SSSIII - North West 1950's Day, 26th April 2012
The weather has changed quite a bit since my last post. Yesterday, the SSSIII Tornado 'Little & Large ' day was truly diabolical, with heavy rain and icy winds all day, and today wasn't a great deal better. Wednesday saw 60163 Tornado, N2 No. 1744 and 'Coal Tank' No. 58926 in action, and it seems that the latter was having problems with its safety valves as it was constantly blowing off and also unable to travel much more than a sngle journey along the line before having to refill its tanks. As 58926 was also used today, alongside Nos. 44806 and 49395, these problems may well explain why time was lost throughout the day, with services running some 45 minutes late by the early evening.
The highlight of today's North Western 1950's theme was the re-enactment of the final passenger train in January 1958 between Abergavenney and Merthyr Tydfil via the Heads of the Valleys route. 58926 was actually used on that train, and 49395 was renumbered as classmate, and the other participant, No. 49121.
SSSIII - West Midlands Day, 24th April 2012
The sudden arrival of loads of blokes, nearly all wearing orange high visibility vests and toting expensive camera gear announced the imminent passage of the early morning photocharter train past our windows. The locomotive was 'Super D' No 49395, and as things turned out, this was my only chance to see it in action in daylight as it failed with a broken spring on its way back to Llangollen, leaving Llangollen Railway residents Nos. 5199 and 7822 Foxcote Manor to provide motive power for all of the daytime services. The 'Super D' was repaired in time to take its place on the first of the evening beer trains out of Llangollen.
Steel, Steam & Stars III
I travelled up to the Dee Valley yesterday and will be enjoying a massive steam fix over the next seven days at the 6880 Betton Grange Society promoted Steel, Steam & Stars III gala on the Llangollen Railway. With eleven locomotives rostered in different combinations, there will be plenty to see over the next week. Yesterday was billed as Scottish Day, and the undoubted star was the Strathspey Railway's 818 class 0-6-0 No. 828, which looked superb in its Caledonian Railway blue livery. Also appearing were BR Standard class 7 No. 70000 Britannia and ex-LMS Stanier Black 5 No. 44806, which masqueraded as No. 44801, a Scottish Region locomotive. Today I have three locomotives with West Midlands associations to look forward to.
Barrow Hill 'Fab 4', 14th & 15th April 2012
I have just spent two days at Barrow Hill shed attending their 'Fab 4' gathering of ex-LNER steam power. Although it was a disappointment to everyone that Flying Scotsman wasn't able to make it as originally advertised, the Barrow Hill team are to be congratulated for putting on such a superb event. One can only hope that one day Mallard, Blue Peter and Green Arrow will rejoin the ranks of steamable LNER locomotives, in which they rightfully belong.
Canon EOS 5D Mk III
I bought my copy of this new Canon full-frame DSLR over the Easter weekend, and I am completely astounded by its abilities when compared to my EOS 50D. I used it to produce the album recently added to my Friends & Family collection, so I'm afraid that you'll have to be amongst that number if you want to view the first results from this camera. I will certainly be using it for my next steam hit at the Barrow Hill 'Fab 4' (almost) LNER themed event next weekend, so watch this space...