Cathedrals Express to Swanage with 4464 Bittern 19-04-12 скачать в хорошем качестве

Cathedrals Express to Swanage with 4464 Bittern 19-04-12

Thursday 19th April looked like being another of "those" days. With less than 24 hours until departure, the motive power of the Banbury to Swanage Cathedrals Express, 46201 Princess Elizabeth, had been declared a failure, leading to speculation that the train might run with diesel haulage. In the event, 4464 Bittern was drafted in as a last minute substitute. With steam now assured, we made an early start (not early enough) and headed for Tackley, the first pick-up stop after Banbury. Right from the start it was clear that, with the heavy rush-hour traffic, we weren't going to make it and so we diverted, first to Didcot, then to Radley, then to Culham. Not surprisingly, with all this toing and froing (and some bad navigation in Abingdon) we managed to miss the train completely. Already two shots down, we moved on to a spot near St Mary Bourne. In order to maximize our output, I stayed here with the "A" camera while the "second unit" took our new camera and went off to Deane. This worked (up to a point), with the video opening on a bridge near Deane and then cutting to the viaduct near St Mary Bourne. The down side was the travel time back from Deane to pick me up because it meant that we were late arriving at Redbridge, by which time Bittern had already passed through on the way to the Up Goods Loop at Southampton. In the loop, the A4 ran round its train. Tender-first running from here to Swanage meant that the loco would be facing forwards for the journey home without any additional light engine moves or any diesel assistance. Not wanting to get caught out again, we went straight to Swanage to await the arrival. This was booked for 15:14, but it wasn't until 16:10 that 4464 slid into the platform and came right up to the stop block. A class 33 removed the stock, releasing the A4 for servicing and then at 17:38 the 33 returned the stock to the already crowded platform. With a start time from Banbury of 08:38 this meant a maximum travel time of seven and a half hours for less than 90 minutes at the seaside. Having captured the departure from Corfe Castle we moved on to Parkstone. Although Parkstone station was quite crowded when we arrived, for some curious reason, no one seemed to want the country end of the up platform, (the best spot in our opinion) favouring the station footbridge instead. After Parkstone, it was on to Winchester, where we found that, since we were last there, the bridge in Andover Road has been rebuilt, bringing the parapet to above head height. Fortunately, there was still enough time to relocate to the platform at Micheldever.