The start of meteorological winter coincided with the first few days when it actually felt like winter, cold albeit bright (at times) and occasionally foggy. My first outing was back to Cwmbargoed for Friday's 4V01 on December 2nd.

Monday 5th saw me in Cardiff for the 3B09 Swansea to Canton 67 / Mk4 familiarisation turn prior to the timetable change on Sunday 11th and the introduction of loco hauled services between Cardiff and Manchester. Of course the new timetable brings some losses too, three of Great Western's Castle Class HST diagrams are being turned over to IETs so on Tuesday 6th I went down to South Devon to get a good dose of HSTs, both GW and XC.

On Friday 9th I spent the day out on the GEML at Manningtree and Colchester, my first visit to Manningtree since January 2012. I had hoped to see class 90s on the Felixstowe intermodals but in the event I only saw 90043, and it was on the one service (4M63 to Trafford Park) which was completely empty! I also got to ride in Greater Anglia's new class 745 and class 720 EMUs, both of which I thought were pretty good. The 745s are comfortable, with large windows, they ride well and have the acceleration of a rocket.

The weather remained cold for another week, although railway services were disrupted owing to the on-going RMT strike action, but I did get some pictures on the two non-strike days and on one of the strike days as GW (and DBC) were running a limited train service through Newport.

On Wednesday 21st, the day of the Winter Solstice I had a day out, by train, to Rugeley and Stafford. I caught the 06:21 from Abergavenny, changing at Crewe into one of the LNW semi-fast services to London. A lovely day weather-wise I managed to see three double headed Anglo-Scottish intermodals, two with pairs of DRS 68s under the wires (why?) and DBC's 4M25 with 90037 and 90021. I also saw one of West Midlands new class 730 EMUs on mileage accumulation runs from Nuneaton to Crewe. It was also my first ever visit to Stafford and to Queensville curve.