'Royal Scot', no 46100, en route to Worcester

Many weeks ago I checked to see whether there were any steam train tours planned to come our way and only found a couple in the first few months of the year. Luckily I marked them in my diary and today was the first. An old acquaintance whom I met at the market several months had asked if I knew when they might be, so I found out the information and passed it on.

Luckily I didn’t have a market stall today so I could make plans, which ended up being reversed at nearly the last moment. When I found the actual times the train would be passing various points nearby, the company organising the circular tour had reversed the direction. Originally the train would be passing through Stroud in the late afternoon on its return from Worcester, but yesterday it was announced that the tour would be coming through Stroud from London late this morning.

I chose to photograph it from a new vantage point for me, at a village called Haresfield, where there was a pedestrian crossing over the main line tracks serving Bristol and Birmingham, part of the main western line of England. There are small pedestrian gates on either side of the lines with red and green lights to warn about the imminent arrival of trains. The trains travel at quite high speed on this part of the line.

When I arrived a young man was already watching the trains, filming with his mobile phone and a Go-pro camera, and fully aware of all the various trains positions and times. this was very helpful. We chatted at length and he reminded me of when I was a pre-teen in the 1950s and keen on watching steam trains. His dad was also present, regularly driving him from a nearby town.  As it happens he didn’t know a steam train would be appearing, so he was very pleased.

The steam engine is called 'Royal Scot' – number 46100, and is of a type also called the 'Royal Scot' class, which originally powered express passenger services of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, between London Euston, Manchester and Glasgow. Today it eventually arrived thirty minutes late, leaving the Golden Valley line through Stroud and joining the mainline about two miles south of here. We heard the whistle and then the smoke appeared in the distance as the engine worked hard to climb the incline. I’ve added an ‘Extra’ of it climbing and passing under a small farm track bridge in the distance. By the time it reached the crossing  where we stood it had built up quite a reasonable speed and it passed within a couple of yards of where I stood.