Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

Giants 2015? That was my first Giants! In fact, that was my first Bluebell enthusiast event!

I'm glad you enjoyed 925, once again, I took no interest as, well, you know, I'm GWR dyed-in-the-wool but other people seem to have a horrible habit of telling me their disgruntlements, not just trains either.

 

Isn't the wrong side of Gatwick a slightly odd place for such a committed Swindonite (or Wulfrunian*) to find themselves?

*Allowance made for aficionados of the Armstrong regime. Wasn't that nice of me?

 

GWR ran to Redhill and Tonbridge in their day, lest we forget

 

Indeed .... but we're not going to hold that against them now, are we? I mean ..... just cos a 43xx skulking into Tonbridge in the dark can't hold a candle to a WC gliding into Plymouth with all it's lights aglow?

Anyhoo ... hence my mention of Gatwick .... end of line for workings from Reading and I believe as close as any of today's GWR's workings get to the Bluebell.

 

My locomotive today

 

Pic showing last weekend's trial fitting of the tender brake cylinder.
Pat

 

I've often thought about a gala with the three surviving Schools together and calling it "Schools Out for Summer".

 

Guess the copper caps and two tone whistles won me over.

 

Only work if it was held in the school holidays!

 

You’d also need an Alice Cooper tribute band to play a part, and most definitely not Daphne and Celeste.

(I saw them at Leeds in 2000, a 15 minute 3 song set, it took 15 minutes to sweep all the rubbish off the stage that was thrown at them)
Slipknot were on later that day, I think it could have been rather interesting what was left onstage, if they’d have been the warm up act for them!

 

Ask Alice nicely (don't call him Vince!) and he may do it himself. He's still touring.
Pat

 

Talking of Alice Cooper, never saw them live, but first time i saw him was on TOTP, and my immediate thought as a 14 year old was , WTF!!! Next week, the show had pans people, as it was still number1, and My 2 brothers and i sat spell bound, whilst my mom, and sister tutted, at The dance troupe, dressed as school girls , As they gyrating around the stage, Apparently, despite the make up etc, and show, he's a nice guy,

 

The latest YouTube video is now available to watch.

 

I do like these videos MHR release on their YouTube channel, all credit goes to the very professional camera team behind it, wish I could have greater quality shots like that instead of them looking like a was holding a camera in the Arctic, all that shaking about.

 

OK, so I hate to bang on about the same topic but has anyone recently viewed the autumn gala website recently?
I think they have Can Pac back, or the major part of it anyway, can anyone confirm this?

 

In regards to those photos, the tender a relatively recent photo as they are quite close to completing the tender (fun fact the green paint and lining is from 34019 tender from the 2017 end of southern steam gala)

The boiler is a old photo as that is CPs boiler, but that's when it arrived as it had to be transported to Eastleigh in one lump via rail and then the boiler retuning by road. Currently the boiler is upside down in the boiler shop

These photos probably dont relate too much to the gala or at least in the sense that CP wont be running yet

 

Talking of the gala...any idea when we might hear some news?

 

I have asked a few times but all I got was "Details to be announced soon".
You probably won't hear anything until after the Open Weekend.

 

Plans will be afoot I would assume, however patience is always the key

 

What happened to The Can Pac blog? I couldnt find it on the website.