Diesel Day

We collected Rory yesterday evening at Oxford Parkway. Daughter#1 brought him, but we only saw her for about 3 minutes as she realised if she raced over to the other platform she could catch an earlier train back to London, and get home 30 minutes earlier. So she did.

Today we managed to coax Rory away from his Roblox train driving game with the promise of a trip on a real steam train. I carefully checked the complicated Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway timetable and decided on the 1 o'clock southbound train from Toddington. We got there in plenty of time, rechecked the timetable and confidently bought our £60 family ticket. Only then did we find out the service was now diesel, not steam. Oh well, at least we could get some bacon rolls on the train. No, only 'Train 1' does bacon rolls, our train, 'Train 2' doesn't. And yes it should have been steam, but there would still be no bacon rolls.

We decided to get off at Winchcombe to look at a model railway display, thinking we could then get the next steam train back to Toddington. We saw the steam train in question pull up from the other direction and it looked packed though. Our diesel train was pretty empty. The next train back to Toddington turned out to be another diesel and we took it as Rory was starting to flag a bit. It was a DMU so we could sit right at the front behind the driver. We had a great view and were also able to watch them pass the token (it's basically a handbag - mrsfb) to the signal box at Toddington.

Technical details (mainly for JohnRH as I know he likes this stuff):
First locomotive - 47105, a Brush Type 4
DMU - W51360, a class 117

In the extras - Rory with 47105 in the background, the guard's cap, the DMU, and the token.

One year ago:
Brighton Bonus