Orton Mere via Cambridge to Scarborough, Royal Scotsman Tour at Waterbeach Station - 3560+562

Bit of a surprise shot this one, saw on Railcam that the working was parked up just a little further south, north of Cambridge at Chesterton where once the branch line to St. Ives ran north west along through the villages, Histon, Longstanton, Willingham, Swavesey and to the ARC quarries at Fen Drayton. One day in around 1992, just after to decamping to the village of Willingham, I happened to travel along Station Road towards Longstanton and a longish Aggregates train was making its way over the level crossing towards the sidings at Chesterton; this just happened to be the last freight working along this country line and subsequent to that a lot of the rails were lifted, though not all; I never did get details of the loco type or its number. It then became a great walking track from the GER's mainline at Chesterton, all the way up to St. Ives, crossing the still extant Ouse Viaduct just south of St. Ives which took the track into the town. St. Ives lost its rail service a long time ago and in recent years, the local authority has now used the track-bed for a directed bus service, taking passengers from the Science Park at Chesterton, all the way, through some very pleasant surroundings, to the centre of St. Ives. Some, not very good, but rail related pictures can be seen here, from September 2003, taken on my old Fuji Finepix 4900 camera, one of the 1st digital cameras to come out which was affordable and not too bad quality, see Gallery 2 here-
www.rail.tightfitz.com/gal02.html
and Gallery 3 here-
www.rail.tightfitz.com/gal03.html
The shots at the end of Gallery 3 show the scene at the site of the old Chesterton sidings which were easily accessible at the time, no palisade had gone up in those days, and the pictures, 99-102, show some of the buildings, a wrecked car and other railway related materials, left about the place. Today its a DB Shenker Cargo loco, class 66, what else, and I suspect this was what was on the quarry move seen in around 1992, 66112 on the 17 minute late 6M70, Chesterton Redland Sidings to Mountsorrel Sidings, empties train, arriving 28 minutes early though. In the second frame on the right, the loco appears to have some brand new, empty, Tarmac, JNA bogie box wagons in tow with, 'A CRH Company', written on the side, don't know if this is anything to do with 'ARC' mentioned above.

Taken on: July 12, 2017

Tags:

Great Eastern Railway

Waterbeach Station

DB Schenker Cargo

Class 66

66112

6M70

Chesterton Redland Sidings to Mountsorrel Sidings

JNA Bogie Box Wagon

GBRf

Great Britain Rail freight

Belmond Royal Scotsman Tour

66746

66744

CrossRail

1Z83

Orton Mere via Grantham, Sleaford & March to Cambridge

1Z84

Cambridge via Peterborough and York to Scarborough

Colas Rail

66848

6L37

Hoo Junction Up Yard to Whitemoor Yard L.D.C(GBRf)

Abelio Great Anglian

Class 170

170201

1K70

Cambridge to Norwich

170205

1K77

Norwich to Cambridge

Thameslink Great Northern

Electric Service

Class 387

387107

1T31

387129

1T35

Kings Lynn to London Kings Cross

387126

1T20

London Kings Cross to Kings Lynn

Class 365

365511

1T33

Ely to London Kings Cross

Cross Country Trains

170107

1L36

Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport

170109

1N55

Stansted Airport to Birmingham New Street

River Cam

Waterbeach Abbey

Railway Tavern

Ouse Viaduct

St. Ives

Chesterton « less

Sets appears in: • Waterbeach Station

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/8.0, 1/640 sec, 47mm, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens:	EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.002 sec (1/640)
Focal Length:	47mm
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows
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