Vintage Trains ‘Marches’ on with 2022 season
HAVING closed the year with two pre-Christmas trips to York in December with WR 4-6-0 No. 7029 Clun Castle, Vintage Trains plans to open the new season with three excursions in March.
On Saturday, March 5, with boarding at the Tyseley Locomotive Works platform, the Castle will head a ‘Welsh Marches’ circular tour north to Shrewsbury, passing Leominster and Craven Arms before stopping for a break at Hereford.
Homeward-bound No. 7029 tackles some six miles of an average 1-in-100 climb up the summit at Llanvihangel, then passing Abergavenny and Pontypool Road to take the Bristol line at Maindee Junction.
From there the train heads through the Severn Tunnel to Swindon, turns north at Didcot-Foxholes Junction and makes for Birmingham via Oxford and Hatton bank.
Saturday, March 12 sees LMS Princess Coronation Pacific No. 6233 Duchess of Sutherland head a tour over the Settle and Carlisle line and back. It is planned to run the train over the S&C both ways without diesel assistance.
From Tyseley’s platform, the tour will be hauled by a vintage diesel at up to 80mph over the West Coast Main Line to Hellifield, picking up at Walsall, Wolverhampton, Stafford, and Crewe, before No. 6233 takes over for the leg to Carlisle. Passengers will have time to visit Carlisle before No. 6233 takes the trip back to Hellifield, where the diesel takes over for the return leg to Tyseley.
On Saturday, March 26, No. 7029 heads ‘The Chester Venturer’, also from Tyseley’s platform, picking up at Coleshill Parkway, Tamworth High Level, Burton-on-Trent, Nuneaton, and Leicester.
Seats are available in Pullman, club or tourist classes, and passengers may join the tour at Tyseley Locomotive Works where prebooked free car parking is available.
Seats can only be booked online via the website www.vintagetrains. co.uk