Grid power on Crossrail Spoil

56312 is seen from the Mumford Lane road bridge as it approaches Gerrards
 Cross with the empty spoil wagons from Calvert on May 13th 2013. The
photographer is forced to shoot almost directly into the sun for this working!

There is a lot of work going on beneath the streets of London right now as the digging of tunnels for the Crossrail project is well underway. The operation has seen a large site developed at Northfleet which produces regular traffic hauled by GBRf both to and from the construction sites.
More recently a flow of spoil (material excavated from the tunnels) has started running to the landfill site at Calvert in Buckinghamshire. This train runs once daily from Willesden and takes the Chiltern main line to Princess Risborough before taking the branch to Aylesbury and continuing on to Calvert. Perhaps more interesting is the traction- Class 56's from the fleet of Devon and Cornwall Railways who are running the operation. Over two consecutive days both the loaded and empty flow were recorded on the outskirts of Gerrards Cross in the hands of Romanian built 56312 (formerly 56003).

The following morning 56312 is seen once again in the same location
 (though obviously looking in the opposite direction) with the loaded
Willesden-Calvert spoil run.