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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 06/09/2026

Thank you to all for your support for and enjoyment of our Hastings DEMU number 1001 at the Bluebell Railway. Here’s a photo from 22 August by David Knight, showing motor coach 60116 Mountfield leading.

Front-three-quarter view of a diesel train at a station. The train has a green carriage with a yellow cab-front, and three blue & grey coaches behind it. The station has green benches and cream paintwork on a station canopy visible behind the train. Semaphore signals, trees and blue sky are also seen.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 03/09/2026

Here’s a somewhat random photo of the interior of our CEP coach 70262, showing off its blue moquette and shouting-orange panelling.

Interior of a long train carriage, with blue upholstered seats and formica panelling to walls and ceiling, and grubby orange lino floor. Fluorescent tubes and the daylight streaming through the windows provide illumination. In the distance, glass draught screens at the centre vestibule let us see beyond into the far saloon, at the end of which bright-orange formica panelling is used.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 25/08/2026

👀 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 19 September 2026: HDL ‘Megawatt Valley Venturer’ railtour to Nottingham, and the High Marnham Test Track near Tuxford. For details and bookings, please visit our website: www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/tuxford

Screenshot of fare table, which also exists as a more accessible HTML table at the web-link given in the same Bluesky posting.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 29/05/2026

Oh, go on then! Here's our cab video of our Hastings DEMU crossing the Forth Bridge. 😊 youtu.be/v3kr8EZ9V7Y

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 25/05/2026

Yes, there is some cab-video footage ‘in the can’... #ForthBridge #GOSHNessMonster

Frame-grab from forward-facing video footage from the Hastings DEMU. The track ahead leads through an architectural archway and to a perspective vanishing-point with the space above the track a visual network of red-painted trusses and girders. In the foreground, to either side red lattice balustrades demarcate the sides of the bridge carrying the tracks, and a signal post with a single-headed LED aspect identified as EY 669 is mounted to the left. Below the horizon to either side is the Firth of Forth, with structures of the Forth Road bridges visible on our left. We are about to cross the Forth Rail Bridge.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 25/05/2026

We're still trying to process what we just did...

Interior view of a 1950s slab-sided Hastings DEMU train saloon, with comfy sprung seating trimmed in 'Trojan' moquette, and bare tungsten light-bulbs in the off-white painted ceiling. The single-glazed window with 'draft-free ventilator' quarter-light carries a BR-era triangular 'No Smoking' sign. Through the window can be seen only too clearly at close range one of the diagonal red-painted massive tubular girders of the Forth Rail Bridge, with the Firth of Forth including the Road Bridges just visible in the distance among the rail bridge structure. Thus this photo even without context provides visual evidence that we took our Hastings DEMU to Scotland!

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 22/05/2026

The GOSH Ness Monster charter by the Branch Line Society got our Hastings DEMU all the way to Edinburgh Waverley from Hastings, on time. Tickets are still available on the train for tomorrow’s run to Inverness and Aberdeen.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 18/05/2026

👀 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 20 June 2026: HDL ‘English Riviera Express’ railtour to Exeter and Paignton For details and bookings, please visit our website: www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/paignton

Fare table as image, but the same information is found on the railtour's webpage as linked from this posting.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 02/03/2026

👀 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 11 April 2026: HDL ‘Bath & Cranmore DEMU’ railtour to the East Somerset Railway For details and bookings please visit our website: www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/somerset

Image of fare-table, the contents of which are given as an actual textual table on the webpage given in the link within this post.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 18/01/2026

Thank you to all for your support for, and interest in, our #RememberingRosemary railtour from Hastings to Windsor yesterday. The sellout trip ran to time, and raised (if my figure is accurate) something in the region of £900 for @parkinsons.org.uk We hope Rosemary Gainsbury would have approved!

Green 1950s train at Waterloo station platform 13 under the all-over glass roof

Green 1950s diesel train and many onlookers, at London Waterloo platform 18 just beside the edge of the all-over glass canopy,

Green train in fluorescent-tube-lit station platform after dark. Hastings platform 4. The train carriage nearest the camera has a red stripe along its cantrail and the bodyside legend says BUFFET RESTAURANT CAR

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 17/01/2026

Good morning! We are at Hastings station, ready to begin our #RememberingRosemary railtour.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 12/12/2025

👀 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 17 January 2026: HDL ‘Remembering Rosemary’ railtour to Windsor via London Waterloo All the details, and our online booking-form, are on our website: www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/windsor

[Fare table]

Standard Class fares:

seat in trailer coach (Buffet/C/D) = £65

bay of 4 seats in trailer coach (Buffet/C/D) = £240

seat in motor coach (E) = £72

First Class fares:

seat in trailer coach (B) = £92

seat in motor coach (A) = £99

All the above fares are reduced by £15 per seat for bookings joining at Bromley South or London Waterloo.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 15/08/2025

👀 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 20 September: HDL 100 Not Out railtour to Stratford-upon-Avon and Birmingham All the details, and our new online booking-form, are on our website: www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/warks

Image of fare table which is also given (as a textual table) on our website at the link in this post.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 21/06/2025

For those of you in a very warm Norwich, and heading back towards Hastings on our #WymondhamWinder, I can highly recommend the free chilled water-bottle refilling point on the station concourse to the right of the gateline

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 20/06/2025

We look forward to our #WymondhamWinder railtour to Norwich which takes place tomorrow. An early start, see some of you there! Earlier on this was our 3-car DEMU basking in the depot.

A 3-coach train sits in the depot under a blue and cirrus sky. The end of the train is full-yellow, while 2 of the vehicles nearest the camera are painted in BR blue & grey livery.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 05/04/2025

Our #EastWestDEMU railtour is under way and is approaching Crowhurst.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 17/03/2025

Did you see our 3-car DEMU running an errand to Ashford early this morning? Seen here at Rye by the camera of Rhys Evans-Holmes. 5Z04 is the return working which is scheduled to be via Tonbridge...

A 3-coach train passes over a steel bridge in morning gloom, passing a white wooden windmill atop a red brick building.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 11/03/2025

In May 2011, our Hastings DEMU ventured onto the Bletchley lines at Claydon L&NE Junction, during our Metrolander railtour. www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/news/article... At that time, the truncated lines merely formed a headshunt. Much has since changed — it'll be good to come through at 75 mph!

Low-quality track with a run-round loop, ending in the distance against some buffers shortly beyond a brick arched overbridge, amid a sunlit scene of late-spring countryside. The leading coach of a 1957-built diesel train (from which the photo was taken) is visible at the left edge of the photo.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 15/02/2025

For the first time we will operate with two DEMUs coupled together and both of them in passenger service — this trip will be operate by a 9-coach formation. Here is a quick view of the fares (note newly labelled coaches W, X and Z!)

This image comprises a screenshot of the Fares section of our Railtours webpage at https://intranet-hastingsdiesels/railtours/#eastwest

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 14/02/2025

🔜 We will be advertising our next railtour (5 April) soon, within the next 24 hours. We'll advertise on the website, and notify you here on BlueSky as well as on our emailing list. 🤔

Frame-grab from cab-cam 'forward view' on our previous visit to Bicester Village, featuring in this case the starting signal with the route 'off' to the Up Chiltern at Gavray Junction ahead.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 13/02/2025

Here's the saloon of 60001, our un-restored motor coach that was started-up the other day. A bit grubby, but it's also amazing to think that this coach last carried passengers as the leading vehicle of the 23:12 Tonbridge to Hastings on the final day of BR operation, 11 May 1986. 📸 John Atkinson

A flash photo looking straight down the interior saloon from the Guard's Van end, with the light blue formica (which covers the sycamore veneer beneath) and cream-painted ceiling above rather grubby-looking Trojan Moquette covered high-backed seats.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 06/02/2025

We thought you might be amused to hear that today we started-up our remaining motor coach, S60001. This is the first time it's run since BR days in 1986! It's had new coolant, lubricant, a jump-start, and will need a new voltage regulator (no aux output at present)... but it's good to have it run!

Close-up of bodyside numbering, upon original blue & grey livery, showing vehicle number S 60001.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 04/01/2025

Welcome to those of you who have (already!) come over from the other place. We intend to post and interact here in the same manner as used to happen there. Welcome!

Motor coach 60116 Mountfield at the bufferstops end of our train, at London Cannon Street on 13 November 2004 during the London Tripper / Hastings Time Traveller railtours.

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Hastings Diesels Ltd @hastingsdiesels.co.uk · 15/11/2024

🎺 New railtour alert! 📅 Saturday 18 January 2025 ℹ️ HDL Mick Tester Memorial railtour to Winchester Full details here: hastingsdiesels.co.uk/railtours/#w...

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