Swanage Steam Gala March 2018

Lets be honest Swanage unlike other railways give us all the info for free, WTTs etc.

I'm sure before next friday all will become clear as to loco facings.

But if its as it is now with everything smoke box out of Swanage , That would mean not doing all 3 days personally.

 

Not according to the SLL latest shareholders bulletin. May be available. Let us wait and see................

 

From SLL.

''The work to get 257 Squadron, Sir Keith Park and 80104 back into service has been a joint effort between SLL and Swanage Railway, with close cooperation all round. This has kept us all fully occupied and while 257 Squadron may well be in steam for the Spring Gala on 23 - 25th March it's unlikely to be in service until April''.

Fingers crossed for a return to service of 257 Squadron during the Spring Gala. <BJ>

 

Before firing off an email, is the current state of play with loco facing still the same or likely to change, unexpectedly have chance to pop in for a few hours, Standard 4 smoke box to Swanage and everything else smoke box to Wareham ? Thanks

 

They were yesterday morning, but I wiil check when I go down to the Post Office later today.

 

Apologies if overlooked, the Spring Gala 2018 "Works Outing" page mentions that a local set formed of "Bulleid coaches and van(s) or a milk tank will be in operation" - do we know from the timetable which 'Coaching Stock Set' this will be - A, B or C?

 

It is set C and only running between Swanage and Corfe

 

Perfect, thank you!

 

Now confirmed on Swanage Railway Twitter feed as like this as well.

 

Excellent day at the Swanage Gala yesterday. Weather was dry and often sunny, trains seemed reasonably well filled, and timetable mostly went to plan (at least until I left at about 1500!) Lovely to see the bulleids used as a 'local' set with a couple of trucks and all in all what I can best describe as a gently-paced 'charming' gala making the most of the beautiful Purbeck countryside using the railways own locos. Thanks to all at the railway for making it possible and if you've never been to the railway I strongly urge you visit.

A couple of snaps added.

 

Not the best of days today with poor weather and a fire at Furzebrook. Never seen trains so empty at a Gala. 34072 not in steam. 30120 excellent as usual.

 

Same today, services running 30 mins late from the start yet a feeling that no attempt made to make up time. A rather flat gala. But to be honest, Swanage deliver such brilliant galas perhaps we expect too much.

 

The problem was that there is no room for recovery even with the shuttles turning round at Corfe Castle. The timing of these at xx37 at Harmans Cross meant that inevitably the xx40s from Swanage would have to stop there, making them late at Corfe impacting on the xx33s from Frome. And so it went on all day. Not sure what the answer is as time is needed to change tokens at Norden and to top and tail going towards Frome. Having spent many years in the industry compiling timetables, diagrams and duties I thought I could design a more robust timetable but I haven't managed it so far!

 

I find the concept of 'trying to make time up' at galas an interesting one. A gala isn't a public transport service, I'd be very annoyed if I went to a play or music concert and they decided to to rush through some scenes or cut out some songs if they started late so they finished at the planned time.

 

I understand where you are coming from, but you also need to think of those that visit by public transport of course. In the back of beyond that is Dorset in the winter the last bus to Poole was 1730 (previous on 1530) and the last buses to Bournemouth were 1625 and 1825, so I would think it is reasonable to hope to make up time. I have often thought a recovery gap should be built in to Gala timetables maybe around 1330 ish (GCR excepted as they of course have double track flexibility to catch up), but folks were complaining about the SVR not being intensive enough, so I guess you can not please everybody.
The light engines left Swanage 30 minutes later yesterday than Saturday (do not know why) and it never recovered from that, actually slipping more as has been mentioned.

 

A very valid point, as someone who last week used the SVR for the 1st leg of my journey to get back to Cambridge it was a very near thing for me to make my connection at Kidderminster, ok there was a good reason for it, but what's the point in having a timetable if your not going to stick too it?

 

Whilst that is correct I have learnt not to trust the timetables at Galas as so much can go wrong. We usually drive to Swanage but often go by train to the SVR and WSRly. In the latter case the journey also involves a bus to/from Taunton so we normally allow an hour spare to ensure we catch the bus which connects with our chosen train home. Even more important for the SVR and East Lancs (where the connection is tram) as we buy advance rail tickets which are only valid on a specified train. On the visit of Flying Scotsman in 2016 I had to abandon the train at Heywood and find a bus back to Manchester in order to catch my booked train back to London, which I just made. Otherwise I would have had to pay full fare.

 

My shots from over the Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Nice to see a bit of sun over the Sunday!

 

Timetable worked fine Friday and Saturday....and late running was recovered easily.
Probably different staff and something different happened...

 

As an example of the need to run to time, I travelled on the 13:40 ex Swanage which left some 35 mins down. Picked up my car at Norden and drove to Furzebrook to record the Crompton, then to Grange road to film the T9 coming up the bank from the river. As I left three cars turned up with gricers armed with cameras etc. I advised them that they had at least a 50 minute wait as the services were running late. They explained that they had travelled the branch on the Saturday and had been up to East Somerset for their gala but wanted to film the standard tank. They thanked me for saving them a long wait.