'Mayflower' steaming up the Golden Valley, Stroud

I have been snowed under with final proofing of the big Plan document which we have to print next week for the imminent public consultation.  It is 100 pages long with dense text, but I finished mid afternoon today.

I had an appointment with this steam engine which I knew was travelling up the Golden Valley today in the direction of London.  It was on a circular day trip via Worcester so would only appear once today.  I have seen the engine before but never in this valley.

Its name is Mayflower and was built in the 1940s, after the end of the war, I believe, and spent its early working life on the Eastern Region, so I didn't see many of its type when I was a little boy trainspotting.

I had considered where the best angle to film it might be and decided to go back to a place I found many years ago when I videotaped Tornado on its first trip through here.  But sadly when I reached the location after scrambling over three fences, and across two steep fields on the hillside opposite to us, I found the whole embankment completely overgrown.  I thought I might break through the tall scrub which I couldn't see over, but managed to tumble down a very steep bit and decided I needed a Plan B.

So I returned to the path up the hillside and walked back to the foot crossing over over the railway tracks and perched beside the line for a more prosaic shot.  Another man was already set up there with both a video and a stills camera so we chatted. Luckily he had a mobile which gave him up the minute info on where the engine was.  From the time we first heard its whistle it took about a minute to reach us, having passed through Stroud station and started the notorious climb up the Golden Valley.

This route is quite famous because not only is it an absolutely beautiful stretch of Cotswold countryside, but the deep valley climbs very steeply and is an serious challenge for the engines when going eastbound.  About two miles further up the valley the line becomes the even steeper Sapperton Bank which twists around the sides of the hills before plunging into a long tunnel towards Cirencester and then Swindon.  From there it is almost all downhill or flat all the way to London.

There is another steam visitor here on Saturday so I shall endeavour to find abetter vantage point as that engine is one I knew well as a kid and I it will be very nostalgic.

We live on the hillside up high on the right of the picture. There is another picture of Mayflower in the 'Extras photo', which shows more of the valley as i looked back towards Stroud which is abut a mile away.