Scottish Lowlander, 27 September 2014

Today's tour was a as far as possible a re-enactment of the famous Scottish Lowlander tour run almost exactly 50 years earlier when 46256 Sir William A Stanier FRS made the final main line apearance of a Duchess Pacific. The 1964 tour ran from Crewe to Edinburgh via Shap and the now closed Waverley route via Hawick. It returned via Glasgow and Kilmarnock. 46256 worked the train to and back from Carlisle. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley took it from Carlisle to Niddrie West junction, Edinburgh. (46256 and 60007 both shared the rare accolade of being named after their designers.) 60009 Union of South Africa then worked the Niddrie - Carlisle leg.

Fifty years later, 46233 stood in for scrapped 46256, but 60009 has survived (as has 60007) and handed all the work north of Carlisle. The train ran via Shap to and back from Carlisle. In Scotland it ran via Beattock, Motherwell, Paisley Gilmour Street, Prestwick, Falkland yard, Annbank and Dumfries. (It had been intended to go to Edinburgh, but Ryder Cup golfexes and other specials made this impossible.)