Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Thanks for these. I was looking on rail cam every so often but must have missed the movement.

 

I see that 66710, which brought the Rail 200 exhibition train to the Bluebell last night is rostered to work some trains this coming Saturday & Sunday. (No doubt Tom will be giving it a wide berth!) Very much a sign of how things have changed. Even allowing for this being "Rail 200 " and thus a cameo of railways right up to the present day, who could have imagined even when the EG extension first opened that the Bluebell would consider putting a 66 on the front of a scheduled service apart from during a diesel gala? I just hope there will be sufficient Class 66 enthusiasts around to justify this venture.

 

A very wide berth - I’m flying to New Zealand this Saturday. Extreme I know, but “I’m washing my hair” is no longer a tenable excuse

Odd trivia question: “Which class of locomotive, steam or diesel, has seen the most individual members of the class run on the Bluebell post preservation?” I’m pretty certain the answer would be a class 66.

Tom

 

Tom, damn, I should have thought about going to New Zealand to avoid all the Razzmatazz associated with the 200 train (and the 66 diesel) ; that would probably been far enough away to avoid it all. But when I paid for my booking to Mars I was told the were no refunds on the ticket I chose to buy.

Bryan

 

That, or a 73?

I look forward to Tom's Diesel Corner in the next edition of Bluebell Times, pondering this and other important questions about modern traction

 

Pretty certain it would be a 66 because (trick question) of all the spoil trains.

I do have a list of all the steam locos ever to have visited (just over a hundred at last count) but haven’t done it for diesels. But when you consider spoil trains, other in-bound infrastructure workings, diesel galas, diesels on charter trains and diesels taking locos to / from the railway, I think the list is likely to be pretty large.

Tom

 

I'd forgotten spoil trains (pre-formal reopening not counting, etc.). The charters and ferry trips were why I thought it might be 73s, especially given the good working relationships with GBRF and the fact that they often come in pairs.

 

I didn't mention the spoil trains in the answer I gave to the honorable gentleman earlier because I didn't want to let on that I had guessed that the 66 class were (a) diesels and (b) had hauled the spoil trains.

Although, of course, my intial thoughts were they were DB 66 class 2-6-4 tanks. But with only one out of just two built having survived that would have rather limited the number of the class that had visited the Bluebell. It would however, have explained the rather wide cutting on the extension where the spoil trains ran.

Bryan

 

I see from Dave Clarke's Flickr site, that the "Inspiration" train has been targeted by graffiti artists, presumably before reaching Bluebell on Monday night.
That's rather unfortunate, n'est pas?

 

I think it was actually styled by graffiti artists if you look at it's own website.

 

Super. Down wid da kidz for Rail 200, innit?. Almost like its encouraging them over the fence into the local freight yard at midnight. Wonder what the consultants fees were for that?
Edit- just ignore me, I'm being a grouchy old Luddite (in other words, my natural self )

 

I think the graffiti art is quite good in its proper context. I saw on another forum awful AI-generated nonsensical 'images' also feature on the side of the Rail 200 train, surely a much bigger problem..

Re: modern traction. If you count the remaining open stub of the Ardingly branch as part of the wider Bluebell 'network', then Class 66's visit the line almost every day on the stone trains!

 

For those travelling by rail, currently no trains going through Oxted.

 

At which point the question is then over the number of individual locomotives of whichever classes.

 

Totally agree with you. Especially after the enormous effort needed on another local heritage railway to remove graffiti from their DEMU.

 

Is it not possible to still stop trains there without platform staff? Harmans Cross is normally unmanned during the week and I have even stewarded railtours where the guard has self dispatched (sometimes at some very large stations) as the station staff could not be asked to come and do the platform dispatch.
Would it be possible to have a "travelling porter" to assist the guard?

 

Having seen the photo of part of the 200 train I am now wondering if Mars is far enough away to avoid the graffited razzmatazz, so I'm now asking if I can upgrade to a destination a few more hundreds of million miles away!

Bryan

 

I think there is investigation of getting TTIs to be able to assist the guard with train dispatch, however, bear in mind not all trains have TTIs (i.e. non-corridor trains).

The issue at both Kingscote in the up direction, and any train using platforms 4/5 at HK is that the platforms are curved so one person can’t see the whole length of train.

In reality, outside school holidays, most midweek traffic is schools or coach parties who are normally doing the whole line anyway. It’s not ideal, but probably pragmatic in the circumstances until other arrangements can come into play.

Tom

 

Yes Tom a TTI could do it although he could be stuck selling tickets of course. I was thinking more of a someone specific to just assist the guard. I assume most weekdays it is still a one train service so I thought use the down platform at KC in both directions and avoid 4 & 5 at HK.