DRS Open Days are a lottery...you punch your email in each year, and maybe a ticket will arrive in due course. It never has for me. This time around, by buying a copy of their actually very classy looking calendar, I assured myself of the chance to get into Gresty Bridge Depot. Even then, there was no word from DRS until a couple of weeks before the event - and a speculative booking to Crewe looked like it might need to be extended elsewhere. However, eventually the ticket arrived and I found myself boarding the early train today with a bunch of locals all heading the same way. There was a sense of occasion which harked back to the last open day at Crewe Works in some ways - and though this was on a much smaller scale, there were a good few familiar faces heading north. Changed onto the quiet and thankfully cool Voyager at Bristol, and had breakfast and a chat with some cohorts before another change at New Street. A few among us hadn't experienced the Class 350 before and were pleasantly surprised as modern units go. Like always when large groups of cranks are in one place, the atmosphere became a strange mixture of humour, extreme seriousness and plain oddity. Enjoyed the ride up through Stafford to Crewe very much.

At Crewe, decided to wait for the Swindon-Llandudno charter to pass through before heading for the Depot. This had 47270 at the helm, and I was keen to get a shot as the last time I'd seen this loco it had been very dark indeed! A fair crowd was in evidence which signalled a busy day at the Depot. Had already decided to walk if the heritage bus service was busy, but on heading out of the station found one waiting with plenty of seats available for the short run down Gresty Lane to the gates. The bus used the entrance to Freightliner's side of Basford Hall Yard as a turning circle too, giving a tempting glance over the sidings! A short walk into the depot, and charitable donation made, we were greeted with a small site teeming with DRS locos. The crowds and the lack of space made moving around without getting in someone's shot fairly challenging, but most people managed to be fair and polite about it - certainly an improvement on some open days I've attended.

One of the highlights of the day was the naming of refurbished 37409 as "Lord Hinton" by the grandson of this pioneer of the nuclear power industry. As 37409 will play a part in the final MAGNOX decommissioning programmes, it seems fitting that the loco should be named after the man who started it all. Will be good to see 37409 out on a tour soon too, as the loco looks and sounds fantastic. Also in attendance was a line up of four out of the five 66/3s, latterly owned by Fastline until the liquidation of Jarvis, their parent company. These locos formed the boundary of the site, and there were frequent dashes to the ends of the line of engines to see what was happening on the mainline, with some interesting Freightliner manoeuvres happening. Given the recent lack of Class 20s on tours, it was notable that only two were in evidence, a very tidy looking 20308 and a rather forlorn 20306 marked up as "on decision". With the commitment to provide locos to TfL for Underground stock moves, trips behind these venerable locos will become something of a rarity. It will be interesting to see what happens to the upcoming multi-traction tour on 31st July in fact...

In conjunction with the DRS event, the Heritage Centre at Crewe was also offering reduced price entry to ticket-holders. So, after a quick lunch and a final wander around the now very busy and very hot site, we boarded the bus once again. I hadn't been to what was formerly known as "The Railway Age" for a good many years, and it was great to see the prototype APT-P still on display. The interior of a number of the coaches seemed to have been tidied up somewhat - but I don't think some among us realised quite the effort this had taken, with the project literally dumped by BR and the preservation a seeming impossibility back then. Thought a bit about how we'd got into the strange mess of imported vehicles, cancelled orders and complicated railway politics, before moving on to look at 87035 'Robert Burns' resplendent in BR Blue - another age of West Coast motive power, which had outlived the APT and only gave way almost 30 years later when we imported a train which built on our own work in the field of high speed travel.

Shook off the gloom with a turn on the break van rides, hauled by 03073 along the short stretch of track near the relocated Exeter West signal box! Then, had spell on the viewing platform at Crewe North Junction, and a pleasant walk back to the station. Arrived to find 47826 and 47851 passing through for a crew-change, before watching the loco-hauled Holyhead arrive and detach it's loco. Plenty of activity and a chance to sit and watch the station go about it's business. At this point our little group parted - some booked on different trains, others deciding to take a different route home. So, I settled into my seat on a pleasantly cool Virgin service back to Birmingham, and caught up with some listening as we sped south. It had been a good, old-fashioned open day with plenty to see and a chance to catch up and chat with people. A welcome diversion from the strange situation I find myself in at work too. DRS put on a fine display and I hope I can somehow find a way to the next one too.

There are some strange things trundling about the railway network these days! It's always interesting to watch people's reactions as the huge High Output Ballast Cleaning train snakes through a station, or when some obscure bit of On-Track Plant thunders by. However, most of the things us passengers can travel on have become a little uniform and dull over the years. But as someone with an interest in travelling on the rails as much as watching things go by, I'm always keen to try out the latest stuff to arrive - and I try to dodge the heritage snobbery which can cloud judgement so easily. So, having heard that London Midland now had both of their Parry People Mover flywheel railcars in operation, I took the opportunity of being in the Midlands to have a look.

The short journey from Stourbridge Junction to the Town station was quick, quiet and surprisingly comfortable. The interior is arranged to maximise standing space, rather like an underground train - but could easily accommodate a wheelchair too. The ride was a little lively, but how much of that was down to the condition of the ageing branchline is hard to say. The single unit seemed to cope well enough with the intensive service and quick turnarounds too.

For short journeys on self-contained branches like this, I can see a future for this kind of low-cost, low-carbon convenient travel. But there's no hiding the fact it's a strange looking beast indeed!

Whilst I have many obsessions, niggling irritations and obsessive compulsions, I don't really have many ambitions. Getting to Fishguard Harbour on a real train has become all of the above. People who know me in real life will know the frustration this has caused me, and regular readers will have seen my previous attempts fail.

So today, having little else planned and wishing to make a quick escape. I decided to try again. After hearing last week of 37417 failing and the train being cancelled completely, I figured that the law of averages pointed to things working out today. To be safe, bought a day return to Cardiff Central for starters. Changed swiftly at Bristol onto a Wales-bound 158. Just prior to departure a veritable armada of Spanish students swamped the train, providing an uncomfortable, cramped and noisy ride to Cardiff.

Arrived at Central to find the station in some disarray due to flooding overnight. The ticket office was closed completely, having suffered a torrent of water which worked its way through the trackbed above and into the building due to the persistent heavy rain. Purchased provisions and then got a day return to Fishguard from the solitary man with a ticket machine who was deputising for the entire booking office today!

Approaching 1016 and still the display showed Platform 7, there were no obvious replacement units on the station, and the growing crowd of notable faces indicated it might just happen. At just a minute or so past the alloted time, trusty 37419 rumbled in.

There isn't much more I can write about the journey to and from Fishguard which I haven't covered before, except perhaps to clarify the route of the return leg. It isn't booked via The Vale of Glamorgan at all - in fact the service runs via the South Wales Mainline to Leckwith Junction, then sits around outside Canton Depot for almost 45 minutes before heading into Central and thence to Rhymney. As we pressed on westward, the rain ceased and the sun came out. A pleasant run all-in-all. Its a pretty poor photograph, but for the sake of completeness here is a shot of 37419 having arrived, taken from as close as possible to the same spot as the previous picture of 158826.

Sleepy ride back, including a change at Bridgend - a long fester at Canton might have been interesting but I just wasn't in the mood for it today! Noticed my occasional presence but relative silence has made me an object of note and some ridicule, but not unduly bothered. Pleased just to have managed to get this journey under my belt!

It seems that my employer is considering a change of image. So, perhaps soon we will see the back of the subdued dark green and burgundy which reportedly appear 'unapproachable' and 'complacent'. In their place, new vibrant hues reflecting dynamism and progress. Perhaps the council should really push the boat out and invest in an ever changing coruscation of colours reflecting the current mood and status of its services - a real-time 'key performance indicator' for the information-on-demand age?

This got me thinking again about the corporate insignia - what future does it have, and more pressingly - what really is it?

The emblem - commonly referred to as a Dragon by most employees has its origins in the arms of the County of Somerset. Granted in 1911, the blazon of the arms is 'Or, a Dragon Rampant Gules holding in the claws a Mace erect Azure'. So, it is indeed a 'Golden Dragon'- heraldic splendour hijacked by the chinese takeaway? A battered version of this emblem, the mace cruelly truncated, can still be seen on the Magistrates' Court building in Weston-super-Mare, close by the new, stylised North Somerset flag. Risking an Anti-social Behaviour Order, you could throw a stone from the Town Hall to the courthouse.


Others, who have little better to do than consider such things, refer to the emblem as a Gryphon. These mythical mongrels are 'beasts like lions, with the wings and beak of an eagle' according to Pausanias. It is perhaps hard to make the case for the Gryphon (or Griffin) as the figure bears little resemblance to a lion in any respect, and clearly sports a lizard-like tongue placing it firmly outside the realm of birds.

Having ruled out the Gryphon, I note that locally, the Wyvern too is a common name for schools and businesses. This 'fabulous two-legged, winged creature, like a cockatrice, but having the head of a dragon, and without spurs' is usually depicted with a long, barbed tail which it bears in a knot. This casts some doubt on the heraldic description of Somerset County's arms - as the creature depicted is almost certainly a Wyvern, a dragon being a four-legged beast. However, Somerset's mace-wielding monster clearly wears spurs. If we accept that this odd heraldic hybrid is a wyvern, it would go some way to explaining the use of the word locally in Weston and elsewhere in the existing and former county areas.

To solve the mystery however, heraldry is our only hope. North Somerset's unusually rightward facing (and therefore 'forward looking') insignia has no legs whatsoever. In heraldry, a dragon without feet is a Serpent.

So, is the Serpent a fitting emblem for our council? It seems to preserve our historic links with Somerset, and beyond to ancient legend. It is said to be 'forward looking', which I think most of my colleagues at least, seem to be. However, its worth remembering that a serpent is also 'a subtle, treacherous, malicious person'. You know who you are!

Links:

Pimbley's Directory of Heraldry
Gryphon Pages
Celebrating Somerset - The Coat of Arms
Somerset County Council
North Somerset Council