Newport (Maindee East Jn) to Hereford – Hastings DEMU cab ride – 24 March 2018

The Sixty Marches charter, Part 5:
Cab view from Newport (Maindee East Junction) up the Welsh Marches Line to Hereford. 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 43 miles and 79 chains in 51 minutes across Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, crossing and re-crossing the Wales/England border and skimming the edge of the Brecon Beacons. Initially we are on the Pontypool, Caerleon & Newport Railway which was built to act as a ‘bypass’ for the busy Monmouthshire Railway south of Pontypool, which the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway had originally been obliged to share. In the Pontypool area we pass a vast area which used to be heavily industrialised and served by many railway lines... all of them gone except for the one we are on, passing abandoned industry, overgrown railway sidings and a suspiciously new-looking housing estate. North of Pontypool we are on the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway proper, and at Abergavenny we pass first the existing station and then the site of a huge station of which nothing remains. Our climb steepens to 1 in 82 and our speed eventually stabilises at 40mph as we crest the summit at Llanvihangel, thereafter we have a fast run on downhills and moderate grades into Herefordshire and eventually down into the City of Hereford.
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This outing began at Hastings and ran via Tonbridge, Redhill and Guildford to Reading; then from Reading via Hungerford (part 1) to the Westbury area (part 2) where we turned right at Heywood Road Junction, through Bradford-on-Avon and Bath to Filton (part 3), through the Severn Tunnel into Wales, to Maindee Junction (Newport) (part 4) for the line through Abergavenny to Hereford (this part); the return journey was via the same route.
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Video footage is from an unattended unmonitored forward-facing cab-camera in motor coach 60116 Mountfield.
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1:23 – Newport MAINDEE EAST JUNCTION
4:23 – Maindee North Junction
7:34 – Caerleon disused station
9:22 – Ponthir disused station
10:54 – Llantarnam disused station
11:31 – site of Llantarnam Junction
12:50 – Cwmbran station
13:09 – Lower Pontnewydd disused station
14:05 – Chapel Lane Ground Frame – Panteg Goods Loops
14:53 – site of Panteg Junction and former steelworks
15:36 – site of Coedygric Junction
16:40 – site of Coedygric North Junction
17:04 – Pontypool and New Inn station
18:36 – Little Mill Junction, Signal Box & disused station
20:48 – Nantyderry disused station
22:51 – Penpergwm disused station
24:40 – Abergavenny Signal Box and station
25:58 – site of Abergavenny Junction and disused station
30:44 – Llanvihangel disused station and the summit of the line
33:09 – Pandy disused station
37:02 – Pontrilas Signal Box and disused station
37:15 – site of Pontrilas Junction
40:05 – St Devereux disused station
42:07 – Tram Inn Signal Box and disused station
44:09 – Red Hill Tunnel
45:10 – site of Red Hill Junction
46:59 – site of Rotherwas Junction
48:57 – HEREFORD.
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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/rai...
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Equipment: video by GoPro Hero3+ camera with focus modification, suction-mount and extra batteries; 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/dia...
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Here are annotated extracts from the Network Rail Section Appendix:
Outward: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nexbk2jdnmp...
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/kana0042y09...
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