I’m slowly recovering from last week and the exertions of both Infrarail/Railtex then straight into Tthe Railway Children’s ‘3 Peaks by Rail’ extravaganza. Most of Sunday was spent catching up on sleep as I knew I’d need to recharge the batteries for this week, which has another hectic travel schedule. But today’s been spent slaving over a hot computer as I’ve been editing thousands of pictures from the events in order to get them out to clients as this is the only day I have free. Fortunately, I’ve managed to get almost all done. The last few can get done whilst I’m travelling tomorrow.

I’ve another early start as I’m travelling down to London for a press event that I can’t talk about until its over. I’ll be blogging about it when the time comes as part of tomorrow’s rolling blog. Sadly, the weather forecast for the capital is looking pretty dismal tomorrow so I may not be there too long. We shall see…

In the meantime, here’s today’s picture, which was taken on the ‘3 Peaks’ train as it returned from Fort William and crossed the beautiful Rannoch Moor. The trip to/from ‘Fort Bill’ is stunning. It’s one of the UK’s great railway journey’s. I wish I’d had more time to enjoy the trip but I was busy working aboard the train. Even so, there was the opportunity to get one or two shots and this is one of them. The railway enthusiasts amongst my readers will know how rare a sight a BR Blue Class 47 loco would be on this line.

This particular locomotive is now numbered 47614 (again). It was new in June 1964 and numbered D1733. Renumbered as 47141 in January 1974 it gained the number 47614 in June 1984 before becoming 47853 in February 1990. As well as many numbers it’s had many owners. After the end of BR it passed to Virgin Trains, then private operator Riviera Trains who then sold it on to DRS. In 2018 it was acquired by current operator Locomotive Services Ltd (LSL) who’ve renumbered it back to 47614. It’s rather appropriate to see it back in Scotland as it was a Scottish allocated engine between 1974 and 1989.

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