Mazey Day marks the culmination of the two-week Midsummer celebrations in Cornwall known as Golowan and, besides attracting many thousands of visitors to Penzance, this year’s event on 24 June 2023 also brought a couple of special trains from the Midlands to the Royal Duchy.
As semaphore signalling is due to be disappearning from Truro, Par and Lostwithiel in November, this seemed the perfect excuse to pay another visit to the latter two of this trio and capture the two specials as they passed the doomed semaphores.
My plan was to photograph the two special workings as they passed through Par on their outward journeys, the take a trip up the Newquay branch line before returning to see the first of the returning specials at Par and then the second one as it was passing picturesque Lostwithiel.
Having arrived on time at 11.11 aboard 1C70 from Reading, it quickly became apparent at Par that things had gone somewhat awry. The first Newquay to Paddington service was replaced by branch unit 150234 as far as Par only, a Cardiff-Penzance service due to call at 12.26 was also cancelled and both special trains were heavily delayed.
First up of the two special workings was the “Cornish Mazey Day Statesman” Pullman (1Z64) from Solihull, which had set out at 05.22, picking up at stations via Oxford to Melksham, was due through Par at 12.16 and then setting down at Truro and St. Erth on its journey to the end of the line at Penzance.
The points failure in the Plymouth area which had heavily delayed down trains meant that this working – headed by green-liveried D1935 (47805) and 47614 – only crawled through Par at 13.02 – 46 minutes late.
Next up was some novel haulage, when “The Pathfinder Mazey Day Special” from Tame Bridge Parkway to Penzance (1Z69) was hauled by a pair of GBRf Class 69 locos (re-engined ex-Class 56s) – the first time any of this class had worked a passenger service in Cornwall.
In contrast to the earlier Pullman service, this working sped through Par behind 69005/6 at 13.16 – 38 minutes late – missing its timetabled set down stop at Par, presumably to catch up time.
A knock on effect of the earlier points problem was to scupper my plan to travel to Lostwithiel to see the returning Class 69 excursion when the 17.23 departure from Par was cancelled between Penzance and Exeter, forcing me to wait and see both specials as they passed Par, when then Pathfinder special once again did not make its booked stop.
Besides the two special trains, this is the last summer when it will be possible to see regular services passing the fine array of mechanical signals at places like Par and Lostwithiel, although both signal boxes are Grade II Listed, so will survive their closure in some form or other.
This was also expected to be a final summer in which to see the popular “Castle Class” 2+4 HSTs in action on services between Penzance, Bristol and Cardiff Central, as the fleet was run down during the course of the year, with just the handful of its owned sets being retained by GWR into 2024.
But speaking to a member of GWR staff on the platform at Par I heard that a failure to find any replacement stock meant that the Castle sets would remain in service for another year, which is great news, if it is officially confirmed. My understanding is that the same is true for the XC HST sets, which had been due to be stood down by the end of this year.
RailwayWorld.net 
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