Double Headed Castles 5043 & 7029 Conquer the Devon Banks with "The Mayflower"! | 27/9/24

Today's video sees me travel to Devon and the South West for Vintage Trains' highly anticipated "The Mayflower" tour from Birmingham New Street to Plymouth! The train ran diesel hauled from Birmingham New Street, via Cheltenham, to Bristol Temple Meads, where GWR Castle Class 4-6-0s 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe and 7029 Clun Castle then double headed the train unassisted onwards across the Somerset Levels to Taunton, up Wellington Bank, down through the Exe Valley to Exeter St Davids and then along the sea wall at Dawlish. After reaching Newton Abbot the Castles took on the fearsome South Devon Banks before arriving into Plymouth for an afternoon break. With two Castles at work on the Great Western routes they were built for, this tour was to be the second of Vintage Trains' extremely authentic tours of 2024, after Z48 earlier this year! Vintage Trains have been promising a run like this for a couple years and it's lovely to see come to fruition. The weather for the day was a source of contention as the week prior had seen unusually high rainfall, bringing flooding risk to the forefront of my mind, especially given some of the route's susceptibility to floods. Thankfully this didn't pan out, and behind the rain clouds turned out a pretty decent day weather wise.

I started out from my local at 6:47, heading into Birmingham for the 7:12 XC Vomiter service to Taunton. From there a quick change to Bridgwater was planned, although the late running of my XC service and the cancellation of the Bridgwater train subsequently meant I had to compromise with the bridge outside Taunton, where I met ‪@danielstrainsukofficial9133‬. A gauging slack through the platforms meant they opened up spectacularly past the camera! Next up was to get the XC train directly behind the Castles up to Totnes, on board which at Tiverton I met ‪@adtrainvids9569‬. Despite some late running and my own concerns about the castles running nearly 10 early, a GOLD bus service to Tigley turned up just in the nick of time for me to catch it from Totnes. Tigley is on the 1/48 Rattery Bank, and the Castles made it look easy! This has to be probably the greatest demonstration of power from steam locomotives I’ve ever seen, I heard them both thundering up the bank very clearly all the way from Totnes to Marley Tunnel!

After that was an afternoon break. I headed back down to Totnes where I met ‪@adtrainvids9569‬ and then moved from there to Dawlish, ready for the afternoon shot. I decided to set up on a bridge over the sea wall just short of Langstone Rock to see them charging along the famed section of track, and they certainly impressed! Sadly the lighting wasn't ideal here, although a bit of post edit made it look passable. I also met ‪@harrymorris5748‬ here. After that I went to Exeter and on to Tiverton Parkway where I bailed to a panning shot in the field nearby for the final shot of the day, where the Castles absolutely roared through at some speed, catching the dimming light, ready for the subsequent attack on Whiteball Bank. Nice also to see ‪@GreatBritishRailways1‬ here! At that I headed back home!

Thanks as always to everyone who made this possible, to VT, the mighty castles and their crews for such a fantastic tour and thank you to my company during the day at all the locations. Thanks very much to my secondary planner who's helped me once again with the locations despite her busy schedule and thank you to NR, XC and GWR for getting me around today, thankfully flood free! I hope you enjoy this as I did making it.