Back to my old stomping ground for the first time in a long while for the Black 5 returning soouth after working the Fort William to Mallaig run.

Out chasing the Golfexes.

18:26 158735 and 170425 northbound
18:35 170452 jumped aboard for North Queensferry as the light was poor and just for a change of venue

North Queensferry

18:40 158732+170456 southbound
18:45 170403 north
18:50 170478 (SPT livery) south
18:56 1Z26, shown on the list as the first two 47s was 158471+170451.
19:01 158734 north
19:04 220023 north
19:06 158708+ex Hull 158394 on additional to Queen Street
19:12 66112 northbound loaded MGR
19:16 170459 north
19:20 66073 southbound loaded MGR
19:27 170456 north (Aberdeen)
19:31 43095 (Perth)+43038 (City of Dundee) north
19:36 northbound voyager couldn't ID
19:40 158730 south

At this point I was beginning to wonder if I had "Duff" gen as the expected times for the 47's has come and gone.

19:44 66103 northbound loaded MGR
19:47 At last 1Z08- 47832 top and tail with 47703 with clag to boot.
19:49 43197+43116 (Back the bid logo) northbound
19:50 jumped back on 170452 again back to Dalmeny.
20:02 Another pleasant surprise Freightliner 66615 on southbound cement
20:05 66105 northbound MGR very nearly bowled us for....
20:06 47712 top and tail with 47709 on 1Z10
20:14 158718+170402 (now back to three cars) south
20:20 170403 south
20:28 66166 southbound MGR
20:33 158722+170460 south as 170452 (again) north
20:36 156436 (SPT) south.

Out and about with Jim Young, info compiled by Jim and Myself with additional gen from Scotrail Group

Deans: 158728/158741 at 1919 on a late 2B02 to Newcraighall
1936 saw 170455 heading to Bathgate.

Linlithgow:
170434 west at 20.02
170414/170408 east at 20.06
158725 west and 170420 east at 20.11

Dalmeny:
66037 on 6J24 (?) south at 20.36
at 20.40, 170429 looped for an UID 221 on the late 1S62 to Dundee past:
20.48 saw 66101 on 6J44 (?) south.
21.05 finally saw 43103 leading the late 1B75 to Edinburgh, while at
the same time SPT liveried 170470 rolled in northbound.

the 2nd of July was marked by large demonstrations in Edinburgh to bring the plight of the poor and starving in Africa to the Leaders of the G8 meeting, to be heald the following week at Gleneagles.
This demonstration brought a couple of specials north from Leeds.

Interesting Goings on at the Pans

Nipped up to Prestonpans station for a couple of hours, having seen good shots on other sites. Reasonable variety with two Railfright liveried 90s on the North Berwicks, a Loadhaul 60 on the Lackenby and the Flying Banana as wel as the usual shops and 91s.

Some photographs of Newton station before and after the notorious remodelling scheme of the mid 1990s

Been years since I visited Millerhill so I stopped off for about 15mins around lunchtime today on my way home from a family “errand”. Pleasantly surprised at the amount of activity.

As I arrived the 60063 on the 6E28 Dalzell - Lackenby was just waiting for the road into the yard. Shortly afterwards 66111 on the late running 7B35 10.35 Thornton to Cockenzie PS arrived for crew change. On shed 37406, that had worked the Powderhall bins that morning, was in the headshunt, Withdrawn 37709, 37886 and 08489 wer in the tank lye and 66245 was beside the depot building. 66040, withdrawn 47747 “Florence Nightingale” and 37416 were in the siding known as the "chute" nearer to the yard. One other 66 was in the depot building.
66068 arrived shortly afterwards again on an MGR then 158704 arrived into the turnback siding. Something odd looking down in the yard stayed out of identifiable view. Took a few general views to use as then and now shots.

Picking my way back through the trees I came across some old Mk1 coach corridor door covers lying on the ground as well as old track panels with trees growing through them. Looks like this area is being used by dirt bike enthusiasts, some failry well used paths.

Thanks to Merlin and David Kirkwood for additional information

Pathfinder tours\' Scottish class 50 jaunt through Dalmeny and over the Forth Bridge

A few shots of 156s and 158s in the snow near Livingston North. Mainly to try out my Fuji Finepix S5500 for the first time "in the field"

Photographs that have no particular theme

A chance stop at Grangemouth and a relaxed attitude to visitors on a sunny 16th of June 1990. This is what it is all about!

The photographs of 60009 "Union of South Africa" were taken on the 16th of October 1993, during the period that the locomotive was being used by Scotrail to train drivers and firemen on Steam Locomotives in order to have a pool of drivers for steam excursions and the West Highland summer season trains. The other photographs were taken at various other times.

Variety at Edinburgh Waverley

Various photographs of the Yard showing the variety of locomotives to be found there, taken by me in the late 1980s - early 1990s
The photographs of the class 91s are particularly interesting. Just before the full commissioning of the electrified ECML, driver training was in progress and for some reason, during at least part of that period, the trains were terminated at Millerhill. This practise was not reported in any of the railway press as far as I know and on the day that this photograph was taken I was just making a routine visit to the yard. Prior to driving down to the yard I had stopped off at NewCraighall retail park to buy film, and was just leaving the car park when I saw this train making its was towards the yard. There then followed a high speed dash to down the lane that leads to the overbridge at the fuelling point which resulted in a burst tyre and cracked alloy wheel courtesey of a major pothole near the old scrapyard. Of course I didn't know than that the train was only going to be stabled! (91008 was the train engine with two other locomotives stabled in the background.