Bodmin & Wenford Heritage Railway; Bodmin Parkway to Bodmin General (August 2023)

The Bodmin and Wenford Railway is a 6-mile-long heritage railway, based at Bodmin General Station in Cornwall and originally opened in the late 1800s. Passenger trains were withdrawn in 1967 and freight traffic in 1983. The railway, which began its life as a heritage railway in 1990, consists of two branch lines, one running from Bodmin Parkway (where it connects with the national railway network) to Bodmin General; the other from Bodmin General to Boscarne Junction (see    • Bodmin & Wenford Heritage Railway: Boscarn...  ). Today, a variety of steam and diesel locomotives are owned by the railway, many of the steam engines being very similar to those frequenting Devon and Cornwall main and branch lines in the heydays of the Great Western Railway. Other, smaller locomotives were sourced from Cornwall’s China Clay industry. The locomotive featured on this occasion was 5553 – a 45xx Class 2-6-2T Prairie tank engine – on hire from Peak Rail, part of record producer and songwriter Pete Waterman’s Railway Heritage Trust. 5553 is the sister of Bodmin & Wenford’s own 5552 locomotive which returned to service after overhaul in August 2023. 5553 holds the “honour” of being the last locomotive to leave Woodham’s Scrapyard in Barry, South Wales in January 1990, after 28 years of decay when it was bought by the Waterman Railway Heritage Trust and restored to working order in 2002. The 360 excursion videos were captured using Ricoh Theta Z1 and Insta 360 One RS cameras, mounted onto the front of the locomotive in front of, and below the smoke box door, and above the buffers.