Midland to the Highlands 23/07/22

LSL were taking their Midland Pullman HST from Crewe and eight other pickups to Pitlochry and Aviemore on the Highland main line. I joined at Preston and we had a smart run down the WCML to Carstairs (Garstang 95 Tebay 82 Shap Summit 68 Plumpton 104 Beattock 91 Summit 64 Lamington 105) then through the Glasgow suburbs to Stirling and points North. During a half hour pathing stop at Perth, we could examine the spare power car in immaculate Intercity livery and the rest of the train in the historic blue.

Arriving on time at Aviemore, we could view the train in the station as well as other railway activity. The Tesco container train came south with a GBRF 66, then the Strathspey Railway steam service arrived in platform 3 from Broomhill with Ivatt class 2 2-6-0 No 46521 in charge. We watched it run round but sadly there was no time to join it for its next round trip. A DMU came north headed for Inverness but the best sight of the day was one of Scotrail’s Inter7City HSTs headed for Glasgow which stopped just beside our train – a handsome pairing.

The cloud had come down and there was rain on the homeward run – welcome after the heatwave earlier in the week. The Highlands were magnificent as always and the stretch through the Ochil hills near Gleneagles never disappoints. Another brisk traverse of the Scottish and English summits, though nothing over 104, brought us back to Preston on time after a fine day out.

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Peter on a breezy and cool Manchester afternoon

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