Station Visitors 2020

Under normal circumstances the railway would have been receiving many visiting engines during the course of the year. However, 2020 has been anything like normal, firstly the March nationwide Covid 19 Virus lockdown & continuing Pandemic restrictions that are affecting us all, and recently the landslide which shut the line just as the society had commenced ‘Shakedown’ trains. However, as the lockdown measures started to ease and before the August 11/12th Landslide Birkhill did have a couple of visiting engines and coaches!

July 17th 2020:

Weekly movements from the main line down to Bo’ness are becoming a regular occurrence these days! Today was the turn of a very rare view of three class 37’s and two class 20’s Direct Rail Services loco’s which arrived at the Manuel Link Line under the identifier 014Y 08:20 Carlisle Kingsmoor SDG (DRS), a tad later than published but the wait was worth it!

Due to the weight restrictions over the viaduct the lead class 37 brought the two class 20’s into Birkhill first before being recoupled to the trailing 37’s

Class 37’s – 37038, 37558 ‘Avro Vulcan XH558’ & 37403 ‘Isle of Mull’

Class 20’s – 20302 & 20305

Once recoupled they set off for Bo’ness for planned maintenance works

July 8th 2020:

The latest movements at Birkhill today 8th July saw two ex LNER HST Mark 3 coaches (42205 & 42210) being brought down from Manuel to Bo’ness, where they will be further moved by road to there new home.

The coaches arrived on the link line at Manuel from Craigentinny under the Identifier 5Z43 and moved down to Bo’ness by Class37 37067.

July 2nd 2020:

Thursday had a couple of DRS class 57s and a DBSO that had travelled up from Carlisle for survey work in the MMPD at Bo’ness. The work is scheduled for a couple of weeks, here are 57003 & 57311 ‘Thunderbird’ with DBSO 9710 at the rear  passing through Birkhill heading down to Bo’ness on the morning of 2nd July 2020