Spotting 2025 – Week 3

I know – I don’t usually post the week’s activities until Sunday / Monday. This week is tragically different. On Wednesday evening we were informed that Epi’s Brother, the one I wrote about last July, had passed away – He was 59. Despite all our prior knowledge of his health and lifestyle, this has been a shock and it leaves us with a mountain of actions to do. We just this minute received the Coroners verdict – Death due to heart disease. At the moment there is too much to do with all the relatives to contact and inform. Then there will be the gathering as people come to pay their respects and offer comfort – that starts tomorrow. But the real challenges lie ahead. Our Brother wished to be buried with his Mother – so that means shipping him home to Zimbabwe. Then there is his legacy – his possessions distributed over a couple of different locations and some legal files that may require storing until we can get clearance to shred them. Then, finally, I may get to hold my Wife and comfort her myself…

So, this week’s spotting has been rather cut short. But I did get out and about on Tuesday. A trip along the western end of what is now ‘The Mildmay Line’ saw me picking up a couple of freight train photographs before heading home via Richmond to add in a bit of Class 455 action. Lets do this in photographs 😅

GBRf’s 66738 heading west with a load of freshly imported Ford cars passes through West Hampstead…

At Willesden Junction I photographed the new resident shunter on the Euroterminal sidings, 08703…

…And also 66522 waiting to take a rake of spoil wagons somewhere, sometime…

I popped back to Kensal Rise hoping to catch a shot of a westbound train of Acton bound hoppers only to be stitched up by one of the passenger services. Crossing over to the westbound platform I was able to get a nice shot of 66538 on the climb with a Trafford Park to Tilbury Intermodal…

…This was difficult lighting and I decided to process this one from the RAW file myself as the camera generated JPEG looked a bit washed out – very unusual with the Fuji! Then I headed down to Richmond on 378223.

Sometimes things go wrong – and newer designs of rolling-stock, for all their improvements, are more likely to do so. I arrived at Richmond to find that the District Line service was already suspended and that my Mildmay Line Overground service was the last; for a while. The cause was 710376 which had inconveniently failed in platform 4. Just after I got off 378223 I saw 710266 pulling into platform 5. This turned out to be ‘The Cavalry’, sent to collect the errant ‘376. Here it is preparing to couple up…

…This resulted in a 9 car class 710 formation which blocked the junction outside Richmond, explaining why all services had to be stopped while the issue was resolved. So that’s ‘376 off to the naughty step then 😅

I did my usual duck ‘n’ dive back home but, despite my best efforts the day would only return 2 new for Haulage and from 109 logged only 4 were new sightings. I’m not sure what next week will bring but hopefully I will get the chance to get out and about 😎👍 Enjoy life my friends – sometimes it gets taken away…