I thought it was about time I booked some time off work so took a couple of days off to make a long weekend. It looked like a good week to choose as it had been wall to wall sunshine all week until today when I was greeted with dull grey! The forecast was for the sun to break through around lunchtime which it eventually did so I hit the lineside.

I decided to visit Hinksey first off and there was plenty of activity in the yard. The gronk was shunting wagons, an EWS 66 arrived and collected a loaded rake of ballast hoppers, 60062 arrived on the Eastleigh – Hinksey Engineers, a Freightliner 66 deposited a track machine and 66239 arrived to run around the 4L44 Cowley – Purfleet ‘Mini’ train! My first shot was a bit unexpected as 66154 passed on 6M53 Didcot PS – Daw Mill as this train is a very sporadic runner.

The shadows were creeping across the track by this stage so I decided to move on and try a new location I hadn’t been to before. Luckily the vegetation was behaving itself and there was a nice shot for northbound trains. As I had seen 60062 at Hinskey I knew this would be at the head of 6M28 Hinskey – Bescot engineers working and indeed it was as it pounded around the curve at Yarnton.

There was a Freightliner due just before the sun dissappeared behind the trees so I waited on in the hope it might have one of the new Freds that arrived the previous week. I was out of luck on the second point as 66538 passed me on 4M99 Millbrook – Trafford Park in glorious late evening light!