RTC Sherborne Carols - December 16th

Water stop, Brookwood.

Just look at that firebox hungrily sucking in air....

 

At Monxton five minutes after the freezing fog lifted.

 

Reports from the train and watching RTT was interesting yesterday. Tangmere, a Light Pacific had a load equal to the heaviest train regularly hauled in 1960s normal SR, (SW Division), steam days: the Bournemouth Belle. Always booked for a class 8 Merchant Navy. On a winters day yesterday Tangy virtually kept to time there and back all day, (with no diesel on the train), except perhaps for one or two totally impossible timings over short sections. Tisbury to Gillingham being one.

And with some re starts on or close to some very steep uphill sections.

Yes, they can be difficult machines to handle, but with crews that understand them it can be done. Never that much of a problem back in the day as crews drove them very regularly and often got the very best out of them in all circumstances. Different today of course, main line steam crews just do not have the daily experience of driving them day in and day out. Which to me makes days like yesterday even better.

I should have been on it I know, even just for Basing-Salisbury. But my Owls are in total control of my life at present.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tguppy37401/15849610209/ Tangmere slowing for sherborne
then accelerating away towards Yeovil https://www.flickr.com/photos/tguppy37401/15416045483/in/photostream/

 

Spectacular. Why no warning whistle for the track workers though, I wonder? I have noticed this on several steam runs now - and this group is on the driver's side.

 

If the 'Belle' loaded to 12 vehicles, it surely would have been much heavier than 12 mk1/2s? Pullmans were/are like safes on wheels!

 

Nicely done - it's refreshing to see a steady, fixed camera rather than the wild zooming in and out and wobbling that so often happens. I was just along from you at the Wandsworth Road bridge, BTW.

 

Just a sound recording here of the climb out Sherborne. Headphones needed really, 7 minutes long with 2 or 3 quiet moments:

https://soundcloud.com/sounds-of-stea/34067-nr-sherborne-16-december-2014

 

The Belle in its last years was 10 Pullmans and a bogie van, normally 428 tons tare and about 455 tons gross as the Pullmans were about 40 tons each. Yesterday our load was 12 for 441 tons tare about 470 tons gross. Apart from 32 tons for the support coach the stock was all 37 or 38 tons. Thus the train was actually heavier than the Belle and equal to 13 of ordinary stock in old money. Tangmere showed how it could be done yesterday and in particular the section I was on Basingstoke to Salisbury was quite superb for a class 7 on that load

Don

 

Answered by Brother Don! I never recall seeing the Belle with 12 on.

 

Couldn't agree more

 

A quick shot from me of Tangmere smoking through Farnborough yesterday.

 

I popped out to see it at Salisbury, Gillingham and then Yeovil (lovely afternoon at YRC, it's a great little facility and I'm very glad it exists), and the Tisbury-Gill timing did seem very tight, and it had to slot in passing the not-a-sandite-anymore in Tisbury loop and then the up service train at Gill so there were knock-on effects had it been late. But whereas the double-header Black 5s on this tour last year lost some time (in fairness I can't remember if that was in this section or earlier in the journey) and the scheduled six-minute pathing stop at Gill became charging through non-stop trying not to delay the 159, Tangmere was only about two minutes late into Gill and had time to wait for the service train to come in and then make an absolutely beautiful departure towards Buckhorn Weston from a standing start. Looked and sounded great.

 

Photos and video from Virginia Water and Totters Lane...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/15859409849/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/15858188720/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/15859666597/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/16019632066/in/photostream/

 

Fair point - I was far younger than you in the last years of the 'Belle' but I had been going by information from sources such as the Southern E-Group (extract below):

Following WWII the "Bournemouth Belle" was one of the first titled trains in the country to be restored to the timetable. 7 October 1947 was the date of its return and it now had at the front greatly improved power in the form of a Merchant Navy class pacific locomotive, though overall running times were longer with the time from Waterloo to Bournemouth Central now 2 hrs 10 mins and the return journey taking 2 hrs 5 mins. As a result the "Belle" was no longer the fastest train on the Bournemouth run. The size of the train grew considerably with up to twelve Pullman cars weighing almost 500 tons tare weight, making it by far the heaviest train on the route. In the service's post-war heyday the formation was usually twelve cars year round on Fridays, with eleven cars on other summer days and, in winter, nine cars on Mondays and Saturdays, ten on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and eleven on Sundays. During the final days of steam, in the summer of 1967, the Merchant Navy power gave way to Class 47 diesels which worked the service until its demise on 9 July 1967.

Despite this, there's no doubt that 34067 put in a superb effort. I suspect that she could qualify as a 7.5P!

 

Excellent video work , Ashley, but "aaargh", those bl--dy camera shutter sounds! WHY do people insist on having them on?!

 

Yes and the SR GM, (NOT Gordon Pettit, he was/still is a damn good guy who wasn't at that level back then), was said to have refused to let the Belle run with a Merchant Navy on it's very last day of operation.

 

Thanks Ian, some are mine but I have been through every option on the camera and can't seem to get it any quieter! Cannon EOS600D if anyone has any suggestions!!

 

Ever thought that on many camera's there isn't the option to turn it off ?, I'm not a fan of multiple tripwire hazards some videoers have for external mics, but it goes with the territory I guess.

 

It was McKenna and he paid the price for being so petty by losing his job over the fiasco of the 10th July timetable.

As to the Belle, it was initially 12 Pullmans but reduced to 10 plus a bogie van around 1963 (?) when it's timings were brought into line with the standard 2 hour train times. Light pacifics were often used vice Merchants and they could keep time easily. Yeti and I also once had a standard 5 which kept the post June 1965 times!

gricerdon