Main line motive power
Willington & Mill Meece
22 May 2001
I found myself with a day off work - and
the sun was still shining! So here's a
record of some of the things that were
moving about that day. I started at
Willington, on the Birmingham - Derby
Line, just between Willington Junction,
where the Stoke line joins, and Stenson Junction, where the
Castle Donington line cuts off towards Trent Junction.
Illustrated below are a southbound passenger, in the hands of
a class 47, 66 185 with a short freight, which took the Trent
line, and 60 059 "Swinden Dalesman" on a long train of
tanks.....
....which passed a southbound steel train in the hands of 66 189.
A southbound coal train passed hauled by 66 008. There were
also a few HSTs around - here's one with buffers, and a shorter
train than usual. Next we had 66 185 again, returning with a very
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
similar train, followed by 66 009 with another long coal train,
seen peeling off the branch.
I moved across country now to the west coast route, to a spot
just north of Mill Meece pumping station, whose chimney can just
be discerned in the picture of 57006 "Freightliner Reliance"
heading north with a freightliner. A few minutes later, 47 703
"Hermes" passed on a northbound passenger, then class 92 014
"Emile Zola" with a southbound freightliner. Three more Virgin
passenger trains now, headed by class 87, 90 015 "The
International Brigades Spain 1936-1939" and another class 47.
There were of course other trains around - several HSTs at both
sites, plus a variety of sprinters. Soon, I suspect, diesel-hauled
passenger workings will be a memory, and there will be yet more
multiple unit trains, such as the "Coradia" unit illustrated, on a
working which, a year ago, would probably have been a class
37....
