The Settle & Carlisle Circular & The Welsh Chieftain Railtours - Craven Arms - 07/03/26

Today at Craven Arms, two railtour charters were captured on the Heart of Wales link, with 2x Class 47s and 2x Class 37s working on those respective railtour charters, both of them filmed on Saturday 7th March, 2026.

First up, The Settle & Carlisle Circular arrives with LSL Class 47s, 47593 and 47810, seen taking the Statesman Rail charter train from Hereford to Appleby, with the station briefly becoming something of a 1960s time warp scene with the old semaphore signals that are still standing in the distance. We took the chance to film them working alongside the Class 47s, as there is no doubt that these iconic signals will eventually be replaced in the future with the more modern colour light signals.

Two hours later, 'The Welsh Chieftain' makes its appearance with Transrail 37240 and Loram UK 37418 double-heading the Vintage Trains charter from Birmingham New Street to Cardiff Central, taking the scenic Heart of Wales line after a brief stop to perform a crew change at Craven Arms. The 37s made some really fine sounds as they set off for the Heart of Wales down to Cardiff.

We were quite happy wit the results of filming these tow railtours, and it is certainly one of our best filming moments that we have ever done with the new 4K Panasonic camera that we now use for filming the trains.

Filmed by Thomas Coombes on Saturday 7th March, 2026