Rare Visitor - Lesser Spotted Tornado

[whole diary]

[moonrakerz]

Yesterday evening at Heywood Road Junct, Westbury. En route from Minehead to Victoria.  40 mins late by then, but it gave time for the sun to come out !
Would have looked even better with all those poppies.

[thetrout]

This went through Castle Cary... I arrived at Castle Cary yesterday afternoon to take the train back to Taunton... The station was filled with trainspotters... the Exeter St Davids service was due in at 18:23, Tornado, 18:28... So some people decided to take photos from Platform 2... The Exeter St Davids service arrived about 6 minutes late. The trainspotters made it quite clear that it's presences was not welcome as it completely obstructed the view of Platform 1...!

However, we left Castle Cary and passed Tornado when it was approximately 10 minutes away from Castle Cary...!

Personally, A photograph of a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) next to Tornado would be awesome...

[Chris from Nailsea]

Great picture - thanks for posting it here, moonrakerz!   

[Andy]

Wonderful shot! I know there are mixed feelings about this loco in some preservation circles but it certainly helped to pull in the crowds to the West Somerset Railway (from where it was returning when this shot was taken) during their - truly magical for hydraulic fans- mixed traffic weekend. It'd be interesting to speculate on the role played by (i) High Speed 1 and (ii) Tornado in the cultural rail revival Britain seems to be experiencing at the moment.

[The SprinterMeister]

Wonderful shot! I know there are mixed feelings about this loco in some preservation circles but it certainly helped to pull in the crowds to the West Somerset Railway (from where it was returning when this shot was taken) during their - truly magical for hydraulic fans- mixed traffic weekend. It'd be interesting to speculate on the role played by (i) High Speed 1 and (ii) Tornado in the cultural rail revival Britain seems to be experiencing at the moment.

There will be plenty of time to phot Tornado on GW^▸ (Great Western) metals this summer as I am advised its going to do a stint on the Sunday Bristol - Kingswear jobbie from early July.

[cereal_basher]

It is operating the Torbay Express for quite a long period over the summer and according to pathfinders website is is very well booked, full on the first run.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

anyone any good at photoshop? wonder how this would look in dynamic lines

[moonrakerz]

Personally, A photograph of a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) next to Tornado would be awesome...

Actually .....................

Below the signal gantry, on the left of photo, you can just see the rear end of an HST heading West down the loop line. On the right you can see the smoke/steam as Tornado came out of Westbury station ................ Grrrr ! You can't win them all..............

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

was a good day for steam at exeter yesterday even had a duff or two,unfortunatly due to other commitments i was only able to catch tornado on my way home... platform was packed!

[John R]

And Tornado performed excellently, with the northbound climb up towards Somerset particularly noteworthy I was told be some of the regulars.

Twas a sham that having arrived at Taunton at 1955, we were held until the late running 1953 XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service left at about 2018. We would have been approaching Weston before it even left Taunton. After which somewhat inevitably the 2020 stopper to Bristol went ahead of us, which then meant we had to wait for a southbound service along the single line at Weston.

So an hour and forty from arrival at Taunton to arrival at Bristol took the gloss off what was otherwise a perfect day. (Yes, I know we were still on time, but somehow KE1 managed to be given an early path home most Sundays last season. Maybe the signallers are biased towards GW^▸ (Great Western) locos. )