Running a railtour for Steam Dreams and operated by LSL, was 61306 Mayflower, taking charge of their excursion to Bath & Bristol from Horsham.
The trip would be a rare one, as it would see steam grace the line from Horsham to Chichester, before travelling via Havant, Fareham and Eastleigh to reach Salisbury, eventually arriving at Bristol via Westbury. The ECS would also take a rare path, travelling from Wimbledon to Horsham via Stoneleigh. The trip acted as a positioning move for Mayflower, as she would head to the WSR after the outward journey, with her being based there for their upcoming gala, as well as Saphos Trains 'English Riveria Expresses' of which 61306 would be one of the candidates for those trips.
However, the trip would suffer problems on it's way to Horsham, with an engineering possession at Wimbledon blocking Mayflower's booked path. The train was required to make a number of moves in order to finally get to Wimbledon on the fast lines, before going along it's booked path to Horsham. By the time this had happened, the train was over 2 hours late, and with a need to conserve water, Mayflower is firstly captured gliding through Motspur Park, with the Class 47 on the rear doing all the work.
My next shot was to come from Christ's Hospital, however, the late running, and the fact that the roads were more congested with it now being later in the morning, meant that I arrived at the station barely seconds before Mayflower could be heard, so it was a case of legging it onto the platform and grabbing the shot handheld as Mayflower, still 2 hours late, speeds through now with passengers on board. Not the greatest morning capturing the 'Bongo', but at least it's still a record of the events, given the rarely used track for steam the engine was running on.
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4 окт 2024
