FM Rail

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Fragonset Railways Class 47 47355 Avocet at Derby on 11 August 2004.

Class 31 31128 Charybdis at Bristol Temple Meads on 23 July 2004. This locomotive was previously hired to Wessex Trains to operate trains from Bristol Temple Meads to Brighton and Weymouth.

Fragonset Merlin Rail or FM Rail is a railway spot-hire and charter company based at Derby, United Kingdom. The company was formed in January 2005 following the merging of charter company Merlin Rail with spot-hire company Fragonset Railways. FM Rail lauched its new livery in September 2005, when 47832 was repainted for the Crewe Works open day.

In mid-2005, FM Rail purchased railtour operator Hertfordshire Rail Tours. In January 2006, the "Blue Pullman" was launched, and two Class 47 locomotives were repainted into a Nanking Blue livery to match the coaching stock. In 2006, FM Rail purchased the assets of Pathfinder Tours, another railtour operator, in conjunction with Riviera Trains.

In 2006, FM Rail concluded a deal to lease the former depot site at Coalville in Leicestershire. It is planned to move most of its withdrawn stock there for further storage, thus reducing costs incurred by storage at other sites. Other locomotives have been disposed of once they have yielded spare parts.

[edit] Fragonset Railways

Fragonset Railways was formed in 1997. Its first purchases were five Class 47/7 locomotives, which were hired to Virgin Trains due to the poor availability of their own fleet. The locomotives were soon repainted into a new livery of black with a broad maroon mid-bodyside stripe.

In 1998, Fragonset purchased several redundant Class 31 locomotives from EWS. The first of these, 31452, was quickly repaired at the company's base at Tyseley Locomotive Works. A further four Class 31s quickly followed. They were initially employed on Silverlink services on the Marston Vale Line, operating in top and tail mode with two carriages. The use of the Class 31s continued until 1999, when Class 150/1 diesel multiple units replaced them. Following this, the Class 31 fleet was employed on a variety of duties, including hire to WAGN to haul electrical multiple units between depots for maintenance.

In 1998-2004 Fragonset acquired many redundant locomotives from EWS, mainly of classes 31, 33, 47 and 73. Many of these locomotives were purchased for spare parts, and several have since been scrapped.

Fragonset has had many customers:

• Virgin Trains - hired Class 47s in 1997-2002 to cover for the non-availability of their own fleet.
• Wessex Trains - hired Class 31s to haul passenger services from Bristol-Weymouth and Bristol-Brighton. 31601 was repainted into Wessex Trains "Heart of Wessex" pink livery. Services were regular worked on Fridays and summer Saturdays. Booked services ceased in 2004, but Wessex Trains continued to use them for special events and for bank-holiday traffic until 2006.
• First North Western - hired Class 31s to work passenger trains from Blackpool-Manchester-Chester. These services ceased in 2004.
• Railtrack - hired 31190 and 31601 to haul test trains. Both locomotives were repainted into Railtrack's blue and lime green livery. Network Rail (Railtrack's successor) now has its own fleet of 31s, so no longer requires the Fragonset locomotives.
• GB Railfreight - hires Class 73s to supplement their own fleet.
• South West Trains - hired Class 33s and 73s to act as "Thunderbird" rescue locomotives.
• West Coast Railway Company - hired 31190. It was repainted into Royal Scotsman maroon livery.

Some locomotives, notably 47355 and 73107, were repainted into a 'freight' livery of all-over black with large "Fragonset" lettering.

During late 2006, FM Rail went into voluntary administration. The future of the company is still unknown. Several locomotives have been sold or put up for sale.

[edit] Fleet Details

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

FM Rail

• FM Rail website.
• Fragonset website.
• Merlin Rail website.