26th of march saw the date of only my 3rd anglia rover and 5th day of an anglia rover of the year. unfortunately and stupidly there were engineering works between wymondham and norwich this weekend but on one hand i am grateful of this cos as a result of it the 6:37 off ely was delayed so i went to meet my companion for the day (class317666) at cambridge where we got a train to stowmarket. brilliantly this way round gave me more miles and we got our planned train off norwich at diss. due to late running and other problems we started by doing a few rounds between diss and ipswich before stopping at diss to see the allmighty 70013 Oliver Cromwell. unfortunately while filming at diss i had a technology failiure so i only got half of the run through of this britania. after this me and max got a train to norwich to see 70013 again at norwich and met up with david. after seeing it's swift departure for sheingham we had another bash to diss and back before going to wymondham on a rancid replacement bus service. at wymondham we went lineside to see the hastings unit 1001, me and max were fortunate to see it coming off the MNR branch at wymondham then scoot over to the mainline level crossing to see it head home. after this we headed back to norwich to see 70013 again before scooting off to ipswich where we bid farewell to david. me and max then continued on a cambridge train of which i bailed at stowmarket to head to my next point of duty which was not train related. fortunately i had a ride home from stow in a car

after a sudden uproar in peterborough between some veg from yaxley complaining to me about how bad i apparently am and how i never share info and keep the best things to myself promptly looked on yahoo to see what emails i had and discovered info for 685 hither green - bardon, the NMT was due as was a class 37 on 0Z05 doncaster - stowmarket, a couple days later a class 73 was due through peterborough which i saw twice, the EMT HST which had special 43076 at the helm, an EMT/east coast hybrid speed train with mainly an EMT consist except for MTU 43305 on the rear, a class 60, DRS class 66 on the DB depot and a pair of network rail class 31s. the next week saw another class 60 through peterborough and a GBRF convoy consisting of 66704, 73205 & newly painted 92032 finally i saw another network rail train with a class 31, 2 class 67s on 6L15 toton to whitemoor freight and a class 67 dragging 91111 with train which had failed while hauling a passenger train.
overall a brilliant selection of haulage which will make for some brilliant viewing

the demise of fotopic didn't dampen my spirit and definately didn't stop me from going to the North Norfolk Railway's spring steam gala.
on the cards this year were 4/5 visiting locos 3717 City of Truro from the NRM/GWSR, GWR 57XX pannier tank L99 (7715) from the buckinghamshire railway centre, J72 69023 from NELPG/NYMR, LMS Jinty 47406 from the Great Central Railway and 5619 from the Telford Steam Railway which is still on long term hire to the NNR. from the home fleet were J15 no. 65462 and on standby 1982 Ring Haw. even before i arrived at the line they'd already not had the best of starts, sheringham signal man started 20 minutes late somehow getting lost between weybourne and sheringham, during the day the timetable was slowly making up time despite a minor issue adding L99 to 3717's train to sheringham from weybourne. however by the they'd got down to atleast 5 minutes late the pannier tank had broken down and replaced by thunderbird Ring Haw, by now the railway was running half an hour behind schedule resulting in me missing a connection at sheringham in the desperate attempt to make up time meaning the engine i rode the most was the J15. by the end of my visit the line was fortunate to only be 20 minutes behind schedule.
besides the lateness and the pannier tank breaking down i had a brilliant time at the NNR and managed to get behing 7 steam engines. not bad for a day's work

the 5th of march was a very significant day as the day was the day for a special railtour commemorating the 50th birthday on the 28th of february of a top line east coast legend. 55022 or D9000 as it's known Royal Scots Grey is now 50 years old and still going strong so a railtour was organised to celebrate. i saw the tour at huntingdon where it flew by at full power. after seeing the deltic and getting ranted at by First Capital Connect staff and a group of grumpy old not so gentlemen about the use of a tripod i soldierd on back to peterborough to collect my bike and another train this time to ely to see another railtour. i could've seen this at peterborough yes but i wanted something different, anyway the tour was the norfolk broadsman utilising 2 DRS class 20s (20308/309) and a DRS class 37 (37667) from crewe to norwich via ely and wymondham. i saw this tour from the ely borads and after it arrived in ely to await it's path i cycled off to prickwillow to get the 37 on the power. in conclusion besides the gumpy old men, FCC staff and getting lost in ely atleast 4 times it was a fantastic trip out. i got both tours both of which were e