Welcome back for probably one of my biggest updates ever, some cracking wall to wall sunshine and plenty of interesting action about made it a great day out. The day started at 6AM as I got up to watch the F1 Qualifying as I’m a big F1 fan which then set me up up nicely to head out early for the first phot of the day.

First up I planned to do the shot at Walton Well Road bridge in Oxford, I have been using this shot for a number or years and the car park has always been free parking until today when I discovered it was now Pay & Display although luckily just a token amount. As for the shot despite the sun being up for nearly 2 hours the sun hadn’t got very high yet so was still quite shadowy but just about acceptable as 66013 works the 4O53 Wakefield – Southampton Intermodal.

Next up was the first Freightliner of the day the 4O14 Birch Coppice – Southampton working which I had seen on the gen lists was allocated 70007 which was a bonus as I still have only seen a couple of workings really. I decamped to Didcot North Junction and there was a fairly large gallery in situ already mainly due to a Kettle excursion and my next planned target!

My main target for my stop at Didcot North Junction was the GBRf 66721 that was booked to work the short term flow 6M10 Appleford – Acton, departing bang on time the Metronet liveried shed made a fine sight as it eased the train onto the mainline and added to my rather bare collection of GBRf 66 photos.

Now the GB shed was in the bag it was time to move on again and this time to Knighton Crossing for my next big target but first a Brucie Bonus! Although I knew about this next working I hadn’t studied the timings properly and presumed it would have already passed me but just a few minutes after arrival 67030 powered the 1Z95 London – Victoria – Worcester Shrub Hill VSOE looking good and probably the only rake of stock guaranteed to be in matching livery! (Pet hate!)

Now onto my main target the 6B33 Theale – Maragam empty tanks, a notoriously early running working on a Saturday, except today! Freshly overhauled Super Tug 60007 had debuted on this working a couple of weeks ago but other commitments prevented me from photographing the working that day however 60007 was again diagrammed the same working today and looked very nice as it passed through the Vale of White Horse.

Finally we come to my last phot of the day which again was a tad lucky. After the Tug I had stopped to grab some lunch and pass some time until my next working but while waiting I saw gen posted that 66590 was working the 4O56 Birch Coppice – Southampton and had passed Oxford 1 hour early and I knew it would make a cracking telephoto shot at Cholsey. Lunch was abandoned and a short time later I was in position as 66590 passed me working hard getting its train back up to speed. Overall a very good day with nice variety in traction and liveries.