Railtours and Specials – Part 2

We welcomed a good audience to today’s meeting, they were treated to a superb afternoon’s entertainment with John Day (Ipswich) showing and telling us about Railtours and Specials (part 2) covering the past 30 plus years. John started with a series of varied shots of the VSOE Pullman stock in various locations and with different loco haulage, including class 33’s and 37’s, along with some steam haulage. Following several other photographs of named specials, our attention was switched to Illinois, in the USA. a place John visits frequently to visit some family. Here in Grayslake, we saw the “Eastbound Extra Business” to Chicago in 1992 with Western Central loco 3023 among others, we then saw some steam specials including 4-8-4 loco 261 working from Burlington to Chicago plus a few of the many tales John has to tell. Moving from here on 3rd June 1996, we went to Waukegan, Illinois where John was fortunate enough to photograph the Olympic torch, alight, on a train hauled by locos 1806 & 1906 on route to Atlanta. We also visited Canda & Spain before returning to the UK. Once back after tea we toured the country with some special pictures of different or unusual workings such as 55022 at Blythe Cambois (2011), 37603 at Kennett on a Crewe to Felixstowe nuclear waste working. (2013) and many more. As the show progressed, we became more up to date, with a rare shot of two class 755 units passing on the Felixstowe branch, also 43309 / 43295 moving into store at Ely prior to export to Mexico in May 2021, One John enthused about was his picture of 59002 hauling 66574 and its Freightliner train through Ipswich from Garston to Felixstowe North as 66574 had failed.
Many other named trains, different specials and of course oddities were seen in what was a superb afternoon.

Dave Elsdon
Branch Secretary