Anyone seen it?

Oops, it went to Berkshire as well. 🙂

I was expecting it to do the London > Salisbury > Hampshire thing on Saturday, then London > Bristol next Saturday, but it’s doing the same run again. Trouble is the daft refusal to publish the run times, supposedly to avoid spotters/photographers clogging things up, when they’ll just pitch up at a suitable vantage point with a chair and sarnies and camp out for the duration.
Seems like there’s plenty oh good spots all along the K&A Canal between Hungerford and Pewsey, especially around Froxfield, as the line is right next to the canal.
If anyone saw it, and has some rough idea of what time the train went through that stretch, it would be a big help.

Saw it at Salisbury. Big old lump! Fast, too.

CountZero – Member

supposedly to avoid spotters/photographers clogging things up, when they’ll just pitch up at a suitable vantage point with a chair and sarnies and camp out for the duration.

Sadly not so, there’s been a lot of problems with people on the tracks, they ended up closing the east coast line at one point- at least 8 prosecutions ongoing. Mostly not spotters apparently.

saw it with my dad – we went to the tip and the level crossing was rammed with folk. He’d heard on the radio that the FS was coming.

It was pissing down so we decided not to stay.

Half an hour later, coming back from the tip, they’re all still there so we drove up the test valley a bit to see if we could see ank smoke signals.

Eventually we had to stop the car … because a level crossing came down right in front of us. 5 minutes later and there she was – the 11.20 to Salisbury 🙄

Drove on, turning for home and ANOTHER level crossing closes on us. Christ, there’s a lot of commuter trains on a Saturday 🙁

Then as we were coming into Romsey he saw some smoke just off to our right so we raced it into town, parked up and it came past about 2 minutes later. Grand; about 40 years since I last saw it moving, and my dad was ded chuffed*

(no? – suit yourselves)

Trouble is I’m not sure which way it runs out of That London, I know it goes through Hungerford, there’s a photo in the Western Daily Press near Froxfield, from the other side of the canal, which looks like it’s running from London via Hungerford, down to Salisbury, then back via Romsey towards London.
What time did you see the train in Salisbury, CF?

CZ, it was at Romsey probably around 2.00-2.15 I’d guess

Mrs M saw it as it steamed past Dilton Halt – I can’t remember the time

c.1730

Graeham Obree’s innovative skills for cycling designs always amazed me! 😉

Just a quick revisit to this, after a bit of Google digging, it leaves London at 8.37am, and last Saturday it was in Westbury at 11.30am, so I figure that if I get over to the Crofton Pump engine on the K&A Canal at somewhere between 8.30 and 9.00am, I should have loads of time to take a stroll along the canal to find a nice vantage point with a clear view of the railway line with some nice canal furniture, like lock gates or something in the foreground.
Flask of tea and some sarnies and I’m good for a couple of hours of waiting around. 😀
And it’s looking like a fine sunny morning, too!

Up close and personal, sorta!
😀

Trouble is the daft refusal to publish the run times,

Just look on Realtimetrains.com for running times – if you know vaguely where and when it’ll leave or a place it’ll pass.

Wow, superb pics there CZ!

Thanks, c_g, I was rather pleased with the results. It’s a good thing I had my arm hooked round a railing on the top of the little tunnel I was sitting on the top of, the blast of wind when it went past might have sent me sliding down the embankment!
Very impressive when it’s only about five feet away. 😀
Njee20 – I was talking to a bloke where I parked my car, and he was telling me about realtime trains, that’s something I’m going to use in future. I’d done a rough estimate of the time it might be going through at Crofton Pump House, and I was out by about twenty minutes, but I was a hour and forty minutes early anyway! 😀