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!