Hi Readers,

May 2025 marks one year since Traction began! A big thank you to Sarah, our community rail officer, for helping make this blog possible, and to Oliver for his great contributions—especially his photography and the Ffestiniog Railway post he wrote himself. I would also like to thank Glyn, Ros and Rob for taking me on the majority of these blog post trips, I wouldn’t have had as much writing material or fun without them.

If you have any ideas or want to contribute to Traction, I’d love to hear from you! Drop me an email at MatthewWaltersPLP@outlook.com.

This Month’s Trip: Stafford

This month, I visited Stafford on the West Coast Main Line with one of my fellow PLP volunteers. The station has been around since 1837, though the current building dates back to 1962. It has five platforms—but no Platform 2! That bay platform is now closed, and another disused platform, unofficially known as Platform 7, was once used by Royal Mail. Back then, Class 325 EMUs handled mail, but Royal Mail stopped running mail trains in October 2024. Since then, 10 of their Class 325s have been scrapped, and the old platform now sits abandoned, logo still in place.

Passenger services at Stafford are operated by:

  • Avanti West Coast

  • London Northwestern Railway (LNWR)

  • CrossCountry

Avanti has started using new Hitachi “Evero” units—Class 805s and 807s—to replace its ageing Class 221 “Super Voyager” trains. The Class 390 “Pendolino” sets, which many will remember from Virgin Trains, are still going strong.

LNWR mainly runs Class 350 “Desiro” units but is now introducing Class 730 “Aventra” sets to replace the older 350/2s. We actually travelled on a Class 350 from Crewe to Stafford—it was a smooth ride.

CrossCountry continues to run both Class 220 and Class 221 units, including some transferred from Avanti.

Freight & Locos

Stafford sees a fair amount of freight, which usually uses platforms 4 & 5—but we even saw a freight train come down the fast line, which is rare!

Some of the locomotives we spotted included:

  • Class 66 – Like I’ve mentioned before, the Class 66 is the most common locomotive in the UK, so you will essentially see these anywhere and everywhere. There are hundreds and hundreds of Class 66s.

 

  • Class 68 – Direct Rail Services still run their Class 68 locomotives on freight runs. Today, we saw two of these pass-through Stafford, 68002 and 68033. 34 Class 68s were built between 2013 – 2017 and can operate at a top speed of 100mph!

 

  • Class 88 – Direct Rail Services also runs its Class 88 locomotives, which are electric versions of the Class 68. They do still have diesel engines but are also equipped with a pantograph to run with the overhead electric wires, which is how they run most of the time. 10 Class 88s were built between 2015-2016 and operate at a top speed of 100mph.

 

  • Plus, we spotted a Tamper unit as well!

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip—especially since I hadn’t been this far south on the WCML before. The station layout at Stafford was easy to navigate and felt quite modern. I managed to spot plenty of new numbers, both old and new builds.

And just before I sign off: my youngest brother George had a special moment—he saw 150008 pass through Penistone. One happy chappy!

See you next time on Traction!

– Matthew 😊