Sunday 5th August, and another busy day of steam on the Bristol to Exeter route. First away from Temple Meads was 70013 Oliver Cromwell at the head of the Royal Duchy, bound for Par, followed, 27 minutes later, by 71000 Duke of Gloucester with the Torbay Express, destination Kingswear.
As Yatton was a booked pick-up point for the Royal Duchy, we chose the nearby level crossing at East Hewish for our first view of 70013.
Leaving East Hewish, we moved on to Wick Lane, near Lympsham, to await 71000. It was here that we ran into the first bout of rain of the day.
With 70013 taking water at Exeter and 71000 at Taunton, we were able to get ahead of the pair of them and set up at Starcross.
"Lovely weather for ducks" says the idiom, but the ducks of the Exe Estuary seemed no more happy with the weather than we were. At least we didn't feel the need to jump into the river as Duke of Gloucester flashed past.
Another saying is "If you don't like the weather in England, wait a minute". This has a bit more truth in it because two miles away at Dawlish Warren the sun was out as Oliver Cromwell pulled in for a combined pathing and pick-up stop, having passed us near Cockwood. As there would be no chance of catching the train again after this point, we split up, choosing two locations that cover practically the whole of the Dawlish sea wall.
Come the evening, and it was the Torbay Express that was first to head for home and we caught it either side of Teignmouth, but only just.
Over two hours later, 70013 returned with the Royal Duchy and made a lengthy stop at Dawlish to drop off the passengers for Dawlish Warren, where the Brit is not permitted to use the up platform.
From Dawlish, it should have been easy to get to Tiverton Parkway ahead of the train, but the rain had forced the closure of several local roads, and the local authority had blithely slapped down Road Closed signs without giving even a hint as to a suitable diversion. By the time we had worked it out for ourselves, 70013 had taken water at Exeter and was off again. This was confirmed as we reached the point were the railway and the M5 converge and could see a fast moving cloud of black smoke ahead, a cloud that we had no chance of catching.
By the time we reached Taunton, Oliver Cromwell was sitting in the platform, waiting for a following HST to pass the Duchy on the left hand side.
With the HST out of the way, 70013 departed. Shame the DMU got in the way, but it could have been worse, there was a Voyager two minutes behind that.