4270 goods train charter

When Mark and I first started discussing wagons and goods trains in earnest over lockdown one of our key milestone aims was to get a respectable GWR goods train together before 4270's boiler ticket expired. After a lot of hard work, we managed that in time for this year's Cotswold Festival of Steam, but what we really wanted was a photo charter to kick that side of things off again. Saturday was the day it all came together, with huge thanks to Martin, the charter organiser, and Mike, who co-ordinated it on the railway side.

As I had never guarded on a photo charter before I was officially 'tagging along' to see what it was all about. This turned out to be the best of both worlds as I got to do a bit of guard stuff and a chance to join the gallery and finally stand back and get to admire the fruits of our labour from afar.

After a bit of early morning shunting to get things ready, we loaded up the 30 lucky photographers (places sold out in a little over a day, we like to think the attraction of our goods train was a part of that!) onto the 2 brake vans and trundled down to Hayles to disembark, and do some runs past Didbrook. I stayed on the train for this one, but there was time to get a shot of us waiting at Hayles: 

As you can already see, we were phenomenally lucky with the weather today, clearly the powers that be approve of goods trains :-)

Anyway, next site was just a bit further South at Chicken curve, and this was a good time to join the photters. After a 15 minute wait for some cloud to clear, that was the last we had to worry about lack of sunlight all day 'til sunset. Time to stand back and enjoy the view:

Going back for another run...

And a slight change of position for the next one:

How about portrait?

Let's do a video this time!

I couldn't resist one picking out the 2 sign-written PO coal wagons too:

Much to the disappointment of C&W who'd seen and heard tantalising glimpses only thus far, we then headed back to Toddington for some shots alongside the North siding, doing a fairly reasonable imitation of double track.

Looking towards the sun, but everyone gave it a go:

It seemed like some going away shots were called for here though:

I thought I'd try one the other way just to see the effect:

After a lunch stop we headed back South, finally passing C&W, where we had quite the reception committee:

- Rogues' gallery!

The Sun was too low in the sky for tunnel exit shots, so we went through the tunnel and opted for there instead, where we still just about had the light for a few runs:

Lots of satisfied photographers:

After that it was back to Chicken Curve for some more shots as the Sun went down. I stayed on the brake van for this one so no photos from me for this one. One from this set did make it onto page 2 of The Sunday Telegraph though courtesy of Jack Boskett, free publicity doesn't get much better than that!

Then back to Toddington for a much needed cuppa and wait for it to get dark, as the fun wasn't over yet. Carefully positioned train and floodlights for a static shoot at the end of the day:

At this point Matt, the real guard, and I both in our GWR guards uniforms were both collared to stand very still in strategic positions for some long exposure shots, which was a new experience!

But  did get a couple more photos from under the station canopy with a last focus on our wagons in the dark:

It was a truly fantastic day, everything came together; the weather, the fine company, all our hard work to get a goods train together, the lot. Certainly a day to remember.