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.

 

I got a Sausage Roll… it was quite delicious.

If anyone was at the railway yesterday and happened to get pictures or video of the 3pm Sheffield/4:05 East Grinstead trip that captured the crew (and admittedly I use that term slightly loosely) I’d be curious to see if my smile was visible from the line side!

Haven’t even had a chance to look at pictures/video from yesterday. Travel caught up to me when I finally made it to my hotel. Felt like a busy day on the line and looking forward to more today after a good nights sleep!

Quickly got one shot though, the Footplate of Betton Grange is a lot cozier than when I last saw it in 2009!!


Stephen

 

A quick grab shot from HK just now, I’m sure many people will have better photos.



Tom

 

Combined age of... 25!

 

Yours was a better view than mine! Maybe the busiest I’ve seen HK…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Betton Grange leaving at the end of the line up …



I can’t remember seeing the railway so busy. Yesterday was rammed as well, judged from the footplate.

Tom

 

The 65th anniversary cavalcade was pretty busy but crowds were spread between the paddock and platforms. Today was mostly concentrated at the paddock, although people were ignoring volunteers pleas to clear the foot crossing so they could open up the shot for everyone that it all nearly didn't happen. The Grange stopped halfway down platform 2 as it arrived and had to wait for the decanting masses to finish doing so before they could move up, which lost some time too

One from "ground level" just before the Grange departed.

 

Well that certainly was a busy day at the Bluebell! I'm used to the Saturday of Giants of Steam being pretty full but today was something else. I don't know if I've seen the railway so busy in 25 years of going there. Although it got a little uncomfortable at times it was good to see the event so well supported. There was quite a mixed crowd of people there - not all hard core enthusiasts by any means. In fact some people were not even aware that all the locos were "new builds" at all, although most seemed to have heard of Tornado. It's an interesting thought that when I first started going to Giants of Steam none of the locos running today even existed. Back then I'd heard of these new build projects but the cynic in me didn't really believe they'd see the light of day. Sometimes it's good to be proved wrong! Tornado has proved itself over the years both on the mainline and heritage railways, the Saint and Grange fill an important gap in the GWR loco fleet and Beachy Head seems just so appropriate for the Bluebell being an LBSCR design.

Many thanks to the Bluebell for putting on such a great show, and especially to those who had the vision and determination to build these great locos in the first place!

 

The lineup of new builds was certainly a sight, 25 years combined age!

 

This wasn’t in my version of the timetable. Or have I missed something?

 

The timetable has always shown all the locos ending up at Horsted Keynes on Saturday . See post 51