56006 was rostered to work the East Lancs Railway diesel turn for their Blue Timetable on both Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July, starting with the 09:00 departure from Bury and concluding with the 16:35 from Heywood. With legendary driver Chris Guntripp in the seat the loco was guaranteed to give some performative haulage for those on board. Rather at odds with the bulk of Summer 2026 so far, the weather on Sunday was rather damp by and large but this didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of anyone travelling. The loco performed well and a minor windscreen wiper fault, which had manifested first thing on the Sunday morning, was quickly nipped in the bud by our esteemed chairman Keith Bulmer!

YouTube railway content creator and group member Matthew Tann (MCT Trains) together with our very own media officer Ben Wheeler were present on Sunday, chiefly to capture some footage for use in a forthcoming YouTube video commemorating 50 years of the class which Matthew is producing. A link to this will be provided once it has been published.

Some photos below courtesy of Ben.