Day 2 of The Great Western saw Clun Castle run from Plymouth to London Paddington via Bristol Temple Meads and then onwards to Birmingham Snow Hill and Tyseley
MPD▸ .
Confusion reigned at the start of the day with pax requested to join the train earlier than scheduled as it was anticipated that the preceding CrossCountry service was to be cancelled. However, the
XC▸ service ran as scheduled and so the tour departed Plymouth on its original schedule - with the supporting Class 47 following 5 minutes later.
Purists were making comments about the tour load as Castles were originally restricted to load 8 west of Newton Abbot and the tour was load 9! This played out on Day 1 with the tour reaching the Dainton summit at 8mph! Sure enough, the loco struggled on Hemerdon and eventually succumbed. This turned out to be nothing to do with the loco, but two coaches were suffering from dragging brakes. The following Class 47 was summoned to push the tour and it eventually got going some 30 minutes late. With help from the Class 47, the tour reached Bristol Temple Meads only 5 minutes down.
Seen here between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren, where we were exceptionally fortunate as within seconds of the tour disappearing out of shot, a Down XC Voyager appeared!
