GWR 7029 Thunders Up All Stretton & Hatton Bank + Flying Scotsman !

7029 Clun Castle makes its first appearance of the year and it will go down as one to remember. A Great Western southbound run over the Welsh Marches line is very rare these days and the highlight would be the climb from Dorrington to Church Stretton. With 10 coaches in tow and a dead class 47, it would mean 7029 would have a near equivalent weight of 13 or 14 coaches to pull, so no half measures would be acceptable. I'll let the two opening sequences do all the talking, or shall I say barking !

After the early dramatics up Stretton, it was onto Llanfihangel Bank, where we capture Clun powering along at Pandy on the lower part of the bank, she was going well considering the load. A shame we just missed the sun on this occasion. Having covered the Marches we would finally capture the Castle Class near to home, where Clun made a thunderous night time climb of Hatton Bank to bring the curtain down on a fantastic day for passengers and linesiders. While we're no fan of seeing a diesel on the back, there's no way we would of witnessed the added effort that 7029 had to produce if it was just 10 coaches.

So, after the exploits of a GWR firm favourite, there was also another steam tour running close by and it just happened to be 60103 'Flying Scotsman' on its rearranged Cotswold Venturer excursion from London Paddington to Worcester. This is the kind of the bonus we like and I hope you like it too as the so called peoples engine was let out with 12 coaches and no diesel, you just love to see it, oh and she was going well !

I hope you enjoy the action from a very good day at the linesdide.