Gotta love the sound of a 70

It is my considered opinion that Highways England should suspend all motorway roadworks when a guys trying to get home for one of Don's premiers

Absolutely without doubt the best cab rides anywhere. This particular trip was amazing, that 70 is a brutal bit of kit! And that noise! Wowser!! Excellent stuff, keep up the good work.

Had some time to spare so revisited your videos after a break of several months. Was very interested in this video because of the section between Hazel Grove and Northenden. I lived in Cheadle as a child and spent lots of time train spotting with my friend at Cheadle Heath station. This was in the fifties and in the winter the porter used to let us sit by water column brazier at the south end of the branch platform. A constant stream of trains hauled by Stanier 2-8-0s Fowler 0-8-0s Austerity 2-8-0S and on lighter trains Fowler 0-6-0s, would come up from the Northenden direction and every one stopped for water ready for the climb to the Peak District, including the vacuum braked bogie hoppers which ran from Tunstead to ICI at Northwich. Then every hour a London or Manchester Central bound express would thunder through pulled by a Jubilee. ?There were extensive carriage sidings to accommodate the stock for the commuter trains from Central which were usually hauled by a 2-6-2 tank. A large water tower and turntable were located in the corner by the road junction with Adswood road, and there were an number of sidings for coal and a very large goods shed which were often shunted by a 6 er from Heaton Mersey shed. Apart from the single line nothing remains and I wondered when I called at Morrisons a while back whether it was still in use. Good to see that it is and especially the section from Hazel Grove to New Mills. Is this used as an alternative for trains from Manchester to Sheffield instead of via Romiley? I saw the vacuum braked hoppers pass Knutsford a few years back but I guess that since they had been in service, I think from the late thirties they were life expired as I have not seen them recently. On your journey from Hindlow to Crewe you went via Romiley and Guide Bridge. That seems quite a long way round and I wondered why you were not routed the same way as on the light engine movement. Please to see the Northwich Sandbach line is still in use. You mentioned railtours; I travelled this line in 1967 behind a standard 2-10-0 on a tour of goods and truncated lines, including the link from Molesworth to Helsby West Cheshire Junction. I am very impressed by the quality of your work, comments, useful technical information, and that fact that you support a charity. Also watched the Chester to Holyhead today and as I now live in Anglesey I was delighted that you had such wonderful weather to show North Wales at its best. Keep up the good work

In the last couple of years my structures examination team has taken over inspection duties on the SNJ line between Northwich and Sandbach. Fascinating to get a drivers eye view of the tracks I've been walking recently! Great video as always.

These videos are so cool. I love train journeys, they're my favorite form of transport. Something so relaxing--the views from the windows, the throb of the engine, the clatter of the tracks.

Marvellous , Christmas eve on a freight line , yonder pheasants and the wise men in the signal boxes ( ? ) Great video 👍🇬🇧

Great video Don. I love that not only do I get a cab ride, I get your commentary and educative comments - and by watching a few ads I get to support the Samaritans too. I don’t underestimate all the effort and time you put in to editing these videos - but they are of such a high standard I expect it takes a while. And being able to support the Samaritans - it’s a win win for me. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing to us almost two hours of great entertainment.

Very good, really enjoyed the film. The commentary is also very helpful to follow on a rail atlas. For me the most interesting part was the industrial sites around Northwich. I remember my Northwich station visit (12/Aug/1999):- bar on the station and a fish & chip shop outside. Great!

Another great video. Thanks Don

Thank you for this fascinating video, Don. Interesting to see that tedious stretch through Middlewich, and the avoiding lines into Basford Hall, which reminded me of my spotting days at the north end of Crewe station when trains would suddenly appear out of the tunnel with no warning and would never give us the chance to tick them off!

Great video. I was a guard at Bescot in the early seventies and remember the first time I travelled between Crew and Sandbach. The track was like a big dipper you had to see it to believe it. I was told that this was due to the salt in the ground being dissolved by water. Before I worked on the railways I worked on the canals and used to go to Preston Brook some times. In several places the canal went through lakes called flashes which again was caused by the water dissolving the salt below in the ground. Thanks again for your very good videos.

As always, another great video and a pleasure to watch. Thank you!!

Interesting and informative as usual thank you.

Thank you for a great video. Great footage. What the driver has to learn and absorb is astonishing, route knowledge, signals, etc, so these videos give a great insight too.

Thanks for this Don. Much appreciated

Great video as usual Don, thank you

Thank you so much for this video, loved it. Really well edited and hats off to you and Vinny for this. Not just relaxing, I find this videos really good for testing my concentration as I would love to be a driver for a freight company in a few years time. Thank you, Don, Brilliant.

what a brilliant video, thank you

Another great video. Don, thank you for all your effort in making these videos.

Another fine video Don, thankyou as usual.

Great as usual Don ,love the sound of the 70!!

A great tour! Thanks Don! Cheers mate!

Another great vid. Many thks. I could watch these vids all day. To one and all, please do more of them.

Thoroughly enjoyed this video. Especially liked the running commentary on places and history. As always, the scenery is beautiful.

Oooooooo I loved that one Don. Thanks to the driver for the insite, also for opening the window at key times to listen to 70's engine, mmm lovely. And finally my son says well done for the over use of tones coming to the first crossing. He loved it. Big THANKS Don

Excellent as ever Don. Really enjoyed it thanks.

Great film once again Don, many thanks for uploading.

Another excellent video as always, and it's good to have the class 70 as the soundtrack. Great job all round :)

Again, thanks Don to you and all concerned for another excellent, entertaining video.

Thank you Don and thank you FREIGHTLINER. Another great video. Keep them coming.

Another excellent video Don. Great to see all these different lines around the place

Another great interesting and informative video Don. Thanks

Very many thanks Don for another terrific cab ride. Your captions are always very informative and amusing. (What a lovely noise the Class 70 makes.)

Masterclass in Teamwork. Well done Driver and Don.

Thanks for bringing us another top video, Don (& Freightliner for making it possible) I'll have to split up my viewing time on this one as well, but with not quite so many brews as your epic Hindlow to Crewe 3 hour marathon! :) EDIT or Bedford to Earles

Great video Don , thanks for sharing

Thanks Don ,another top draw vid .info packed as per .made a nice end to the day .please keep em comming 👃

Thank you Don! Lovely cuppa and sofa job!

Great to see another one of your videos Don. Keep them coming.

Thank you, Don. Another excellent video, packed with interesting details about working and routes. It was especially interesting in the light of your reply to my query as to why the Hindlow to Crewe train did not follow this route, in your video of nine months ago or so. And your commentary often alluded to other issues of that kind - the fact that part of the route had been the Midland Railway's "racetrack" to Manchester Central (high speed no more!), and the fascinating complexity of the junctions around Heaton and Timperley. The class 70s make a distinctive sound!

Excellent as ever!

An excellent, enjoyable and informative video Don . Your videos helped me through lockdown . They have certainly inspired us to ‘ ditch the car ‘ wherever possible and travel by train . Now armed with national railcards we have travelled to York , Leeds and Glasgow by train . Also numerous journeys in and around Great Manchester. Thanks again

Another very good video Don Thanks. I like the freight ones gives us chance to see lines that we don’t normally see.

Hey Don, it's good to be watching your latest videos again and that too after a long time. Hope you have more such freight train videos in the near future as well. Thanks for sharing. 😀😀😀

I grew up in Middlewich and spent a lot of time at the house seen on the right at 1.27.20 (Cross Lane), I used to walk around the fields and train line back in the late 1990s. So much hasn't changed but a lot has - especially the development of the previous farmlands. Thanks for sharing.

Another superb video Don, beautifully edited and very informative as ever. As a lifelong railway enthusiast I'm constantly surprised how much I was not aware of, for example why semaphore signal lenses are blue! Thank you again for all your hard work producing these videos, you are a true gentleman.

At last a Class 70 cab ride! I was not disappointed! Would love to see one with a fully loaded train too. Well done on yet another super video Don.

As a narrowboater, I have regularly moored near Whatcroft Hall. One canal guide declared it unused. As I read this a freight train clanked by over the bridge! (Recently rebuilt, I noticed when passing south.) Thanks for a fascinating video.

Cannot wait for this 😁

Great stuff. Staggeringly, my Mrs was glued when she realised you were going straight past the end of our garden (just past Plumley). You have a new convert!

Brilliant Don thank you.

Fantastic! Thank you 😊

thank you Mr. Coffey for your wonderful videos. It is a pleasure to get to know the U.K.'s enviable rail network.

A "must watch again & again" for me Don, thanks very much. I've never seen footage of the old Midland route from Hazel Grove to Northenden & of the Middlewich branch before, so incredibly interesting for me. Nice to hear a class 70 in action too. A class 60 or a Grid would also be nice - hint hint! 😉

Love all the videos over the years. Thanks for each of them. I’d love to see how locos are connected to each other via the electric cables (on a head to head) or passenger train and why locos use a bar to connect to the first wagon and chain links from wagon to wagon. Keep up the good work, love it.

A real corker! (To resurrect a phrase from my fifties childhood). Thanks once again, Don.

John from NSW ;In my days the distant was a fish tail .Another great video Thank you Don.

I've subbed, can't wait to see more of this lovely content!

And another jewel of a video, Thanks for the ride and comments Don. Though I will confess started to feel anxious with the bogies thrashing sound, like if they were coming off the track and bouncing on the ground.

Another fabulous trip.many thanks to Don & the Driver. I grew up in Northwich and it’s hard to believe that the area around the station was busy with a sizeable Motive Power Depot or ‘Shed’ as we used to call it. Home to a sizeable fleet of locos including the wonderful Stanier 8Fs which worked the Limestone trains between Buxton and ICI Wallerscote along a lot of this route through Cheshire. As commented there used to be an occasional passenger train on the Middlewich Branch known as the Dodger.

Dry Christmas Don! (Blushes and looks at floor) I couldn’t watch the premier, but I got notified and looked at it. I marked it for “watch later” and I guess this is later. Watched the Great Lakes ships go to bed during January. Fascinating. Came out in March. I am always learning. Thank you for helping me my friend!

Thank you Don very interesting video. hope all had a great Christmas.

The first part of the ride takes in so much railway history that is all a vivid living memory for me. My uncle Harold was the SM at Edale in the 60s before transferring to Seamer. I can remember the Midland line in the final days of its full glorry with long peak hauled trains of maroon and red and cream coached crossing the Mersey. And of course, the old Cheadle junction, Northenden line when it was doubled and masivly busy with freight. The view toward Stockport from Cheadle station or Abney hall was a fascinating forest of old chimneys and semaphore signals, no motorway. It all looked very open too. The railways were prominent, neat and visible. How things have changed!

Excellent!

Thanks Don, for this wonderful trip! I'm sure the horses were scared of the locos as they know how many of their bretheren are trapped inside that metal shell!! On the other hand, cows seems to be fascinated by trains, for some reason!!

Thanks Don, looking forward to the next one.

Great footage.Thank you. Interesting and distinctive noise from the 70. Living yards from the WCML in North Bucks, depending on the wind direction, you could hear the noise they made some miles off, either north of Hanslope Junction or south from Wolverton. Awesome! Sadly they are a rare sight these days.

Not only are these videos a pleasure to watch when you're a wee bit "smashed" with Hawkwind on in the background, they're also educational - Hale Station originating from the Old English "Halh" meaning nook or shelter. Awesome!!

Another great video!

Mega thanks Don 🙂👍

Love the videos you make, it helped me through lockdown, and keep me sane, keep them coming, the class 70 is a locomotive that's growing on me any more with the class 70? Hope so once again thank you and carry on with the great work

Another good video Don. Thoroughly enjoyed it was light engine, really did.

Thanks Don and, to Freightliner, for another fab video. I hope the driver made it back home to Derbyshire OK

Thanks Don, hope all is OK with you. A great video and always delighted to see my old home town of Timperley/Altrincham featuring again! not seen a 70 in action so good to hear what they sound like, quite a good sounding loco. Would be interesting to see a vid from a heritage loco dont know if that's possible one day, take care. Mike

Everything totally informative & brilliant. Forward looking ‘ FREIGHTLINERS’ too! Thank you all.

Sorry I missed the premier but I'm glad to see that the driver was, "Giving it the Berries!" 🙂 Thanks as ever Don.

G'day Don. Cancer + eviction ain't fun, so nice to have something so normal to enjoy. Thank-you. Many people in our world can't even enjoy this much atm, good onya for your charitable viewpoint.

Fab video Don wandering through the countryside with a 70 growling away. Lovely stuff, though mrs pheasant didnt want to move ehh. lol. Also nice to see where the 60s engines were made too.

Thanks for another informative video. Couple of comments, was Altringham station not at some point named Altringham & Bowden (hence the Bowden depot). Back in my Freightliner days we used to carry Teyra Ethyl Lead to and from the continent in special 20' tank containers. The tanks were small, with a heavy armoured framework to protect them. It's extremely nasty stuff, even a hint of a leak stopped the job instantly. Lead free fuel meant that it was no longer being moved, in many ways we were glad to see the back of it.

Quality video Don thank you

Nice trip Don I also watch the swedish rail system very modern and well run lines .

Great video. Nice to see the view the public don't get. I buried my dad in 2017, a train driver of 30 years. Coming back to Scotland I asked to sit in hst back cab !! Conductor spoke with driver & said why I'd asked. But policy denied me. I understand why, but was disappointed

I really do enjoy your amazing videos since I have subscribed. Very impressing video. 🙂

Locomotives obviously needed at Crewe on Christmas Eve as it's the base for Santa's present-distribution network for northwest England. Surprised you didn't know that, Don!

very nice. thank you

Excellent production, Don. It must be over thirty years since I went down the stretch from Hazel Grove Midland to Northenden Junction, and that was on a Sunday ballast near the old Cheadle station. Things have most certainly changed at Cheadle Heath, where that Morrisons store now stands. Years ago, when I started on the railway there used to be a quite large Smiths Crisps factory in that area. As regards the route from Northwich to Sandbach, I last went along that line when I was at Llandudno Junction, and trains were diverted along there due to engineering on the Chester to Crewe line, and that was over thirty years ago. I'm fairly sure that as well as the salt sidings there was a BP chemical works siding more towards Sandbach on that line, well at least back in the early 80s. Anyhow Don, this is a most enjoyable journey, bringing back many good memories of the old BR days, and thank you so much.

Thank you Don for another great video,hope you and the family are well?🚂🚂🚂🚂

Thanks for this, Don. When I was very small, more years ago thatn I care to admit, I used to refer to diesel multiple units as "diesel dodgers". As I was brought up in the Northwich area, I presume, sixty years later, that the the phrase came from the Middlewich branch.

Great video Dan, that section coming into Sandbach reminds me of sections of the Far North line. Not been upgraded since it was laid about 100 years ago and local passenger trains are restricted to 20 - especially through the Flow Country.

Great as usual! A lot of single track running

BRAVO Don!

Loved this virtual cab ride. I recognised a few landmarks around Hazel Grove, Cheadle and Knutsford. Let me know when I can hop on for a ride 🙂 Subbed.

Love it!. I grew up in Sandbach and I always wondered what the Middlewich branch would be like to travel on - my older brother used to ride the "Dodger" in the 50s.

another great ride mate . stayed for a month at Northenden cheers

Another great video. You're the standard others should aspire to! Didn't realise what ridiculously slow speed limits there are on some freight lines, even if the track is arrow straight.

Glad to see you support the samaritans

Hi Don - ex Metrolink (and current Northern) driver here. Regarding the 'Metrolink going from Green to Red' you mention around 46:40 - what you will see (46:45) is a diamond sign with a 'station ahead' board beneath it. This acts as a fixed distant albeit not to the same style as a railway fixed distant. These applied on the block signalling sections, and there were also some regular distant signals where the sections were longer with no stations (there are also a couple on the gantry between Navigation Road and Altrincham)

Hi Don, Reminds me of the route from Newport to Hereford, double track through open farmland with the mountains in the background and semaphore signals. I drive the Hereford route regularly for GWR, we do empty stock moves to and from Hereford and Bristol via Newport. It's right what you say about knowing where the signals are. One of our guys stopped at a semaphore signal at Morton-in-Marsh in fog, he could see the signal post, but when he looked up, the signal head was hidden in the fog, so he had to ring the signaller to ask if the signal was off. So you can see, knowing where the signal is is essential. Cheers Rich

So many train companies which laid down a plethora of tracks which, even post Beeching, give us a network of possible routes to allow freight to travel freely......