Another week, another Fastline coal train and another brand new location for this website. I was off this weekend so I had to chance to get out lineside further West so decided to try the shot at Brinkworth which looked promising. After last weeks murkiness the Sun had returned once again, I seem to be getting pretty lucky with this working so far.
I arrived at Brinkworth just after 12:00 to find a couple of other photters already waiting for this working. Luckily after the farce a couple of weeks ago when it was delayed nearly two hours todays working was running slightly early and glided almost silently around the curve with 66304 at the helm of 6M90 Avonmouth – Ratcliffe in glorious light, lets see what happens next week.
Todays update is going to be slightly out of the Thames Rail region as I was booked on Pathfinders ‘Western Lizard’ tour featuring D1015 after its transmission repairs earlier this year. It was a chance to enjoy Western Champion over the Devon and Cornish banks along with the Fowey and Newquay branches. The day started with thick fog limiting visibility to about 50 metres, the forecast was for sun as per Friday so it looked like it would be a good day. By the time we had got to Totnes where we had a pathing stop there was not a cloud in the sky and it stayed that way the rest of the day. Champion put in an excellent performance on the banks and we arrived at Plymouth on time.
We had an hour and a half break at Plymouth which enabled Champion to run to Laira for refuelling before we continued down the branchlines. I managed to get a few shots as champion uncoupled and ran off for fuel
We set off from Plymouth and entered Cornwall across the Royal Albert Bridge and head for our first branchline the line to Fowey docks. Due to restrictions we couldn’t get to the end off the line and stopped at the Network rail limit, we then set back off to Lostwithiel and thence to Newquay. We passed through Par and turned onto the Newquay branch, Champion put in a superb performance on climb up the Luxulyan valley.
We arrived at Newquay and had a 15 minute leg stretch before heading back to Plymout behind 66248. Once at Plymouth the shed was removed and Champion ran around the train before we wizzed home with the Western at the helm once again. It was a great day out with great weather and great traction to top it off.
As I said yesterday maybe I would be 3rd time lucky with the DRS 66’s and it was not to be. Due to paperwork or maybe down to WCML derailment the move was again cancelled. Well thats enough for me this week, after over 550 miles for nothing I’m not wasting the final day of my holiday trying to see them. Touch wood they will be around for the next 30 years or so. I’m off for some WCML action tommorow, hopefully the derailment won’t cause too much be cancelled.
Just the one shot for your perusal today, 67027 on 1M06 Swansea – Willesden flys through Pilning at Warp factor 5!
