It has ben a whole week since the last update and with it being a glorious day an all I decided to head out. It was one of those days with blue sky as far as you can see and absolutley no wind at all which was nice. The first shot today illustrates my point as the Didcot cloud making factory can be seen in the background in full flow producing the only cloud in the sky. 57005 passes Moreton on 4O51 Wentloog – Southampton freightliner and I quite like this shot.
Next up is a bit of a bonus with 37174 working a rake of Autoballasters probably destined for Didcot, at a guess the working was from Temple Mills as there is an available path around this time of day. It’s nice to see some of the finshing touches to 37174 still remain with blackheadcode panel,silver horns and painted buffers/snowploughs.
I do have one more shot to add to the days report but that will remain on hold for the moment. I have had word the bnliner has finally had a loco change so if the weather can hold on until tommorow I would like to get out for the binliner as I haven’t photographed this train for quite sometime.
Just a short update today, I recieved a call saying 57601 was heading my way on ECS sleeper stock and had just passed through Bristol Temple Meads.
It was a lovely sunny day and as 57601 is shortly to be handed back to Porterbrook this could be my last chance of photographing ‘Purple Ronnie’. I headed for my second home of Didcot and decided the shot from the carpark footbridge would do. I didn’t have to wait long as 57601 glided up the relief and into the station awaiting the road ahead.
I have been a bit busy over the weekend so this update from last Friday is a little late. During my week off I had decided to head over to the West Coast one day and with 2 wasted days waiting for the DRS 66’s I wasn’t going to waste another. It was another glorious day so II headed over to Cheddington to see what was out and about. I had been hoping to see a virgin 57/3 Thunderbird as I think they look pretty good, that was until I saw 57301 with its new dellner coupling for use with Pendolinos! Ugly just isn’t the word!
There were a number of Freightliners about and all were 86 hauled apart from one 90 hauled train, here 86612 and 86606 storm South along the relief lines with a Freightliner bound for Felixstowe. Its it a good job they didn’t manage smash them up like the ones at Norton Bridge earlier in the week. For some excellent pictorial coverage of the Norton Bridge crash check out Robdogs fotopic gallery.
There wasn’t much freight about really and I had to wait quite a while for some action. A bright light appeared to the South and a quick check showed it was a GB 66 so a quick sprint up and over the footbridge enabled me to grab a shot of 66716 on hire to Freightliner car train out of Dagenham.
I had to wait nearly an hour for the next train and this is my favourite shot of the day, 66509 looking virtually ex works thanks to the excellent cleaning work the Freightliner do on their locos heads South along the WCML with empty ballast wagons probably for some work to do with the WCML upgrade.
A pretty good day out thanks to the excellent weather conditions though it was a bit sparse on the freight front. One thing I would say is that Virgin services are split about 50/50 with Pendolinos and Class 87/90s at the moment so if you want some shots you better head over before its all too late. I have a couple on articles I have planned for the site so I better get on and write those and with the weather about to turn for the worse I have no excuse!
