16th March 2019

DR73931 is a Plasser & Theurer 08-16/4X4C100-RT tamper owned and operated by Colas Rail, built in 2002. I noticed it stabled here earlier in the week, but the weather only cleared sufficiently enough today to be able to photograph it. It's 14.35. It had arrived earlier in the week and would depart that evening on the 21.58 Chard Junction to Mottisfont & Dunbridge. Yes, I had to look that up too. Turns out that this station is on the Salisbury to Romsey line. You can imagine that no other train has ever departed Chard Junction for this station before! Of that I am fairly sure.

To find a Colas Rail-operated tamper here in the creamery sidings is a first for me. Balfour Beatty generally provide engineering support on this line, so maybe it was hired-in, or have Colas Rail won the contract?