlier this year about the forthcoming second batch of the Class 58s, it has been established that there are some minor changes to the models that are due to appear and that 58041 Ratcliffe Power Station will appear in the Railfreight red-stipe livery instead of the previously advised 58038. A release date of “around September” has been mooted.



58 reasons to save a 58...?
Railtalk magazine, supporters of the Class 58 Locomotive Group, have set us a task to see if we can think of 58 reasons why a Class 58 should be saved and for a bit of fun we thought we would open this up to everyone. So, if you can think of any reasonable suggestions for this task, we would love to hear from you! Please e-mail any suggestions and we’ll see how many we can come up with!



AGM activities...
A quick ‘thank you’ to all the members that made the effort to attend our 2008 Annual General meeting today (29 March) at Wabtec’s Doncaster Works. This was one of, if not the most productive meeting we have held to date and much was discussed. For those members who were unable to attend, a full copy of the minutes of the meeting and the latest financial statement will be sent to (all) members with the June magazine. After the main meeting Keith Bulmer made a short presentation on the trials and tribulations of preserving a Type 5 loco with his personal experience in the matter - helping to inspect, purchase, transport and restore the Class 56 Group’s 56040 Oystermouth. Finally, to end the day, the attendees embarked on a guided tour of the workshops to see many units undergoing refurbishment and overhaul - a very interesting experience indeed.
The Class 58 Locomotive Group would like to thank Mike Roe and Wabtec for permission to hold our meeting at Doncaster and to Derek Porter for his excellent guided tour of the workshops.



More ‘Bone’ models from Heljan... (liveries updated 09-Feb-07)
Heljan have recently issued their 2008-releases programme. Amongst other locos such as various Class 26s, more Class 47s, a handful of limited-edition Falcons and the Class 17 ‘Clayton’ in its various guises, the second batch of Class 58 models are shown to be due out in August, comprising of:
* 58009 in Mainline grey 
* 58024 in EW&S maroon/gold
* 58038 in original Railfreight red-stripe
* 58048 ‘Coventry Colliery’ in Trainload Coal
We hope that Heljan have taken note of a few of the issues that have arisen with the first batch of 58 models and will improve their attention-to-detail with this second run of locos, modelling them to an even higher standard than before.

The Class 58 Locomotive Group have provided a detailed review of the first batch of Heljan Class 58s now they are on general release and this will appear in the next issue of Traction magazine. The review will also appear in full (all 12 pages of it!) as a supplement to the March issue of Red Diamond and in time this will appear in the ‘Models’ section of this website which can be found on the left hand menu, or by typing www.c58lg.co.uk/html/models.html into your browser.



Passenger working info...
With thanks to Steve Kemp, we have updated one of 58009’s and two of 58030’s passenger workings. 58009 failed at Castle Bromwich whilst hauling a Nuneaton ‘drag’ on the 15th March 1987. The stricken train was rescued by fellow ‘type 5’ 56086. Meanwhile, it has been identified that on the 30th November 1986 58030 worked to and from Wolverhampton (not Birmingham New Street as previously thought) with the 11.00 Wolves-Euston (to Nuneaton) and back to Wolverhampton with the 11.00 ex-Euston.



Heljan Class 58s have landed...
Having been shipped on the 20th December 2007, a number of the Heljan Class 58 models (yes, the very ones which we have been raving about lately) have finally hit the shops in early January 2008! The general consensus from the comments that have been read and heard over the last few days appears to be generally positive which is good news. As with any model there seem to be some negative points, nothing that couldn’t be put right with a little care, but we look forward to being able to bring you a fully detailed review in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we have added a new page to our fotopic site which has some photos of a handful of the models - see http://c58lg.fotopic.net/c1433893.html. More pictures to be added shortly!
On the subject of photos of Class 58 models, another page on the C58LG fotopic site now exists which gives a pictorial step-by-step view of the construction of an ‘O’ gauge model destined to become 58049 - see our own ‘O’ gauge models page and take a look at the fotopic site for the step-by-step guide.



Class 58s as Lickey Bankers...?
A new website, dedicated to the two-mile long 1:37 climb between Bromsgrove and Blackwell has been set up (here) and the author is interested in knowing about any occasions where Class 58s have been used to assist heavy or failed freight trains up the ascent. If anyone has any information about these activities, both the Lickey Incline website and the Class 58 Locomotive Group would be interested in hearing from you.



Class 58s carrying Toton depot plaques
As part of research being undertaken by the Class 58 Locomotive Group, we are seeking help regarding depot plaques carried by the fleet. We can’t find any photographic proof that 58039 and 58049 ever carried the Toton depot plaque while the locos were painted in the Trainload Coal / triple grey / Mainline freight liveries. If anyone can help with this appeal we would be most grateful, especially if photographs could be provided as proof!



WANTED: Class 58 video footage
The Class 58 Locomotive Group has been approached by a company who wishes to produce a Class 58 DVD and has made an appeal to help provide footage for this compilation. If anyone has any footage of the 58s at all - from the 1980s to the present day overseas work that they are willing to share with others, please get in touch or send a copy of it to the C58LG Chairman who will arrange for it to be forwarded on. All formats of video can be used - VHS, Cine, Hi 8 and DVD formats accepted.