Severn Valley Railway, Pacifics and "Flying Scotsman"

More railway photography for this update… we recently took a trip down to the Midlands, and to the Severn Valley Railway for their special event with both “Flying Scotsman” and “Tornado” running. 
“Flying Scotsman” has been attracting much hype since its costly and long-delayed return to service this year, and I (Ben) had repeatedly told myself I wouldn’t be buying into that hype.  But I do quite like the loco (on a childhood Birthday trip to the SVR I went up in the cab of the loco, in 1990), and thought I’d take up a family invite to go see the loco.

Of course, we couldn’t afford the high costs of the pre-booked tickets to ride behind the loco, but a lineside walk between Highley and Hampton Loade seemed a good bet.  Predictions were that it would be busy in the valley, but we reckoned there would be some opportunities for photography.  The cycle and footpath here runs right beside the track for most of the way, with only a waist-high wire fence, so is good for photos.

The SVR were running a very intensive service, with lots of their bigger home-fleet engines out and about, and our arrival at the Country Park (where we’ve done many photoshoots over the years) was in time to allow us to see the recently restored Battle of Britain-class loco “Sir Keith Park”.  Unfortunately it meant shooting into the sun, but the new camera coped pretty well with it, even if it was Lens-Flare-O-Rama...

Moving along the path, “Tornado” was next, but a little annoyingly, tender-first.  Still, I had in the past managed a couple of photographs of this impressive, new-build loco out on the Settle Carlisle so wasn’t too bothered at missing out on a head-first shot.  It was however to be the start of a day of frustrations with photographing the trains, as everything seemed to be running past us tender-first.  Not the railways fault, and they cannot turn the locomotives round at each end of the journey, but it does make for boring photography.

Token arty shot of the very, very nice LNER Teak carriages.

It was a nice walk though, with a picnic in the grounds of Hampton Loade station, before Amy and I left The Childs with my parents and dashed back down the line to get a photo of Scotsman itself.  This would be tricky- it was only making a couple of journeys a day, and at this point, facing the right direction, at lunchtime, we anticipated difficulty finding somewhere to take a shot.  And indeed the path near the station was very busy.

But a little way along, a gap in the wire, with some ferns and bushes which obscured the crowds allowed a shot through the fence.  The loco was travelling slowly enough to mean there wasn’t any blurring, and the only downside was that the sky had gone to the classic ‘Tuppaware-Lid’ format which made the lighting a little odd, so I tried it in greyscale in post production.  Still, it was nice to see the loco after so many years.

A few more shots were managed on the way back down to the Country Park, including this one of "Erlestroke Manor" running through the Halt itself…

…and this last shot, through the trees, on the way back to the car (finally, the locos on the leg of their journeys where they would be facing the right way!)  Tornado wouldn’t be making a run down the valley, facing smokebox first, until nearly teatime so we headed home instead.  Not a bad day out overall.  There should be the chance for a bit more railway photography soon as well, when we head out to the Ffestiniog for the Victorian Weekend.  In the meantime, hopefully something else from Wales, or maybe the wedding we did at the end of August, in the next post.