46100 Royal Scot blasts through Nuneaton! Steam Dreams ‘Southend to Chester’ tour | 8/8/24

Today’s outing is for LMS Royal Scot Class 4-6-0 46100 Royal Scot hauling Steam Dreams’ Southend to Chester tour. As you guessed, the tour’s final destination was Chester. Beginning from Southend-on-Sea, the tour ran through Southern Essex and into East London before turning into Wembley Yard from where 46100 would haul the train one way to Chester up the West Coast Mainline Line, certainly an authentic route for Royal Scots, via Watford, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford and Crewe before turning off onto the line to Chester through Beeston Castle. As it happened due to lateness the train was diverted away from Northampton. The weather for the day was a bit mixed, typically the worst of the day arrived when filming at Milton Keynes lol.

I set off at 7:34 from my local, heading to Birmingham and getting the 8:06 to Milton Keynes Central. Bad news was already awaiting me as a points failure on the Down Fast near Willesden was delaying everything heading North from London Euston. When 46100 got underway she was over 20 late and just to compound the issue she then got stuck behind a unit which had some sort of issue outside Bletchley and she had to wait until the signallers could get her round the stricken unit. She ended up stopping in Milton Keynes following a freight, and just as I went to get a shot of her nameplate the whistle sounded for her to leave, so I was taken aback a tad, but a lovely departure then ensued. Sorry the tripod isn’t very high up in this shot as I’d have liked, it’s due to the standard overzealous security guard problem. After that I took the delayed 11:19 northwards to Nuneaton. Originally the plan was to continue to Tamworth however I did have somewhere I needed to be this afternoon and I was unwilling to be late for it so I opted for Nuneaton instead and was able to get the 12:45 back to Birmingham New Street afterwards. 46100 came storming through, getting up to line speed after crossing over Attleborough Junction and with a blast on the whistle coming into the station. After that I headed home.

Thank you to all who made today possible, including LSL, Steam Dreams and 46100 and her crew! Well done to them for recovering time so well during the tour under difficult circumstances and thank you to LNWR for getting me to my locations today albeit late. Thanks also to my secondary planner for her help planning the shots! I hope you all enjoy the results as I did.