The new year has begun, and to kick things off, we took a trip to Kirkby Stephen on the Settle and Carlisle Line to film some of the Avanti West Coast diversions.

Work has begun to replace Clifton Bridge on the West Coast Main Line near Penrith North Lake, fully closing the railway and M6 motorway.

At Kirkby Stephen, we managed to see 6 Avanti West Coast Evero trains pass through, as well as a couple of Northern units.

First up, we see Northern’s Class 158s No. 158903 and 158850 arrive and depart with 2H89, the 10:58 Carlisle to Leeds service. Make sure to keep an eye out of 158903’s special Railway 200 livery.

The diverted services are currently running Wigan North Western and Carlisle. Some are running from Birmingham and Crewe. However, on our visit, Preston was closed so services were not calling there and instead running straight to Blackburn and onto Clitheroe and Settle.

Our first diverted service came in the form of Class 805s No. 805007 and 805005, which were forming 1Z35 08:47 Crewe to Carlisle.

This service lost time around Blackburn and passed us a total of 24 minutes late, however, the driver gave us a nice toot as they passed through a quiet station.

Nice up was a northbound Northern service, in the form of 158755 with 2H86, the 10:49 Leeds to Carlisle service.

We finish the video off with 805002 and 805010 with a southbound service (1Z36 12:21 Carlisle to Wigan North Western) and lastly, 805003 and 805006 which finished off the video with 1Z37, the 11:55 Wigan North Western to Carlisle.

The diversions will continue for around 2 weeks whilst work on Clifton Bridge is completed.

We hope you enjoy the video. If you do go out yourself to see the diverted services, be sure to share them on LocoStop, RailAdvent’s railway community.