37099 & 37607 with the 'Train of Blue Light' around Manningtree, February 2025
26th Feb - 1Q97 1050 Ferme Park Recp. to Clacton-on-Sea, seen at Mistley & Bradfield.
28th Feb - 1st March - 1Q99 1638 Cambridge Recp 1&2 to March Down R.S. seen at Manningtree station and level crossing & Mistley.
The Friday night/Saturday morning session was troubled by low lying coastal fog throughout although this fog drew a lot of my attention to a feature I'd not seen on Anglia PLPR test trains before, an overhead structures scanner which emitted beams of blue light. This was spectacularly visible, as can be seen, looking at times like blue clag! On its return from Colchester the test train faded in to the fog as 66415 appeared heading in the up direction with 4M42, 21:51 Felixstowe North F.L.T. to Ditton (O'Connor) Freightliner. At Mistley the coastal fog remained thick at the station and also by the riverside. Only the sound of the locos heading off across the causeway could be heard, no light penetrated the dense fog.
According to many and varied sources on the internet the coach with the blue light scanning equipment is 977983, a Mk.2D coach that was previously 72503 in a Gatwick Express set. The coach with scanning equipment is known as "EMV" - Electrification Measurement Vehicle - and uses a passive laser scanning system similar to that used under the PLPR vehicle that scans the track. The 'passive' laser system (as in 'no-contact' compared with MENTOR) is likely to be part of the Fraunhofer Wire Wear Inspection & Contact Wire Inspection systems suite used by railways across the world and may have been included in this track inspection visit to give a comparison with data collected from "MENTOR" during Januarys visit. I included several other versions of the pass from different cameras to show the lighting effect.
Also appearing this video: Coastal fog.
Apologies for 66415 appearing out of nowhere, it just seemed a shame to cut the clip.
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00:00 Mistley
00:33 Bradfield
01:08 Manningtree - Main camera
02:24 Manningtree - Camera No.2
02:39 Manningtree - Camera No.3
02:53 Manningtree crossing - Main camera
03:59 Manningtree crossing - 66415/4M42
04:52 Manningtree crossing - Camera No.2
05:10 Manningtree crossing - Camera No.3
05:24 Mistley
08:13 Mistley Walls
09:58 Thanks for Watching! Please "Like" and "Subscribe" :-)
#trains #railway #class37 #networkrail #bluelight #frauenhofer
A rail test train operated by PLPR (Plain Line Pattern Recognition) was observed on the Anglia Main Line near Manningtree in February 2025. Locomotives 37099 and 37607 were used during the visits, which included runs between Cambridge, Clacton-on-Sea, March, Mistley, and Colchester. The train was noted for featuring an overhead structures scanner that emitted blue light, visible in foggy conditions. Other services observed included headcodes 1Q97, 1Q99, and 4M42.
Fishplate has identified 4 locomotives in this video. We’ve also matched 3 headcodes and 5 operators . Create a free account to see where they appear, unlock timestamps and locations, and view the full breakdown.
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