Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Not quite, sitting in EG overnight and leaving just before 5am!!
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U64280/2025-10-27/detailed

What's even crazier is they don't get back to Darlington until nearly 11'oclock at night! Very long day for the crew

 

I wonder if there's some sort of event on at Beaulieu Park station (which opens the day before), as it sits there for nearly 2 hours.

 

What a weird route to get from Willesden to Darlington!

Willesden > Stratford > Ipswich > Ely > Peterborough > Oakham > Loughborough > Chesterfield > York > Darlington

 

The whole route and timing looks to be "keep it away from any busy points/times" so it's up to London before the morning peak then shuffled cross-country in the daytime slack hours

 

Beulieu Park opening ceremony is on Monday, so probably the reason, also could be the reason for the 'Round the Houses' route.

 

"The day we went to Darlington by way of Kensal Green".
You just don't think about the logistics of journeys like this. I hope there are some suitably comfy bunks in their support coach, cos thats a very, very long day. Plus disposal.

 

That is interesting: clearly people can come a different way and likely from different places in plenty.
There are obviously a lot of people within the general London metropolis who might come whether as visitors or volunteers.

If there were through ticketing - and the ability to readily read the information on the tickets when ticket inspecting,
possibly indirectly from the information taken when people pass through Network Rail barriers - it would be possible to
get a useful idea of where people are coming from. If you know the originating station you know where to advertise & from
from children's fares with adults, group tickets, senior rail cards etc. you know who to reach out to.

Great British Railways looking for a new start might be sensibly cooperative.
Possibly early workmen's tickets counterflow for volunteers?

 

See the LE movements, ECS and test runs 2025 thread post #1234.

 

I paid a visit to the Bluebell yesterday (25 Oct)Trains ran late all day ,with the 2.15 SP to EG arriving at EG 35 late. A mad dash to catch the 15.36 Victoria was just made. 6989 Wightwick Hall was on the 2.15 ex SP ,the last one for anyone wanting a main line connection. I spotted one 10mp restriction ,but it just neve seemed to get going .Plenty of visitors ,surprised me for a late October Saturday .Anyone not liking Red Halls don't look at at the photos ,80151 with a rainbow much better.

 

According to the local BBC News one day this week the Hall was "saved" by its contract to be part of the new Netflix production.
Obviously I missed the part in the latest Bluebell News where it was going for scrap

 

How important is location, though? Don’t you also need to understand a whole lot else? And if that ticket said, say, Bromley South, does that mean you’ve identified a source of additional demand or already captured the interest that’s there?

 

Something of a trying day operationally.

I was rostered on 73082 - we lit it up but it was failed on shed during preparation. The decision was therefore made for us to drive to Horsted Keynes and fetch the Class 73 (our driver on Camelot is also qualified for the ED). We came down light engine and swapped sets, with us taking what should have been the "B" (vintage) set and 6989 the heavier "A" set. First of all though we knocked off the rear two carriages, reducing our set to 4. By time we'd done that we were thus about 12 minutes late leaving with the first train.

I think when we got back to Sheffield Park at the end of the day, we were a similar amount down - I'm not sure what happened to 6989. We reassembled the six coach vintage set and then went on shed, berthed the ED and drove back to Horsted to collect our cars and go home.

Meanwhile, the shed staff worked wonders with 73082 and it was fit to run the evening Halloween train. (It has a face on the front and various electrical wizardry fitted similar to SteamLights, so is the only loco that can run that train).

Tornado was being prepped in the yard and I believe left for East Grinstead in the gap between the end of the public service and the evening Halloween service.

Oh, and if that was not enough, as I was leaving I heard that there had been a bridge strike on New Road Bridge at Horsted Keynes, just to add to the complexities of the day. The evening train did run though, so presumably the bridge was deemed safe for traffic after inspection. Had it not been, I suspect Tornado would have been trapped as well.

Tom

 

Bit of thread drift, but Tornado is now at Chelmsford.

 

I was there on Saturday last Tom.73082 performed very well .What did it fail with on the Sunday.?6989 very sluggish. The few minutes it did get opened up it suffered from the to and fro action the Britannia's were subjective to when built, although not so bad.

 

Ah, misread your post, I was talking about Sunday.

Saturday - I have no insight into operational problems that day I’m afraid!

Tom

 

How well did the 73 perform?

The diesel engine is only about 650 hp

 

It left the passengers cold …

We knocked two coaches off the set so it was four vintage carriages, probably about 125 tons tare, and it would sustain 25mph on our gradients. The suggestion from the driver was that if we had had the full six coach set, it would probably have managed about 18. That probably makes it about equivalent to a Class 2 steam loco - but without the heating.

Tom

 

600HP I believe - the same EE 4SRKT can only manage 88 tons in Hampshire-unit form "over the Alps"... (A full 3-car set is 118 tons, though of course line speed in those days would have been higher.)

 

My latest upload from the railway, heavily focusing on 6989’s return to our line if you’re interested:

 

So the story goes the Hampshire Units were originally 2 car with the 3rd added as they increased passenger numbers with the improved services. However this was not popular over 'The Alps' as they were underpowered for that route.

It seems that when it was announced that the center trailers were to be removed from units on the Winchester to Alton route one driver at Alton promptly shunted the centre trailer out of his unit while the set was lying over.