Didcot Railway Centre on Bank Holiday Monday | 32424 'Beachy Head', 4079 'Pendennis Castle' + more!

Another scorcher today as temperatures continued to soar, beyond even what we had yesterday at the Gloucester Warwickshire Railway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXr0v1nz2vQ

Today saw a trip to the Didcot Railway Centre for the visit of the new build LBSCR H2-Class Atlantic No 32424 ‘Beachy Head’ as part of the railway centres Heritage in Motion event. This was ‘Beachy Heads’ first outing since her full build away from the Bluebell Railway, so certainly worth seeing out and about in action on another heritage line.

Before we headed to Didcot, there was a small matter of a freight train of interest on the mainline, the 6M50 formed of Colas Class 70 70811 and two Colas Class 56s 56049 'Robin of Templecombe 1938 - 2013' and 56051 'Survival' on a short engineers freight. These 56s had been used to take fellow classmates 59094 and 56302 to Marchwood on Saturday ahead of their export to Ghana, and this pair had then worked to Westbury, before 56049 worked an engineers on Saturday and sunday so they were heading back dead in tow with the 70 on the 6M50 which we see Swindon and again as they traverse Didcot North Junction. Some more interesting Didcot mainline station action was one of only two DB class 66s owned by DB but still wearing the full English Welsh and Scottish Railway livery, now a real rarity.

Inside Didcot Railway Centre, lots to see with double heading during the afternoon of ‘Beachy Head’ and ‘Pendennis Castle’, as well as solo workings through the morning, 4141 on the auto and mixed freights, and ‘Trojan’ on shunting demonstrations as well as a spirited climb up to the coal tower.

Again given the extreme heat, Didcot did very well to keep everything running smoothly and a credit to the heritage sector in general for their hard work and dedication to put on the show no matter what the elements throw at them, It was sweltering by the afternoon today so I can’t imagine how the footplate crews must have felt!

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