Steam Dreams 2013 & 2014 Archive

Some further trips in 2014 have been added to the website :

3rd July Sheffield Park - Cambridge and Ely.
5th July Alresford - Sheffield Park.

 

And 9th July London-Swanage. I was conjecturing whether SD might try to run their annual trip from Sussex starting from Sheffield Park rather than Lewes, and I was right. It makes sense, as it must be a lot easier to run the ECS down the Oxted line the previous night, stable it, etc, rather than having to run down the Brighton Main Line early in the morning as per the 5th July trip from Lewes this year. I'm a bit surprised it doesn't pick up at Horsted Keynes, as there is plenty of car parking available there. If 200 people all book from Sheffield Park, there won't be much room for customers using normal Bluebell services later in the day. Also surprised that there's no pick up at Oxted or East Croydon.

Interesting to see the pool of locos SD plan to use throughout the 2014 season. No surprise that it includes the Hosking engines, Ollie and Tangmere, but it also includes Clan Line, "Number 9" , SNG and "several Black FIves", which is good news. 46115, which is also mentioned, would be most welcome down south. Interesting that 45699 isn't listed. Perhaps an oversight?

Anyway, going back to 44871's solo run to Sherborne on 16th December,

Steam Railway states that the reason for only usng 1 engine is due to a restriction on the length of the train (didn't specify where) Yes, I'm sure 44871 will put up a good show. Someone posted a video of 70000 on last year's run tackling the 1 in 80 from Sherborne to Milborne Port in the dark. It was one of the most enjoyable clips of a steam loco in action I have ever watched - a lot of black screen, but the sound was terrific, and then a light appears in the distance, and gets closer. I hope somoeone will be out there for 44871's performance, which, I am sure, will be just as exciting.

 

I suspect they will add some further pickup points at a later date including a London one such as Kenny O.Other likely pickups Oxted, and Upper Warlingham (or Sanderstead) since the platforms have been extended to take 12 car units at these stations. . The first 2 have good parking, Upper Warlingham has recently had a further level built. East Croydon maybe depends if a longer enough slot available.They may be only using one pickup at the Bluebell since they will need someone to lock up late at night.I suspect 46115 will only be used for the S & C trips and the Explorer.

 

5th July is a Saturday, so quite likely that the Bluebell will be staffed late into the evening anyway on account of the evening GA. There would need to be a signalman at all signalboxes anyway even if the train wasn't stopping.

Operationally, because of the relative positions of platforms and loops at SP and HK, it might actually be simpler to entrain / detrain any passengers from SP in the northern six carriages of a train; and any from HK in the southern end of the train. (Not sure how that matches with the general consist of such services).

Tom

 

Tom

I was refering to the trip on Thursday the 3rd, although I did not make it clear.

Paul

 

D'oh! I'm being dense! If it starts at SP, it means it leaves early and gets back late, which is the 3rd July trip, on a Thursday. Whereas the 5 July one will of course be arriving and departing during the daytime... Apologies! I was thinking about a late arrival back on Saturday.

Out of interest, I suppose it is too early to speculate, but do SD routinely run diesel-hauled trips? For the Alresford - SP trip, the Bluebell doesn't have a turntable, so presumably it would have to be diesel-hauled one way, or else top'n'tailed by steam like tomorrow's trip.

For the SP - Cambridge / Ely trip, is there somewhere a loco could be turned in that neck of the woods?

Tom

 

No. I expect the trip from Alresford will be Steam and diesel and might have a diferent out and back routes, will need to look at my Rail Atlas tonight to see what is possible.

There is a triangle at March ( North of Ely).

 

Pure speculation on my part, but the Alresford - Sheffield Park trip's last pick-up is Aldershot, which may suggests it via Woking one way and via Guildford the other. So one option might be steam from Alresford to Sheffield Park via Woking, return to East Croydon diesel-hauled, then steam back to Alresfird via Guildford.

 

The Alresford to Sheffield Park trip will be okay if we don't have lots of very hot weather around that date. Be interesting if they use top and tail steam. Black Fives perhaps?

 

New brochure received today and in Marcus's introduction, which he makes reference to returning to West Coast , he also states " It also means that for the whole of 2014, we will be back working with the familiar coaches that formed part of the Green Train"

 

The Horsham to Ely trip on the 12/12 is steam hauled from the London. Ditto Ipswich to Winchester on the 9/12.

 

Very sad to see the 9th July trip is a Victoria departure then round the houses via Staines and Chertsey.

If GB is no longer at SD, (there was talk he had left?), then maybe there will no longer be a driving force in SD to get a decent train set up on that dates every year?

I hope that my obvious joke about next years ACE leaving London at Victoria behind a Black 5 and a 47 diesel is not going to come true, in full or part.

My last steam trip was July 9th last year. And it was a good one. It is starting to look like that could have been my very last mainline steam run. I'm not going to waste time and effort booking myself and the usual quite large crowd of us from the 1960s timing days on, what to us, has the risk of becoming a third rate product. But it's only fair to wait and see what SD do produce in the coming year. But maybe us oldie market is no longer significant and they have their sights on more regular and reliable income streams. And who can blame them.

As I often say in day to day life, nothing stays the same for ever. Well, except for those great looking Bavarian Serving Wenches in their summer dirndls.

 

44781 was definitely amongst the best of the Black 5's but, alas it was cut up in 1968!

 

Yeah, on a film set because they couldn't be bothered to retrieve it. Wasn't it mocked up to look foreign?

 

Yep, Malaysian in the film Virgin Soldiers. I believe an attempt was made to save it but it came to nothing for a reason I can't recall.

 

The good die young.

35003, Royal Mail, was a superb Merchant Navy. I recorded 5 separate 100 mphs or more behind her, (in fact one was actually from on her footplate), and a whole string of outstanding runs.

But she was gone after July 1967, and later cut up. Total disaster.

Mans inhumanity to Machines.

 

Bryan, I really, really like the steam locos built by the Southern Railway.
But for you to paraphrase Robert Burns' poem while moaning about a man-made machine being scrapped, on Rememberance Sunday, of all days, is extremely distasteful.

 

More concerning are Marcus's comments in SR. SD's priority for the future is Dining, hence their own catering crew and their restaurant car. The plans for s 'new' Green Train are on the back burner. He says categorically that standard class is a minority of the business. Bit of a drag the Premier Standard cloths and drinks taking up GPS, stopwatch and scribbling pad space. I do like the irony in the comment about their aim being to make their trains more like the "Belles" as their WRC contract is on a 'TOC and Stock' basis!. WRC will have to do some serious work to bring stock up to those standards. Also worrying is his view of running in the 21sy Century generally accepting the reality of the need to have a diesel on the back for 'operational reasons'. Can't think what that really means as Class 8 and & 7s run at 75 and do for long stretches beautifully on many routes. Boxes can't push trains around faster than 75. Of course WRC have form for leaving the ECS Diesel on when train heating is required as we know to our cost. Perhaps we can at least hope that SD have enough clout to get WRC to make sure their southern stock can be steam heated with dynamos and batteries providing lights all day to take away one operational need. Got to go now. The flying pigs are in the air.

 

On the WCR set, which is mainly Mk1s, whilst they have ETH the lights are dynamo and battery, This set, used on the Bluebell Explorer, appeared to be steam heated from the video shots of it