60007 Sir Nigel Gresley charges past Rugeley Trent Valley! Chester Christmas Market tour | 13/12/24

Today's video is of LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley hauling Steam Dreams' "East Anglia to Chester Christmas Market" tour! Startng diesel hauled from Colchester, the tour made its way to Peterborough, where 60007 emerged from the Nene Valley Railway to join the train. She then took over to take the train through Melton Mowbray, Leicester and Nuneaton where she joined the West Coast Mainline for the sprint through the Trent Valley and past Stafford up to Crewe, after which she turned off the WCML to Chester to complete the tour. The train served as a glorified positioning move back to her base in Crewe, so she didn't haul the return journey which was entirely diesel hauled. The weather for the day was overcast and at times a little spitty although thankfully it didn't fully rain.

With today being a positioning move for me too, I had all my bags on me today which was a bit of a pain to drag around lol so I kept things as easy as possible. I set out from my local in the North East at 6:20, heading to Carlisle and then down the WCML courtesy of Avanti West Coast. Changing at Stafford, where I met ‪@harnettyrailways‬, I continued South. I had intended to do Atherstone, but upon arrival at Tamworth I found out that the station was being served only by rail replacement bus which would have made chasing difficult. I therefore turned around and headed back to Rugeley for a shot of the A4 passing through, albeit with very high bowlage risk so I was very lucky not to have had this shot blocked! After this I returned to Stafford, and on a knife edge decision, decided to continue the chase to Crewe to see 60007 take on water and leave, Chester-bound. After seeing 60007's graceful departure with a few slips, I then took an LNWR train back to Birmingham and home for Christmas.

I hope you all enjoy this as I did! Thank you very much to everyone who made this possible, the trains that got me around, LSL, 60007 and her crews and thank you to everyone I had a chat with! Thanks also to my awesome secondary planner for her input. Enjoy!