Today’s update is a follow on from yesterdays second update when I photographed 47854. I had thought it was just returning the stock to London after it’s trip out on Saturday but it was in fact getting the stock in place for a steam hauled tour on Monday. 47854 worked the train to Penzance where the Kettle would work the train as far as Exeter and then 47854 would bring everyone home. Its outward route was via the Berks and Hants but the return was via Didcot where it was scheduled to stop and set passengers down.
I set off for Didcot at 22.00 to ensure I was there in plenty of time and set up my camera for the train to arrive on platform 2, another photter on the station advised it would be arriving on platform 4 which I thought was unusual but I didn’t want to miss the shot so I moved over to platform 4 and set up my camera. A message came over the tannoy to stand clear of platform 2 and I knew this would be 47854 and I was on the wrong platform now! It was too late and I had to make do with a platform shot which turned out okay actually, I even managed to capture the guard giving the right away!
There is not normally much activity on a Sunday on the railway system with freight activity restricted to special workings or engineers trains. Thanks to a friend who emailed me a list of engineers trains working out of Hinksey this weekend I managed to get the photo for today. As I was looking through the email I noticed there was an 6W25 08:30 Evesham – Hinksey. Loco hauled trains over the Cotswold line are limited to just a handful a year so I wanted to get out for a rare shot over the line.
As the train was due of Evesham at 08:30 it meant I had to get up early on a Sunday! As I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it I got up at 06:30 incase it departed early. I awoke to blue skies which was a good sign so I set off but enroute I ran into thick fog which covered the sky all the way out to my location at Chilson. I arrived at 07:30 and as it wasn’t due for another 1.5 hours I decided to stay put in the hope it would clear up. I’m glad I did as just after 08.00 it lifted to give clear blue skies and shortly after 09:00 I heard a two tone horn so I knew it was approaching. 66077 top and tailed with 66191 rounded the curve into sight on a short engineers train and was accelerating hard past my location.
Part Deux
It is not often that I have two updates in one day but shortly after finishing my Cotswold line update a message came through that 47854 would be working 5Z56 14:10 Tysely – Old Oak Common ECS movement from its tour the previous day. It was also booked via Oxford and Reading so I wouldn’t have to travel far to see it either. I had two locations in mind, first up was Hinksey yard and the second choice was Culham. Hinksey is just straight track so I thought it would be pretty boring and also it had been awhile since I had been to Culham so I opted for the later.
I took my steps along to check out the location that I took 67008 from on 14th February 2004 but the ferns and bushes were very overgrown and would involved trespassing to get any decent shot which I didn’t want to do. I had to settle for the overbridge which wasn’t ideal as a tree had covered the left hand side leaving the shot quite head on. I chucked the 135mm lens on the camera and went for a telephoto shot. 47854 rounded the corner pretty much on time and maybe a couple of minutes early and it looked smart in its new livery and silver buffers, it was also nice to see a matching set of stock as most tours these days quite often have three or four different liveries in a set.
After our trip back in time last weekend it is time for an update from this year. This update is a first for the website as it features a kettle! 5029 ‘Nunnery Castle’ worked ‘The Cathedrals Express’ from Alton to Worcester, the train was due to be steam hauled throughout until it got back to Didcot on the return where it was going to change to diesel power in the form of 47712. There was however some signalling problems in the morning which meant it ended up arriving at Worcester around two hours late, which then had a knock on effect for the return.
The kettle was due to arrive back at Didcot at 19.42 but finally arived around 20.25 and the sun had already gone behind the clouds which meant the light was dropping fast. I had to use the bridge as a makeshift tripod and with the ISO cranked to 400 and the shutter speed of just 1/15th of a second I managed to produce the above shot. Remarkably I managed to keep the camera still at such a slow shutter speed and the grain doesn’t show too much either so I was pretty pleased with that result!
