Brian tipped me off that there was a engineers train passing through Redhill on Monday, so I paid a quick visit (having checked that it was actually on the move) to my favourite bridge to watch.  Waiting, i noticed that spring has arrived early in Redhill, as the catkins were already out.

Just a few minutes wait, then I could see approaching headlights from the Godstone direction, and this oddity passed.

Brian caught the wee beastie at Godstone, and gave some interesting prototypical details on YouTube.  It would make an interesting model – just the right length for the average layout.

I wasn’t sure what the Civil Engineering Train would be between Paddock Wood sidings in Kent and Woking. Turns out it was a Network Rail Harso RGH20C (DR79264), captured briefly here as it glided through Godstone station. Built by Harsco in the USA, they were introduced in the early 2000’s and worked successfully reprofiling rails initially on preserved railway lines, before being let loose on the mainlines. There were at least 5 of these machines introduced to Britain at the time.

Not sure there’s much reprofiling to do with all the trains that have been running recently.  But I did like this topical post from some corner of the interweb….