With summer in full swing and the daylight hours at their longest, Pathfinder Railtours ran their annual day tour from the Midlands to Cornwall (Kernow) with set down points at Truro, St Erth and Penzance, writes Ian Thomas.
The Penzance option is the most popular as the Mazey Day celebrations are celebrated on the last Saturday in June. Known locally as Golowan, Cornish speak for midsummer. The train started from Dorridge, picking up at Birmingham New Street, Worcester Parkway, then locally at Cheltenham and Cam and Dursley.
Jill and I chose to disembark at St Erth and catch the branch line train from there to St Ives where we enjoyed a meal consisting of a crab salad and washed down with the St Austell brewery`s finest ale, Tribute. The train was hauled by two Class 50 locomotives, now almost 60 years old and restored by the Class 50 alliance, a preservation group. These locomotives were built for use on the (then) dieselised West Coast Mainline (WCML) mainly between Crewe and Glasgow Central, although they did work to Edinburgh and Perth.
Following the full electrification of the WCML, they were transferred away to the Western Region and were seen on just about all express passenger work, parcels and some freight workings. They were common in Gloucestershire, on Cheltenham to London services and Cross Country (then the North-East/South-West route) services right up to the late 1980s.
Also running on Saturday was the Statesman charter picking up and setting down at the same points. This train hauled by two vintage class 47 diesel locomotives. These locos are now 62 years old, with the first entering service in 1962. So, a really vintage day out to the south-west. I took the opportunity to photograph the trains where possible and also see the last of the HST sets still at work in Cornwall, with 48 years of service, plus some 1980s vintage photos of Class 50 workings in Gloucestershire.
Pictures by Ian Thomas
