One year on from a day witnessing two Mazey Day excursions to Penzance as they passed the doomed semaphores at Par, my plan this time for a return to the Royal Duchy on Saturday, 29 June 2024 was to see this year’s brace of special trains as they passed the semaphore signals at Liskeard.
Star turn of the two special workings this year was a pair of Class 50s (50007/049) on the Pathfinder Railtours service (1Z69) from Dorridge and stations in the West Midlands, followed shortly afterwards by Statesman Rail working 1Z69 from Wolverhampton, powered by a pair of LSL-owned Class 47s (47712/810).
But the totally unacceptable short-notice cancellation of the first two Guildford-Reading services (06.15/07.13) forced me to travel via Paddington and, with the 08.03 to Penzance delayed by a signalling problem between Newbury and Kintbury, I finally reached Liskeard at 11.56, less than ten minutes after the Class 50s has passed.
My experience of no early morning services on the North Downs Line was mirrored on the Looe branch line, where driver shortage meant a gap of more than four hours in service when the 09.36 departure was followed by cancellation of the 10.36/1136/12.36 services, with the next train to run at 13.50.
There were also a worrying number of cancelled main line services, also apparently due to driver shortage, with services not running on 29 June being 2C10 (Exeter-Penzance) 1A78 (Penzance-Paddington), 2E10 (Penzance-Exeter), 2P14 (Penzance-Plymouth) and 2C67 (Cardiff-Penzance).
Making up for my Class 50 disappointment, the Class 47-worked service made a magnificent sight as it stormed through Liskeard on its lengthy run from Wolverhampton (05.20), having called en route at Stourbridge Junction, Kidderminster, Droitwich Spa, Worcester Shrub Hill, Cheltenham Spa, Cam & Dursley and Bristol Temple Meads.
Besides capturing images of the loco-hauled special crossing Liskeard Viaduct before passing down home signal LD34 and the attractive 1915-vintage signal box, this also meant a chance to photograph a couple of the popular Castle Class 2+4 HSTs, in what is widely expected to be their last summer of operation.
The current timetable sees their operation largely confined to workings between Plymouth and Penzance, although there is one weekday evening working to Exeter St. David’s, while on Saturdays there are two scheduled workings from Exeter – 2C10 at 06.28 (cancelled on 29 June) and one I planned to photograph (2C22) which departs Exeter at 12.21 and Liskeard at 14.12.
As I have written in previous features on this location, Liskeard’s six semaphores comprise four in the down direction and two in the up, with down outer home LD35 followed by LD34 at the station end of Liskeard Viaduct, starter LD33 at the end of the down platform and section signal LD32 beyond and on the right of the running lines.
In the up direction, outer home signal LD2 stands out of view near Moorswater Viaduct, with the only up semaphore signal visible from the station being home signal LD3, a wooden-armed centre-pivot signal standing on the up platform that is one of only five surviving examples on the national network, along with those at Droitwich Spa, Malvern Wells, Shrewsbury and Worcester Shrub Hill.
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