60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at full speed along the North Wales Coast! | The Red Dragon Day 4 | 18/9/24
Today’s video sees me travel up to Abergele & Pensarn station on the North Wales Coast Mainline for LNER A4 4-6-2 Sir Nigel Gresley! 60007 was hauling Day 4 of Steam Dreams’ “The Red Dragon” tour. This would be the first time an A4 travelled along the North Wales Coast Mainline in a decade, and to add to the charm, the train would run unassisted. It originated at Holyhead, with the A4 having brought the stock there the night before. She travelled across Anglesey, then across the Menai Straits and to Bangor, where passengers would board. After that she continued via Llandudno Junction, Rhyl and Chester to Crewe where steam would be replaced by diesel for the run along the Heart of Wales line to Cardiff Central. The weather was meant to be significantly less cloudy than it was which was a shame, especially as the weather cleared up almost as soon as I’d gotten on the train home lol.
With the water stop at Llandudno I was hoping to see it twice, however I ran into trouble finding trains to Llanfairfechan or Conwy from my local at that time in the morning and I also realised that any shot done before Llandudno would make doing Abergele impossible and I didn’t fancy the shot at Rhyl much. Therefore with help from @harnettyrailways I managed to cover two locations at Abergele, cheers to Richard for him manning the camera on the bridge!
I set out from my local at 6:05 and headed North to Crewe, where the 08:21 TfW service took me to Chester. A quick change, and by 9:36 I was in Abergele. I firstly headed to the bridge East of the station to have a chat with Richard and set up the camera facing over the bay. Once I had done so and 60007 had departed Llandudno Junction, I ran down to the bridge West of the station where Gwrych Castle and the A55 forms the backdrop, the location my secondary planner recommended I do! 60007 came streaking along the line close to her maximum permitted speed, with whistles for everyone. At that, my short day was over and I headed home! There was a brief glimmer of hope that 60007 would be held at Chester due to lateness inflicted on it by the preceding Birmingham train which would have meant an extra shot for me but that didn’t happen. Update: However it did happen at Crewe! I'm uploading a short of 60007 coming off the train and moving to the depot, I'll post the link here once it's up: • Loco change at Crewe! 60007 Sir Nigel...
Thanks as always for everyone involved, to Richard, my secondary planner, TfW and WMR, and thanks also to LSL, 60007 and her crew for the great performance! I hope you enjoy this rare footage as I did!
Watch video 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at full speed along the North Wales Coast! | The Red Dragon Day 4 | 18/9/24 online without registration, duration hours minute second in high quality. This video was added by user Crunchy Nut Steam Films 18 September 2024, don't forget to share it with your friends and acquaintances, it has been viewed on our site 3,79 once and liked it 14 people.