Yesterday; Castle class 5043 ran from Solihull to Salisbury, where I saw it with my good friend Simon of Brookes Castle (a blog that is definitely well worth following!)
As can be seen from these pictures, the weather was abysmal! This didn’t prevent a large number of people making the journey to see this magnificent GWR machine.
I will leave you to look through some of the pictures taken on the day. Thanks for reading folks 🙂
Loco Yard 
I’m not very Railway savvy I’m afraid, so can someone tell me why the ‘Moonraker’. Very curious to know –
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Hi Julie,
Funnily enough it has nothing to do with the railway itself, or anything to do with James Bond! Moonrakers are a nickname for people from Wiltshire.
It comes from a story of smuggling – Wiltshire had many secret smuggling routes from the south coast to the centre of the country. The story goes that barrels of Brandy were hidden in a pond by day to be removed at night. Whilst locals were trying to retrieve these barrels at night, they were found by customs officers. The locals gave an excuse that they were trying to rake a round of cheese from the reflection of the moonlight! The customs officers laughed and thought the locals to be idiots and left them be. Of course the locals were the ones who had the last laugh! Since then, the term moonrakers has stuck, hence the name of the express!
Thanks for the comment and best wishes,
Dave
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Thank you so much for that – steam and folklore! what a great way to start a day.
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