A blast from the past

Among my collection of recordings from the 1980's I seem to have an awful lot made from on-board steam hauled trains departing from York.
Of course, all the rides I had on the Scarborough Spa Express are responsible for this. Happy days with ordinary tickets and a £1 steam supplement for over 200 miles of steam haulage. And no diners at the front either! How times have changed.
However, until recently, I had no lineside recordings of steam hauled trains leaving York in the westbound direction. My first was a surprisingly good recording of 6233 made in 2004 (you'll find it on the steamsounds archive site).
A good number of my on-train recordings are of a certain Black 5 so it was nice to have the opportunity to get a lineside recording of ex LMS Black 5 4-6-0 45305 when it visited York with a train from Tyseley on 10th December 2005.
But first, let's have a blast from the past!

On 10th December 2005 Vintage Trains organised a train from Tyseley to York and back hauled by 45305.
As well as getting a recording of it departing from York we first went to a spot near Frickley not far from the top of the 1 in 150 gradient from Bolton-on-Dearne to get a recording of 45305 on it’s outward journey to York.
Not far off right time the loco can be heard going well on the gradient with 9 coaches behind the tender.

York in the late afternoon of that day should have given the opportunity of recording two steam hauled trains departing within 11 minutes of each other as another charter train, hauled by 60009, had also been due to visit. Unfortunately, due to an incident while working the empty stock to it’s starting point, the tour finished before it even started.
Still, it was a recording of 45305 that I really wanted.
We went to a point opposite the site of Dringhouses Yard about ½ mile west of York station.
At a little after 5 o’clock we hear the Black 5 once clear of Holgate Bridge accelerating it’s train smartly westward.
Nice to hear my favourite Black 5 back on it’s old Scarborough Spa Express stamping ground!

45305 is looked after by the the 5305 Locomotive Association and when not out on the main line can be found on the Great Central Railway site.
Vintage Trains have a web site listing all their main line steam tours along with information about the Birmingham Railway Museum at Tyseley.
For information about steam hauled trips on the main line in the UK you can do no better than visit David Randles' excellent web site.