Most freight services on the main line today are Class 66 hauled, so just a selection of my favourite photographs are included.

This train is carrying tar from the Port Talbot steelworks to Dawson’s container terminal to be transhipped to road vehicles for onward travel to Port Clarence, from where it will be taken to Kopper’s Ltd. for distillation.

No. 66137, in shiny new DB Schenker livery, hauls a train of car part carriers (?) from Burton Maurice yard to Cardiff.

No. 66111 enters the loop at Abbotswood with a train of scrap metal. It will wait in the loop for 40 minutes before continuing to Cardiff.

This photograph of No. 66591 passing Leominster signal box was taken on a drive home from the Welsh coast. I hadn’t seen that it was running very early, so I was very lucky to arrive at this location with just seconds to spare and the camera already set up correctly to take this photograph.

No. 66060 leads the weekly china clay train from Exeter to Bescot on a sunny summer’s evening.

No. 66040 takes the main line at Abbotswood, rather than stopping in the loop.

Another view of the weekly china clay train at Defford, this time running in a different, early morning slot.

Another train of tar tankers and some out of sight steel carriers heads north through Defford. Nos. 66007 and 66175 are working this train; I understand that 66007 was added to the consist as it was returning north following driver refresher training in Wales.

No. 66591 passes Old Milverton, near Leamington Spa, with one of many container trains to run on the mostly single line connecting Leamington Spa and Coventry.

No. 66747 leads a train of cement tankers onto the embankment just south of Bredon.

A grim October morning sees No. 66137 heading south at Defford with the daily Round Oak to Margam steel train.

A change of scenery now to Brockhampton Lane level crossing, just north of Cheltenham, with the daily Tesco container train. This train usually runs much earlier in the day, but for a few weeks in late 2018, the train ran instead in the afternoon, giving the opportunity to photograph it under lovely golden light.

The retrofitted LED headlights on No. 66185 make a focal point for this photograph of the daily Margam to Round Oak steel carriers, slowing to take the branch to Norton at Abbotswood Junction.