5043 Blasts out of Liverpool hauling the Mersey Express 01-06-2024

A second foray into the North West for 5043 this year took it to Liverpool at the head of the Mersey Express, and once again full marks to all at Tyseley for allowing the Earl to handle the entire run both ways on its own with no assistance at all from 47773, required on the rear on this occasion for getting out and back into Lime Street. Deciding not to head south of Crewe with there being a good chance that Doxey Marsh would still be flooded, we begin at a new location, on the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union Canal at Clive Green, just south of Winsford. As expected with the easy run across the Cheshire plain from Crewe, 5043 was flying by this point, looking and sounding great as it flashed by around 5 minutes down. For the return leg there was only 1 place we were ever going to consider; Edge Hill. It's been nearly 8 years since we last came here but being 1715 in the evening and not 0600 in the morning this time there were a few more onlookers present...The video doesn't really do justice to just how loud 5043 was as it accelerated out of the cutting from Lime Street, you really had to have been there to truly appreciate it and the shower of cinders everyone was treated to as it blasted past; absolutely worth the £6.20 train fare to get there...