70000 Britannia "Flat"-out across the Somerset "Levels"

The Railway Touring Company: The Great Britain VIII 28&29 April 2015.

The title of one of my favourite films could well have described this clip; I refer to Lemony Snicket’s “An Unfortunate Series of Events”! The first and most unfortunate of course having happened way back on 7th March with repercussions now throwing the current mainline steam schedule into complete turmoil. The theme continued on the day with uncertainty as to whether a diesel would be attached to the “steam” leg with the inevitable diminishment of any of the climbs on-route. One positive element however was an excellent weather forecast with exceptional visibility, and this decided my location for the down leg. Windmill Hill, Curload, on the Somerset Levels has panoramic views in all directions but I had never filmed there before and never seen footage posted from anyone else. The unfortunate events continue however with the appearance of a big black cloud at the critical moment and a violent gusty wind making panning particularly difficult but with the second camera at Athelney Crossing we experience 70000 at maximum speed for at least a mile until an amber on the “distant” approach to Cogload Junction results in a brake application. It seems only a short time ago that Cogload was not a junction at all but a meeting of two separate double-tracks, but today on the new “improved” network, our train has to give way to a service from Bristol. Incredibly, we can watch the restart from 4km away as the final zoom-out emphasises. The last (even more) unfortunate event was the positioning of 66122 as pilot on the return “steam leg” even though it performed quite happily shoving at the rear on the down leg! The explaination for this surfaced much later: a delivery of poor coal was deemed to have promoted a fire risk in the dry(ing) conditions! Here we see the train approaching Exeter on the upper reaches of the Exminster Marshes and finishing with a view into the Double Locks pub as the train disappears – I must admit that the prospect of drowning my sorrows there at that moment was pretty compelling!! Let’s hope that things improve soon for everyone involved.

Видео 70000 Britannia "Flat"-out across the Somerset "Levels" канала Steamclips