Thumpers up North plus 60532 - The Gosh Ness Monster & The Lakelander 22nd-24th May 2026

A pair of Hastings Thumpers thumping up Shap certainly isn't your everyday occurrence, but the Branch Line Society and Hastings Diesels brought these legendary DEMU's up north for the first time in 40 years over the spring bank holiday weekend, breaking a lot of new ground for the class as they headed north into Scotland for the first time ever, reaching Inverness on the Saturday, hence the tour name - The Gosh Ness Monster. On the Friday the units were having a great run until just south of Preston when one of the power cars on 1013 overheated, which resulted in an hours' delay while they limped into platform 7 and ran 1001 round to the front. This also had the downside of it ending up behind 4S38, the Seaforth-Mossend intermodal - while the thumpers had the booked run through Grayrigg loop it opened up a bit of a lead, but when they reached the foot of the 1 in 75 it had only just crossed the summit so were checked at Scout Green, resulting in them shutting off just as it was going past us. They looked absolutely fabulous though in the spring sunshine.
While the thumpers headed to Inverness on Saturday, back down in Cumbria 60532 was at the head of the first Lakelander of the year, running off its normal route on the return due to the continued closure of Bransty tunnel in Whitehaven and taking the S&C instead. Northbound remained unchanged though and running 3 minutes early was making good progress past Natland, just south of Oxenholme, albeit with some assistance from the 47 on the rear.
On Sunday, the WCML between Wigan and Warrington was closed for engineering work, but with a booked set down at Wigan, it meant that possibly more new ground was broken by the thumpers as they took the direct line to Manchester via Atherton. Being on a 1 in 90 rising gradient, the best place to go was Hindley and running 24 minutes late as a result of late running service trains (just for something different...), the units were opened up as they passed through the station, accelerating hard up to Crow Nest Junction. Once again, the light was fabulous for what I expect will once again be the last time we see a Hastings unit up north for some time...

Видео Thumpers up North plus 60532 - The Gosh Ness Monster & The Lakelander 22nd-24th May 2026 канала steamdriver12