Sorry for the abscence of updates over the last couple of months but I can rectify that today for you with a double helping. Today Hertfordshire were running a railtour featuring GBRf motive power entitled ‘The Bluebirds on Tour’. First of a 66/7 was due to haul the train from Victoria to Stafford via the Chiltern line but due to the tunnel being built at Gerrards cross for a Tesco store to be built upon collapsing onto the tracks below the tour was rerouted via Reading and Oxford. The weather had been wall to wall sunshine with temperatures hitting the 30s during the week and it continued on Saturday.
As the train was virtually passing my backdoor I didn’t venture too far for my first shot of the day as I decided to head to Radley. 66715 was traction for the tour and was hammering along as it passed through Radley running about 20mins early! I only planned to photograph the 66/7 hauled leg of the tour intially but once I got home I found out 87012 in the psuedo NSE livery was due on the second leg and I hadn’t managed to get a shot of it while it was still in service with Vermin.
I head out over to my favourite WCML haunt at Cheddington to photograph the 87, thanks to another photographer on the station we found out the tour was on the relief line so I could get in position and not worry about having to make a mad dash over the bridge when it appeared in the distance. The Olympian passed Cheddington pretty much on time with 66715 dead on the rear. Check out the larger image and look at the front of the 87, how many dead flies on there!
Now that I’m back at work again the numbers of updates will drop down a bit, however I will continue with an update today. The forecast was for a sunny spring day so I thought I would photograph some Freightliners. I decided to go to Oxford for the first southbound liner of the day but it wasn’t until I got got there I realised the line was shut furthur North around Banbury for engineering work!! I went home to check the National Rail Enquires website and after some perusal decided the best place to go was over on the WCML as I may get some diverted liners. After a wait of quite some time 57010 appeared to the north on a freightliner, I was getting ready for the photo when i saw a freightliner 66 to the south and you guessed it 66540 blocked the shot of 57010 heading the other way.
After the freightliners it hazed up badly but there are a couple of Intermodals booked south on a Saturday and I was hoping for some Class 92s. After a couple of hours of boredom the high cloud finally cleared and with that 92008 appeared in the distance. I don’t know what the working was as it was a short rake of empty STVA car carriers with a very bad flat on the rear wagon so maybe it was just a postioning move.
I decided to hang around for awhile longer as there was still an Intermodal due south, about half an hour after the 92 had passed then 66049 showed up on 4O69 Hams Hall – Dollands Moor Intermodal. It even had a full matching set of intermodal flats in EWS red and yellow to boot.
I am back again with an update from a couple of weeks ago, I forgot to do the update until I saw the photo again and realised I hadn’t posted the shot. The weather was good with plenty of sunshine although cold so I decided to head over to the WCML to see what was about. I hadn’ been to Cheddington for a few months and they have done some work to the platforms. All the platforms have been extended by some length which gives some more options for different shots.
The day I was there work was being done on the main lines a couple of miles to the South so all traffic was using the relief lines. A freightliner passed through heading South as I was getting out of the car and it was dead for freight all afternoon. Infact I was just packing my gear up when a 92 appeared to the North so I hurriedly got the camera out again and fired off a shot of 92025 on an Intermodal working although I couldn’t work out which one from the book. See you around sometime….!
