Great Central Railway Goods Galore Gala 6-7 May 2017

Hello all

A few more pictures from Sunday.

Thanks

Stan

 

My offerings from the weeekend. A fantastic event, a great addition with the non-stop express. Would love to see this added to the Steam Galas, that along with the TPO demonstrations would be quite something! An enjoyable day riding on the Saturday, and most trains seemed to be very well patronised.

Hope you enjoy!

 

Three from the gloom that was Saturday and one in a patch of sunlight before heading for home on Sunday morning!

 

It has taken me longer than I would have liked to produce a gallery of images from the Saturday of the Goods Galore gala, but these can now be seen on my Zenfolio website at: - http://mickrogers.zenfolio.com/p50831947



All in all, it was another enjoyable day of photography at the GCR, despite the weather conditions being the worst of the weekend! As always, my thanks go out to all who had a hand in running the event.

Cheers,

 

Hope this is an event that makes it into the calendar every year. It looks and sounds really impressive. Shame I was busy, or would have made it down.

 

Enjoyed a dry and occasionally bright Sunday at the Goods Galore; another great event with things constantly happening (certainly helped to keep the girlfriends interest anyway).

The ‘Pines Express’ was a highlight, as was the double-headed mixed freight with 80136 and 78018.

Shame to read in the RailMail a “few more attendees would have been welcome” though appreciate this’ll always be the case – certainly seemed quiet on trains but stations appeared busy.

Working on an online album/blog but a handful of photos can be found on my Instagram.

 

The Goods Galore is a great idea, but maybe the timing of this might need to be adjusted. Putting it in spring around the bank holiday weekends might cause trouble, as I personally had to watch the bank balance as theres two bank holidays this month - and as much as I'd like to have been there the trek from County Durham would soon rack up costs.

Half the problem will be that you need to watch the freight trains go past, which is why stations will have been busy. Theres no reason why the ideas in this gala couldn't be incorporated or replace one or more of the seasonal galas that's on. If there is so be a specific event, such as this then it should start to be at the same time of year. The Swithland Gala, and the one last year about a local shed I think were at different times. This gala is more akin to that kind of operation as its trying to recreate a line where goods pass passenger often.

Personally, I think its great. It might just need more planning and advance notice, including some PR releases and putting into a slot so that it gains traction each year and people know that event will be on.

 

I wasn't there (not that that will have made any difference to tha takings as I'm a volunteer) but from the photos and videos I've seen online it looked like a great event. But I do wonder whether it actually needed a visiting loco. That will have added a fair bit to the cost, and there were enough home fleet locos on site that it was not needed operationally. If the same event had featured say 777 instead of 80136, would people who came have stayed away? The locos after all were not the main focus of this event. Thoughts?

 

I'm probably the last person you need to ask that to! 80135 would have been a nice bit of kit and seems to have gone down well. You might not have needed a visitor for the event, given the goods on display, but the GC will soon get into trouble if every gala doesn't get a visitor in. So its a case of being selective over which events you do and which ones you run the home fleet on an intensive service. A visitor at this one might be a better idea if it works passenger turns so that people aim to ride behind it as its there, thus increasing ticket sales, and draw people onto the trains, rather than stand and watch goods trains pass all afternoon.

 

Spot-on, of course.

It's difficult to know; a lack of visiting engine wouldn't have deterred me as the event is quite unique. That being said, the 4MT is a personal favourite with limited opportunities to see one in-front of goods locally (West Sussex) so guess it depends if others share that view if they're coming from further afield.