60532 ‘Blue Peter’ returns to South Wales after two decades on the Welsh Marches Express with 47593

60532 ‘Blue Peter’ returns to South Wales after two decades on the Welsh Marches Express with 47593

A real treat today and something worth the journey across the boarder for, as Locomotive Services kept us guessing right up until the 11th hour, and delivered a very welcome steam locomotive to head todays Saphos Trains ‘Welsh Marches Express’, in the form of LNER A2 60532 ‘Blue Peter’!

With Britannia out of action after recently running hot on the Cumbrian Mountaineer railtour, 60007 ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’ down at the West Somerset Railway ready for this weekends Spring Steam Gala https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FiFOBQYsn4&t=16s and Mayflower set to run down to the WSR later this week out of Southall for English Riviera Express duties, there was some guesswork at which locomotive LSL would allocate to this tour. Might it be ‘Braunton’, ‘Nunney Castle’? Possibly even ‘Duke of Gloucester’… but rail enthusiasts were delighted when the A2 was allocated, making this the first time the locomotive has come this far South since its recent overhaul, when it would of worked charters around South Wales in the early 2000s!

D213 ‘Andania’ took the tour from Ulverston as far as Crewe, where 60532 took over for the run to Cardiff, with Class 47 47593 ‘Galloway Princess’ acting as tail gunner as far as East Usk Yard, where, to save time turning the locomotive, the 47 dragged the consist back to Cardiff, dropping off passengers before heading to Cardiff Canton for servicing.

After sequences from Cardiff I met  ⁨@southwalestrainspotting5090 ⁩ at Abergavenny where we catch the tour passing before he kindly took us up to Hereford, where we catch the locomotive having detached off the stock being watered, before we lastly see it returning to the train and heading back towards Crewe and Ulverston.

A great afternoon blessed with fine weather and although a challenging set of circumstances around locomotive availability likely saw the A2 heading this tour, it was a delight to see it getting out this way, and I hope now it’s started venturing South, maybe it might just become more commonplace on LSL operated charters in our region in the future!

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