Home»All Photographs»Year Albums»2021»October»2021_10_10 GCR

Sunday 10th October 2021 should have been a simple day to visit the Great Central following the activities of the previous weekend's Autumn Steam Gala. The locomotive selection was rather dubious with a question in my mind as to which way the 8F was facing and the Type 1 which I regard as the least attractive of the diesel fleet. But it was the last opportunity to see 2-8-0 3802 working service trains on the GCR for quite a while. From the moment I arrived everything went pear shaped. The 09:20 departure with 3802 left 32 minutes late and that set the tone for the rest of the day. It proceeded to lose time on every run that I saw and the use of 48305, tender facing south, on a DALEX precipitated even more chaos. They even had to run the diner ahead of the nominal 12:50 ex-Loughborough because 3802 was passing Kinchley Lane at booked departure time. Only the diesel made any effort to regain time. I concluded that I could use my time better than waiting for the last two departures from Loughborough. Goodness only knows what time the service ended or did they cancel trains?