North West. Saturday 13th April 2019.
I decided to stay relatively local this Saturday, The Great Central railway were holding a diesel gala, which I did consider attending, but changed my mind. My original intention was to see what was happening in Carlisle, so I booked a ticket and went via Wigan on a Virgin Pendolino. We only got as far as Lancaster however and were stopped for a good half hour, before being aborted and returned to Preston, apparently the train in front of us had shed its fuel over both tracks, the West Coast Main Line was closed at that point and the fire brigade called out.
I didn’t have a particularly early start on Saturday morning, so on returning to Preston I too aborted my trip to Carlisle and instead decided to chase a special to Blackpool, this was the Railway Touring Company operating a West Coast Railways rake hauled by Jubilee class 5690 (BR No. 45690) Leander and Les Ross/Peter Pan Class-86 25kV/AC Electric Locomotive 86259.
On returning to Preston, the special was about to leave for Blackpool, with the class 86 leading and Leander facing backwards on the rear. I followed the special into Blackpool and found it parked up for a few hours in one of the platforms while the passengers visited the town, the class 86 was detached from the train at Blackpool.
This was my first visit to Blackpool since electrifications had taken place, the station seems a lot more clinical now the semaphores and signal box has been removed. Surprisingly I didn’t get hassled for taking photographs this time either, Blackpool has been notorious for its anti-photographer staff over the years, on my last visit I`d simply taken a photograph of the train I`d arrived on when some small Scottish balding twit started reading me the riot act, I simply said interesting sub culture and walked on past him, I don`t think the inhabitant had grasped what I was actually saying, bless.
The special was due to return at 14.05 so I caught a train to Poulton Le Fylde in front of it, and waited for it to pass though. I managed a few good photographs in the sun, as it was a nice day, some time later the Class 86 passed through light engine and I later saw her parked up at Preston.
I met up with a few friends at Preston and had a walk out to HW Guitar shop which is sadly due to move back to the Bolton shop to consolidate business, I took an early tea in Preston before returning to Manchester. It hadn’t been a bad day despite the aborted Carlisle trip.
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