The Swanage Belle June 19 2014

Through Chiswick at 09:16 - around 6 down. Regular service ahead of it was running 5 late:

Swanage Belle Grove Park Terrace Crossing

 

It was still a few minutes late when I saw it between Farnborough and Fleet. I managed to get three shots and this is the first one (which I nearly didn't get!) :

RD9475. 159 002 and 44932 passing Southwood. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

Clicking on it will enlarge it and then clicking the right arrow will take you to the others.

 

Byfleet & New Haw

 

Departing noisily from Woking, with a nice toot to us too

 

Through New Malden a couple of mins down this evening. On the fast and sounded good though, usually they shut off and coast from there onwards.

 

It was switched to the fast line at Farnborough. The signal was held at red as the train approached the station at a crawl. Then, about half way down the platform the driver got the feather and a green. He opened up the Black 5 which accelerated with some vigour and barked away into the night. It was quite a spectacle and it could be heard for a good minute!

Turn up the volume :

 

Very good run on the return from Laverstock North Junction onwards. we post more later.

 

It was on the fast line approaching Weybridge, but through a TSR, the driver reached the end of the section, he opened up the Black 5 which accelerated with some vigour, but for your sake turn down the volume......

 

Did the diesel run light engine to Swanage to haul the train back to Southampton?
I may have missed it somewhere but I've not seen any mention of a box. TIA. <BJ>

 

No since the diesel is Swanage based. I presume it ran light engine back to Swanage after detaching at Southampton.

 

What a shame about that SWT EMU ! Still, it will happen to us all at some stage; I've had a couple of close shaves, so it must happen to me sometime.

Anyway, I have now uploaded some still pictures to Flickr. I was experimenting with the 12,800 ISO setting on the camera so they are somewhat on the noisy side (as was 44932!) so I offer them as a record of the occasion, not photographic masterpieces.

This is the first one of a set of four :

RD9482. 44932 at Farnborough. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

 

Thanks for that. The use of the railway's own class 33 is such a good idea and it looks very good. I have since found a photograph, thanks to Brian Kennedy, of the loco in action. <BJ>
http://railwayherald.com/imagingcentre/view/339729/TW

 

A friend and I were on the train to get the 33 from Swanage to Southampton loop. A good day was had in spite of it being too warm. The 33 did what it was supposed to and performed well. Unlike the previous one of these, it seems the 33 went up Parkstone bank without any assistance from the thing on the back. The steam part of the tour was as advertised. I won't say it was exciting or fast but nothing went wrong. For what it's worth, the GPS speedo on the phone reported 31 mph at the top of the climb up Porton bank and a steady 60 mph further on.