The Charitable Chibble

So as previously announced in the last post, on Sunday 16th July I ventured down to London for the first of 2 GB Railfreight's Charity Railtours for 2017. Originating from Ipswich, the tour was met at Stratford with a pair of GBRf's most recent General Motors Class 66s No.s 66778 "Darius Cheskin" and 66775 "HMS Argyll" running in multi. This pair would take us onto Peterborough, the main hub for GBRf operations since the very start in the early 2000s. On departure from Stratford at 10:30 we travelled via Broxbourne and Cambridge arriving into Peterborough for a short foot stretch and locomotive swap over just before 13:00. So that was that for part one of the traction utilised on the tour. Here are a couple of images of 66778 and 66775 on the front of the train before shortly heading onto the depot.

66778 / 66775 seen at Peterborough

With that out the way, now for the most anticipated part of the day, we would do a loop of Peterborough with a pair of British Railfreight Grey liveried English Electric Class 20 Locomotives, No.s 20118 "Saltburn-by-the-Sea" and 20132 "Barrow Hill Depot" long-term hired to GB Railfreight by Barrow Hill based HN Rail.

20132 / 20118 seen at Peterborough

We would head out of Peterborough via Loughborough and Chesterfield, arriving at the furthest north point of Sheffield for 16:00. Following a brief photo stop at Chesterfield.

20118 / 20132 seen at Chesterfield

On departure from Sheffield we headed via Worksop, Gainsborough and Lincoln back to Peterborough, arriving shortly after 18:00 for a further leg stretch and the last of the loco changes.

20132 / 20118 seen at Peterborough before detaching from the train

The last leg would take in Central London, heading to Reading before terminating at Basingstoke using another of the latest batch of General Motors Class 66s No. 66777 "Annette".

66777 at Peterborough

Although it was most practical to depart the tour at it's first set down point at Finsbury Park in London. So that was that for an absolute epic day organised by a fantastic team raising in excess of a staggering £21,000 for 3 fantastic causes the British Heart Foundation (BHF), The Ripple Project and Woking Homes. So now it's all eyes on the 2nd tour "The Absent Shunter" which will depart Newcastle on Sunday 13th August 2017 and head for Basingstoke via York, Huddersfield, Stockport, Crewe, London Euston and Reading... it surely can only be just as good if not even better than this cracking day out and on that note I bid you farewell till next time.

The next blog post will be about the visit of Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire's state of the art Volvo B5TL/ Wright Gemini 3 open top bus on it's one day only visit to Manchester on Monday 24th July 2017.

Thanks for reading!