Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Ooh, now I didn't know that - thank you! I thought post-war myself.

 

I'm very much of the blue/grey era but even then (early to mid-70s) the odd green loco - usually a Brush 4/class 47 - would sneak in to add interest. Then, it was the goods trains that had variety and interest.

 

I can see both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, I can understand why Bryan is so attached to the 1960s. Having bought a copy of his brother's book The Twilight of Southern Steam, it must have been an amazing experience to have been on the footplate of the Bulleid Pacifics at 100mph in the final years of steam on the Southern Region. For the Benn brothers, nothing will ever come near matching those incredible days and I can therefore understand their enthusiasm to try to re-live as close as they can, that period. It is worth noting that these were the glory years of Southern Steam. There was nothing like the Coronation, the Coronation Scot or the Cheltenham Flyer in the 1930s on the Southern - Sir Herbert Walker devoted his energies primarily into electrification.

Furthermore, it is easier for most heritage lines to recreate late the 1950s/early 1960s than the pre-nationalisation era, particularly those railways which did not get going until the 1970s or later and have had to rely on an assortment of Barry wrecks along with Mark 1 carriages - and, of course, if you pick up a picture book of the days of steam, a lot of pictures date from the BR era simply because there were more photographers active in those days. For those of us who enjoy taking pictures, photograph say, 80151 on a rake of green corridor coaches and you can almost imagine you're Sid Nash or Mike Esau 60 years ago.

On the other hand, railways had been in existence a long time before 1948 and living in Southern territory, I am grateful that at least three lines in this part of the world (Bluebell, K&ESR, IoWSR) have a good collection of pre-nationalisation - and indeed, pre-grouping rolling stock and can this offer a good recreation of the trains that ran on branch lines before 1948. When I travel on a heritage line, I always try to pick a pre-nationalisation coach if posisble and I am delighted that in addition to the three aforementioned lines, both the Mid Hants and Swanage Railways have some SR carriages in service. If I want to take a picture of, say the T3 at Swanage or (when it is working again) S15 No. 499 on the Mid-Hants, which is going to be restored in L&SWR livery, I'd rather photograph them at the head of a freight train rather than hauling a rake of Mark 1s, but if I'm sitting in a carriage with either of these locos up front, I won't bother one iota what livery the loco up front is painted in.

The bottom line is you can never please all the people all the time. I'm just grateful (i) that so many locos have survived and (ii) for the scale of the heritage railway movement, which has grown to something way beyond anything that which those pioneers in the early 1960s could ever have envisaged.

 

Many thanks to everyone at the Bluebell for a superb 65th birthday event. In the end I was only able to attend yesterday, but it was wonderful to see a cavalcade at HK again after 15 years! I hope the event was a profitable one for the railway. Roll on Bluebell '70?

 

I think you capture it well. Like @Jamessquared, I did not live through the BR steam era, and by definition cannot have memories that I wish to recreate. I also share his view of the BR steam era* as being one of decline, albeit with some high spots like the high speeds of SR steam.

It therefore has limited appeal to me, and I am more drawn to the optimism of (aspects of) the Grouping era, and the sheer variety of the pre-Grouping era.

What is important is that we can discuss these varying views and themes. I may occasionally roll my eyes at some of @The Gricing Owl's comments, but he has every right to his nostalgia - and I appreciate the tongue in cheek way that he presents it. As a historian, I also think it important that railways do present a rounded picture - so good on Swanage for letting a Spamcan run "dirty" for a while.

Going onto topic, I'm sorry that I couldn't be in Sussex last weekend, and delighted that the event went so well. Floreat Vapor.

* We're talking about steam here. With a foot in the modern traction camp, I'd also note that the same is true of the BR blue era - I came of age as it was ending, and my memories of it are of anything in BR blue/blue-grey being the most run down part of the fleet.

 

Sadly, that was frequently the case: but a rake of Mk. IIs in freshly-painted blue and grey was a magnificent sight, as we have seen in preservation since then.

I've been working out how to get to the Bluebell from here cheaply and it seems separate tickets are the way forward.

 

If your bum can cope with Thameslink seats, it's easy doing Peterborough - East Croydon - East Grinstead. Or LNER to King's X then St Pancras - East Grinstead (if you're early enough, failing that, change at East Croydon).

 

I plugged that journey into National Rail: for £29.90 return I'll take a cushion!

 

3 times the price of this it seems

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyl...3165e6acc368f533e89715854f1ea9eecda6a5c8f1871

 

Like James, I never saw the end of BR steam- my young world was blue and grey. Which is why im so glad that the Bluebell can please all of the people some of the time, which really is how it should be.

 

How many people remember 'pre WW2' steam? To have experienced it as an adult you would need to be over 100

 

I went off of the reminiscences of my parents and grandparents when I was young. It all seemed impossibly glamorous. -Being placed under the care of the guard, with his carnation buttonhole, on the Cornish Riviera to Truro, restaurant car for lunch. And afternoon tea. Or later, my dear, late mother-in-law's recollections of travelling back to Edinburgh from school in Switzerland, being met by her uncle off the boat train at Charing Cross, and chaperoned home on the Flying Scotsman, or the Coronation.
I was sold. Hook, line and sinker.
My own childhood recollections, though not of steam, were of the Brighton Belle, with all its sense of occasion, and distinctive aromas.
So for me, mere 60s stripling that I am, pre-war rail travel does it every time. Always has.

 

I think there is a risk of assuming that heritage experiences have to be about somebody's lived experience.

A simple thought experiment shows that not to be: how many people, when visiting a mediaeval castle, have actual personal experience of living in one? A number not unadjacent to zero, I'd suggest. Yet castles remain perennially popular.

Most heritage attractions are the same - there are precious few people now who have any recollection of Second World War aviation (and for the few that do, by now it will be almost certainly a childhood memory except for a tiny handful) yet airshows remain popular. My great Aunt could tell me about the lived experience of being a servant in an Edwardian Country House - but she lived a very long life (almost reaching 100) and has still been dead 30 years. Such houses remain popular attractions.

Heritage railways are in a position where there are still a reasonable number of people around who remember steam haulage when it was an everyday thing. But even those people will not be around for much longer: in twenty years time, meeting someone who had adult experience of the dying years of mainline steam will be as rare as it is today meeting someone who remembers the war.

So I think it is a mistake to assume that Heritage Railways are simply about nostalgia (in the sense of actual lived experience). Pandering too much to that tendency is a recipe for becoming irrelevant.

Tom

 

"nostalgia" is an increasingly vicarious experience. Speaking as one who has known this from as long ago as the 1970s.

 

There is no heritage railway that is close to the lived experience of the 1960s, although some have aspects which come close. As I wrote earlier, I greatly enjoyed the Anniversary, but Horsted Keynes on Sunday was nothing like it was in the late 60s when I first visited. At that time, echoes of its past ambience were everywhere, but the experience as a whole was probably a less satisfactory evocation than today's pastiche.

 

And that, IMHO, is part of the problem - the version that cuts through tends to be a romanticised and sanitised version of the past, with the pressure being to fulfil that expectation and attempts to broaden understanding in context often being derided. My own bête noir are galas themed around a now lost railway, offering an experience typically far removed (historically and geographically) from anything that might have been experienced on that railway, but recreate the imagined past of that railway.

 

You're not a fan of the unimaginative "we've hired a Bulleid so we'll do a Somerset and Dorset gala" approach either then?

 

If I see "S&D" and "gala" in the same heading, it is a 99% guarantee that this I will not be attending.

 

The WSR one a few years ago (OK, so back in 2006! ) was superb, but they had two 7Fs, a 9F, a 4F, Black 5 and Std 4s, as well as the Bulleid, plus hired in rolling stock. But it was the right county and had decent gradients, so it worked.

 

No Tom, not a risk. If I can get Trump to put 'It is quite right to assume' in place of your words I have maybe been at bit too bold in highlighting on his Truth social media whatsit, more than half of Mericans will believe it. Plus one UK dinosaur now under threat of being shunted to Barry Docks. When he/it/them* is quite capable of going there under his own steam.

Bryan

* delete depending on your view