'Scots Guardsman' to Weymouth. 19/07/2016

The timings for Scots Guardsman's visit to Weymouth tomorrow are available thanks to Steam Dreams. <BJ>
http://www.steamdreams.com/executables/GT410WebContent.exe?ActionCode=Timings

It looks as if the weather will be very warm for the trip. <BJ>

 

Last week I stumbled on the tour,saw steam at Wareham en route to swan age. Parked, well abandoned ,the van, ran up the footbridge and tripped at the top...got my photos though.will post when I'm home from Roadtrip3

 

With temperatures around 30C tomorrow and Wednesday, I think we can expect fire risk to become a factor in tomorrow's trip. Not sure if that means a diesel sits inside the steam loco or tagged on the back but it will be doing MORE than its fare share of work, I suspect.

 

Mind you, although it's going to be warm tomorrow, the ground isn't really that dry. Our friend Mr KnowWun made an observation to this effect based on his regular dog-walking in West Byfleet and down here in East Sussex, some of the footpaths on which I enjoy walking are still muddier and wetter than they were in March. We really had quite a deluge last Tuesday evening and there were some further showers n Wednesday. Another couple of weeks of dry weather and we could be back to the usual fun and games with summer main line steam in the south, but I don't see 46115 setting half the New Forest alight tomorrow as things stand.

 

I popped out as far as the garden to show the state of affairs in West Berkshire . I could have raised the camera a little higher to show the field of ripening oil seed rape. Barley , wheat etc. also plentiful.

 

The section across the Forest is very sensitive. The ground does dry out quite quickly, especially in hot weather. The section across the Dorset Heath, from Hamworthy to Wool is similar. Given that everyone will be on their best behaviour just now, I'd expect a bit of assistance on these sections.

 

I walked the new forest from Ashurst to Deer Leap 13 days ago, and i was ankle deep in swamp at times. June was very very wet, as was the start of July.

 

I think you and I are natural optimists! Mind you, I think we've got good cause to believe that some parts of the New Forest will still be pretty sodden tomorrow. I've made innumerable visits to the similar terrain of Corfe Common to photograph trains on the Swanage Railway and have sometimes ended up getting very muddy just making the short trek from the A351 to a favourite spot just south of Town End Bridge even after what I would have thought would be a sufficiently long warm dry spell for the swamps to have vanished.

 

Although not exactly on the south coast, this announcement is something we've not seen for a while ......
18th July, 2016: ''Temp speed restrictions between Taunton and Castle Cary due to excessive heat''. <BJ>

 

It is indeed very sensitive. I have been through that section several times with steam during very hot, dry conditions. The first time was with 46115 on 9th July 2010 when she went to Weymouth for RTC. There was a fire risk warning that day and she was shoved through the New Forest section. But that was the only place where she was. She made a magnificent noise and effort the rest of the day. It was quite a contrast to the other trip running that day, a SD excursion to Swanage with 30777. Sir Lamiel had a class 47 behind the tender all day and was shoved all day. I was speaking to a couple of guys who were on that trip a couple of weeks ago while travelling on the 45699 trip to Weymouth. They said it was a waste of time putting 30777 on the Swanage trip. They said she wasn't even working over the Swanage branch.
On another occasion when travelling to Weymouth 44932 had to be completely shut off whilst travelling through the New Forest section and we were even told over the tannoy on the train that NR had banned steam from working on that section. The diesel was doing all the work over the whole section of the New Forest while 44932 nervously simmered at the front of train.
I guess tomorrow's outcome with 46115 depends on NR's current mood about fire risk.


Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

 

At 0650 this morning the New Forest fire index was 2, which is low, but I don't suppose NR will check anything so sophisticated. In fact although June was very wet here there has been little rain in July, just 12 mm so far.

 

Not "a bit of assistance" but a "MASSIVE LOAD OF ASSISTANCE", I fear. Just got into work in Camberley and it was already 21 degrees and cloudless skies. Not ideal is the sensitive world of railways in 2016!

 

5 down at Clapham, box was on the rear not inside.

 

I walked the track in this area yesterday and although the surrounding fields and heathland was relatively lush, the embankments are in fact very dry in some places and todays temperatures are set to rise higher. Hopefully todays trip will be early enough since the last deluge however, unless we get some more of the wet stuff in the next week, any further trips could well be affected.

 

Very warm conditions in the London area today. <BJ>

High temperatures lead to train services between London and West to be delayed

Great Western Railway says, because of track temperatures expected to exceed 50C in parts of London later, there will be a series of changes to timetabled services.

The firm said that many of its services would take 10-15 minutes longer because of the hot conditions.

Here's a summary of what is cancelled and changed:

• London Paddington to Oxford direct (calling at Slough, Reading, Didcot and Oxford) and return services are cancelled. Passengers are advised to travel to Didcot for connecting services to Oxford
• All Thames Valley branch lines to remain in branch operation but with no direct London services
• London Paddington to Bedwyn and return services will operate between Bedwyn and Reading only
• London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa and return will operate between Swindon and Cheltenham Spa only

 

I'm surprised that no pictures have appeared on here yet. I wasn't the only one out with a camera this morning, surely? Anyway, to start the ball rolling, I have just put three pictures on Flickr taken between Farnborough and Fleet; this is the first one in the Photostream :

RD13401. 46115 at Southwood. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

Hope they're of interest.

 

Just passed Wool with the 47 doing all the work,at low speed,having dropped 20 minutes around Poole?

 

Some of us had to go to work...

 

Far too hot for gricing today. We'd all be sweltering in our anoraks

So the train lost about 20 mins between Branksome and Poole. Not often you hear of a steam train getting stuck going DOWN Parkestone Bank so any ideas what the problem was?