Steaming to The Lindum Fayre

The Christmas Lindum Fayre is an annual event in Lincoln and usually attracts a couple of steam hauled charter trains to the city. Saturday 06 December 2014 was a day not to be missed for the steam enthusiast with not one but two locomotives heading for the city.

The first charter heading into Lincoln was Vintage Trains Limited Christmas Lindum Fayre from Tyseley Warwick Road in Birmingham hauled by GWR Hall Class no 4965 Rood Ashton Hall. Our plan was to head to Swinderby Road for our first video and photo location spot.

We arrived at Swinderby Road in good time but the ground was still white over with frost. All was going well as 4965 Rood Ashton Hall needed to be on time or at best only a few minutes late if we were to make our second location of Metheringhan station.

It was now a case of heading off to Metheringham station to catch the second charter train of the day this time The Railway Touring Company's charter hauled by LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 no 60009 Union of South Africa. We arrived at the station earlier than anticipated and had a few minutes to wait in the still freezing conditions.

As it turned out we had even more time than we thought as by the time 60009 Union of South Africa arrive it was running a few minutes late.

Our extra time in the cold was rewarded with an excellent chime as she speed through the station.

Copyright: Original post from http://steamdaysblog.blogspot.co.uk/author M Garrett

The Lindum Fayre

We were out and about again on Saturday in Lincolnshire with the hope of managing to capture a couple of steam charter trains on the same day. Both trains were heading to Lincoln for the Christmas market or Lindum Fayre.

Although both trains were heading from the south they were making their way into Lincoln along two different stretches of track. The first special was headed by GWR 4-6-0 4965 Rood Ashton Hall which we hadn't any pictures of so we considered catching this train to be our main aim of the day.

4965 Rood Ashton Hall with The Lincoln Christmas Market at Swinderby Road crossing

The location for our photographs was chosen using street view on Google maps. As we arrived at the location there was already a group of enthusiasts waiting for the arrival of the charter train. This was an indication that the spot chosen wasn't too bad and that we hadn't missed the main event.

4965 Rood Ashton Hall at Swinderby Road crossing

4965 Rood Ashton Hall put on a good display as it headed for Lincoln with plenty of smoke left trailing behind the train.

As 4965 was on time this left us with around 40 minutes to find a location for photographing 60009 Union of South Africa also heading into Lincoln with the Lindum Fayre. Again with the help of Google maps we had a spot by a level crossing at Rowston as our chosen location. I didn't think the location was quite as good as our first spot but it would have to do. 

60009 Union of South Africa with The Lindum Fayre at Rowston crossing

Union of South Africa seemed to be in cruise mode at this point with little smoke making for a rather disappointing picture.