Football, Steam and Art
3rd September 2005
3rd September coincided with class 47 hauled football specials for the Wales
v England World Cup qualifier, a Western charter and a Jubilee excursion to
Holyhead. I also wanted to see the Waking Dreams exhibition of pre-Raphaelite
art from the Delaware Art Museum on its last weekend in Britain,
which meant a ride to Nottingham. We rose early to catch the 06:21 departure
from Bangor, the Virgin Holyhead to Euston which was hauled along the non-electrified
North Wales Coast line by 57 308.
We alighted at Chester, where it waited from 07:35 to 08:01, an odd timetabling quirk.
47 848 Newton Abbott Festival of Transport
arrived a couple of minutes too late for us to continue on the Pendolino,
so we had to travel on to Crewe aboard a 153. The above looks every inch a
Virgin service but classic traction is a thing of the past for this company
- what you see is the 08:00 Chester to Cardiff footex.
Crewe was awash with 57s - 301 and 303 breeze
through platform 6.
We hadn't come to see 57s... 47 811 has brought the stock
for the 09:28 footex into platform 6
While the Brush was running round, ex LMS Jubilee 5690 Leander
arrived from Tyseley with the Irish Mail charter to Holyhead