Farewell to Project Rio

Midland Mainline Services

Manchester Piccadilly - London St Pancras

During the past two - three weeks of operation, MML applied vinyl names to some of their Rio allocated HST Power Cars. With the exception of one named "Project Rio", all have a BR Western/Warship theme. I believe that this is intended as a dig at the big red company who have been applying similar cast nameplates to their shiny new tilting trains. Below is a selection of close-ups of the some of the names I have managed to capture before the end of the service on Friday 10th September

43063

43069

43070

43079

43088

43156

43162

43180

43195

43197

    

Full List of known names as of 10/09/2004

Power Car Name Date first observed
43063 Rio Challenger Mon 06/09 with 43079
43069 Rio Enterprise Mon 06/09 with 43070
43070 Rio Pathfinder Mon 06/09 with 43069
43079 Rio Venturer Mon 06/09 with 43063
43086 Rio Talisman Mon 06/09 with 43196
43087 Rio Invader Mon 06/09 with 43159
43088 Rio Campaigner Fri 10/09 with 43180
43156 Rio Champion Fri 10/09 with 43195
43159 Rio Warrior Mon 06/09 with 43087
43162 Project Rio Mon 06/09 with unnamed 43161
43180 Rio Glory Thur 02/09 with unnamed 43088
43195 Rio Swift Fri 10/09 with 43156
43196 Rio Prince Mon 06/09 with 43086
43197 Rio Princess Fri 10/09 with red unnamed 43158
Other names which have been reported are as follows
43198 Rio Victorious
Rio Pride
Rio Valiant
Rio Monarch

Some pictures from my journey from Stockport to Leiecester and then Leicester to Manchester Piccadilly and back to Stockport are shown below

43197 arriving at Stockport on Up 09.58 to London St Pancras. I got on this train and travelled to Leicester.

222014 at Leicester on the 12.04 to LSP in Platform 4

43082 on 12.00 departure to LSP in Platform 3

A view of the future ?? Nine-car 222001 paused briefly in Platform 2 whilst on a north-bound training run

45156 having arrived early at Platform 2 waits for the 12.28 departure time to Stockport and Manchester

43195 at the rear having just arrived on-time at Manchester Piccadilly

43156 again at the bufferstops in Platform 6

43195 leaving a very wet Stockport on the Up 15.58 to London St Pancras

Now that the services have finished all of the Project Rio HST power cars and trailers will be returned to the ROSCOs. Four loco-hauled movements were booked for Sunday 12th September to take four complete sets from Longsight to Laira. The four workings were

5Z16 09.55 47150 with 43088 + 43180 and 8 trailers dep. LO 10.25

5Z17 10.51 47812 with 43195 + 43156 - believed to have departed LO on-time

5Z18 11.51 47805 with 43161 + 43162 - ditto

5Z19 12.51 47197 with 43063 + 43079 - dep. LO at 1408

Unfortunately other commitments meant that I was unable to go out and see these :-(((

I would certainly welcome the re-introduction of a through Manchester to London St Pancras service in shape or form.....

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