Bluebell Railway General Discussion

As I understand from a FB post there is a plan but it's longer term, 1st priority is to get it up and running northwards. Also I am led to understand P1 was never able to serve Sheffield Park in any case.


Sent from my SM-A556B using Tapatalk

 

You're quite right. P1 was only ever served off the Ardingly branch, so its of limited use, but will be very useful on gala days for brake van rides/ services from HK to EG. The "Change here!" experience of steam age travel.
Incidentally, something I really appreciated from Sundays visit was the respective station staff calling the station name on arrival, rather than relying on tannoys. A very wartime touch.

 

There are articles in Bluebell News and possibly online that detail it better, but my understanding is that there was a plan in the 1910s to connect P1 to the Sheffield Park line, and the platform was rebuilt to accommodate this at the south end but the plan was scrapped. This left the south end of P1 with a very strange shape and caused the sagging coping stones and the platform being barricaded off in 2023.

The south end has now been rebuilt to the original alignment but the track at the south end hasn’t yet. Its more of a priority to make sure the platform is rebuilt in time for the Rail 200 Exhibition Train, so the south end has been left for now.

 

There has been a fair amount about the rebuild of Platform 1 in the winter 2024 issue of Bluebell News, and also online - this page gives a good overview: https://www.bluebell-railway.com/horsted-keynes-platform-1-and-2-refurbishment/

AIUI, the southern 32' of the platform, plus the ramp, was rebuilt ca. 1914 with remodelling of that end of the station in mind. The result was a sharp kink in the platform wall, with the curve of the platform maintained by the coping stones having a much larger than ideal overhang, and a fairly sharp curve into the platform.

In this latest refurbishment, the Bluebell has reinstated the platform wall more or less along the original (pre-1914) alignment. A consequence is that the point that gave access to P1 from the Ardingly branch is no longer in the right place; my guess is it will have to move south by a few tens of yards to give a more natural alignment into the platform - presumably there being sufficient clearance in front of the signal box.

Tom

 

Services this weekend:

A - 80151 - Mark 1s
B - 32424 - Maunsells / Obo
WR (Sat) / GA (Sun) - 73082 (WR or Pullman stock as appropriate)

Saturday evening GA is 80151.

The Bluebell's Facebook is advertising an "early evening Goods Train" on Saturday evening but the weekly traffic notice hasn't appeared yet, so I don't know what the motive power or timings are yet. I'll update if I find out more.

Tom

 

Thanks for this. Presume 73082 is vice 34059. The latter being shown as rostered on the website.

 

I guess so - our documents say 73082 in any case.

Goods train timings on Saturday 7 June:

Loco - 73082

SP dep 4:30pm light engine
At Horsted Keynes, pick up goods from down yard ready for departure from P4/5
HK dep 5:05pm
EG arr 5:35pm

At EG, run round and shunt to swap brake van to other end of train.

EG dep 6:00pm
SP arr 6:50pm

At SP, run round and swap ends with brake van.

SP dep 7:30pm
HK arr 7:50pm

Shunt goods set to down yard.

HK dep 8:10pm light engine back to SP

80151 will also be out on an evening arrow, so if the weather is nice, quite an enjoyable evening to be had by the looks of things.

Tom

 

I believe the weekend workings have now changed due to the unavailability of 32424 and 73082.

34059 is.now back in action due to run on set A, 6989 is also back in action and was tested/ran in yesterday evening is on set B and 80151 is on the WR/GAL (Sat/Sun) and the Gds tonight