Bluebell Railway Giants of Steam 17th-19th October 2025

Due to arrive into the connecting siding at 19:17, after which the rough timings are as follows:

EG dep: 19:25
KC arr: 19:33
KC dep: 19:35
HK pass: 19/50
SP arr: 20:05

It will be running tender first from Battersea

 

I must confess the Saturday timetable is a bit of a pain for those of us visiting by train. I've got a reasonable journey to make, and was planning to arrive at EG at 10:20 and leave again at 16:06. Those timings have worked well in the past, leaving me enough time for a worthwhile amount of travelling / viewing etc at the railway. On this occasion, it works OK in the morning - I should be able to catch the 10:45 with 2999 - but in the afternoon it doesn't. 6880 is due to arrive at 15:55, but that's too tight a connection to rely on at a gala. However, the previous arrival is at 2:15, i.e. 100 minutes previously. Doing that would make my visit too short to be worthwhile. For various reasons, I don't want to stay there later, and I can't switch to another day - the train travel to get there is far more expensive on the Friday, and options are too limited on a Sunday timetable.

All in all, whilst the "line-up" is a good idea in principle, it's unfortunate that they've chosen to do it on the day when more people will want to connect to/from the mainline at EG than on the other two. Sadly, I think they'll be losing my custom on this occasion as a result.

(Edit - I've also just noted that it leaves SP without an arrival from 14:05 to 16:05, so anyone travelling by car and wanting to get away from there at around 15:30-16:00 is similarly stuck)

 

Due to it being in the works for maintenance, 72 "Fenchurch" is now no longer out on brake van rides on Friday and Sunday.

 

Tornado will be departing on Sunday 26th October.

 

So judging from the new timetable posted there is no brake van replacement? Just the four service trains then?

Too bad. Would have been nice to tick travel behind Fenchurch off along with 2999, 6880 and 32424.

Just a bit over 24 hours till I wrap work and head to the airport! Here’s to flights hopefully being on time and no problems picking up hire car at Heathrow and getting down the road Friday morning!

Hopefully cross paths with some folks on the weekend!

Stephen

 

Yes, just the four new build engines on services, plus the 73 as the Sheffield Park station pilot. Good luck with your journey!

 

Thus bringing the average age of the participating locomotives down quite considerably

 

A very enjoyable day, with full runs behind Betton Grange and Lady of legend.
The kiosk at Sheffield Park is selling pies from Piglet pies which are excellent.

 

I'm visiting on Sunday and looking forward to it. I like Piglets Pie and if they their sausage rolls they are highly recommended as well.

 

There was a sign mentioning sausage rolls, but none on sale but this was at 3.00pm.