Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

It's looking good Dave, although the list of excuses to avoid signwriting must be getting slim now!

 

A Class 2 Freight! Wow! The best I ever prepped at work was a Class 4.
Pat

 

A serious thigh rubbing moment

 

Funnily enough it was only changed from a class 8 last weekend to fit more in with the passenger duties that it was being used for!

 

Thanks Alex!

I think its more like your excuses for not finding a reason to come and join us for a day..........

However, we are seriously looking at taking the decal route, but our prospective supplier keeps going quiet on us!

 

The 4x4 is fuelled and on stand by

 

Noo, not sticky lettering! Is there not a local sign writer you could find?
If only I wasn't so busy with our Queen Mary I'd seriously love to come down for a day or two, but we're on a tight deadline for that sadly as it's needed at the end of October and there's a lot to do. Unfortunately November isn't terribly conducive to outdoors signwriting, and no doubt you'll want it done before then anyway!

 

80151 has been announced as the second guest for the Mid Hants Railway Autumn Steam Gala at the end of the month. This is the first preservarion-era trip away from the Bluebell since its arrival in 1998.

 

It is really exciting and we are very grateful to the Bluebell for agreeing to this loan. 80151 is appropriate to the theme of the S&D as these locomotives pretty much ran the line after the through trains ceased. For this to be the first visit anywhere away from the Bluebell is exciting as well. An opportunity to see how the engine goes "over the Alps" (I am certain it will go very well!).

Alongside 80151 will be City of Wells, 7F 53808 , std4 76017 and Ivatt Tank 41312. All of them representing S&D types. The timetable is different on each day as we will try to show the different aspects of the S&D, not just the busy summer trains, although these will feature with some really long trains, double-heading and even banking, with locos that in most cases actually ran on the S&D. You can expect the timetable to be on the website in the next day or so.

Hope to see you!

 

For our gradients (which are a bit steeper than yours ) she copes almost ridiculously easily with a six coach train. Given the choice, with that sort of load I'd pick 80151 over 73082 any day of the week, for a variety of reasons.

Tom

 

Excellent choice. I remember when it first entered service on the Bluebell and it's been one of my favourites of the Bluebell fleet ever since. Will be good to see if running away from home for once. Don't remember too many Std 4s running on the Mid Hants - I think 80078 was the last one?

 

From memory 80104 made a visit some years ago.

 

A really great line-up. I never usually miss an S & D themed Gala. I was really hoping to be there but I have not been in the best of health since having my second Covid jab in June. Currently waiting for a CT scan to see if it has caused damage to my heart. Speaking to my GP and a heart doctor over the last couple of weeks it sounds like rather a lot of people have suffered the same problems/symptoms as me. Pretty fed up with feeling so rough.
I Iook forward to watching the videos on here of the event. I hope it goes well for the MHR.

Regarding visiting Standard Tanks, so far 80078, 80079 & 80104 have been to the MHR. IIRC 80079 failed and did not run at the Gala it visited for.

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Cheers. I hope so too.

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Well, as it stands, that's our only option & we're too far now into the ordering process!

We did have offers of help, they fell by the watside.

 

Sounds good but slightly disappointed with 80151. They didn’t work the line in its heyday up to 1962. BR Std 5s did and so did LM 4Fs often double headed with other locos and making a hell of a racket. 9Fs were also common working the through trains unassisted. We have booked and looking forward to it though. Be good to see 34092 and of course 53808 which I saw on the S&D in 1962

 

That's not good to hear. Hope you recover as soon as possible. Try to think positive though, if you had caught Covid the consequences could have been far worse. <BJ>

 

You have a ruling gradient of 1 in 60 for a bit over three miles in one direction and 1.5 in the other with significant sections of something more like 1 in 50??

 

Thanks.

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