The first of this year’s steam train visits to London takes place this Saturday with trains visiting Victoria, Paddington and Kings Cross.
The details below may help you find a suitable location to watch from the sidelines, or be at a station they pass through at the right time. Be generous when allowing for delays, they have to slot the Steam trains into the gaps between scheduled services.
It’s also been announced that no steam trains — or specifically, chartered trains — will be allowed into London during the Olympics. Also, by coincidence, when the Jubilee Pageant starts later this year, it will be inaugurated by a blast from a steam train on the railway bridge over the Thames where the Pageant musters.
Back to this weekend…
West London
Pathfinder Tours will be running the King Edward I 6024 on one of its last tours on its current mainline certificate from Bristol into Paddington, and then back out again a few hours later.
This is likely to be the final visit of 6024 to Paddington before the route is transformed by the Great Western Main line electrification project along with Crossrail. On the topic of Crossrail, it might be possible if you have a really good lens and a lot of luck, to get a photo of the steam train and the Crossrail tunnel boring machines in the same photo as the train passes Royal Oak heading into Paddington.
Inbound
Slough | 11:48 |
Acton West | 12:00 |
London Paddington | 12:10 |
Outbound
London Paddington | 16:35 |
Acton West | 16:44 |
Slough | 17:05 |
South London
The Orient Express is running the 35028 Clan Line out of Victoria Station on a posh lunchtime trip via Richmond and then loop around and return later the day via East Croydon.
Inbound
London Victoria | 12:28 |
Clapham Junction | 12:48 |
Barnes | 12:54 |
Twickenham | 13:06 |
Staines | 13:18 |
Virginia Water | 13:28 |
Outbound
Purley | 15:21 |
East Croydon | 15:25 |
Selhurst | 15:32 |
Clapham Junction | 15:40 |
London Victoria | 16:05 |
North London
Finally, the Railway Touring Company is running the 70013 Oliver Cromwell out of Kings Cross at an uncomfortably early hour, and back in again at a more reasonable time in the evening.
Outbound
London Kings Cross | 07:12 |
Finsbury Park | 07:19 |
Potters Bar | 07:31 |
Inbound
Potters Bar | 21:04 |
Finsbury Park | 21:17 |
London Kings Cross | 21:24 |
Estimates of the Route Maps
View Steam trains on 3rd March 2012 in a larger map
A dedicated enthusiast (with a fast car) could catch all 3 on their inbound & outbound journeys!
Sounds amazing. Any idea which platform the Orient will be on at Clapham Junction?
Best to check locally which platforms generally have trains towards Richmond and that is likely to be the ones.
Richmond trains leave from platforms 5/6 at Clapham Junction (which are opposite sides of the same platform)
can some 1 please help: which Steam is running on the northern line today…
The details are in the sentence about it in the blog post above.