Swanage Railway General Discussion

You don’t need a high capacity tender on a 5mile railway, but there are ambitions for Wadebridge to run on the mainline so a larger tender than the one it has had for some time would be useful I imagine. It’s not a question of anyone losing out.

 

What are you on about?
34070 has a 4,500 gallon tender.
The only Bulleid tender smaller than that is the Q1 version.

 

I was under the impression it was 257 Squadron which would receive the new tender, not Manston.

SLL receive a brand new tender for their engine running on heritage railways which does not need a high water capacity, and Mid Hants/Wadebridge Loco Group receive a tender with a high water capacity which they need for the mainline. Sounds like a good deal to me?

 

What a massive over-reaction.

 

Proving I do not check my images too well, I only noticed at the weekend when I took this from a departing service "the skull" was sitting on the coal dock.
Driver experience today, and it seems we had a gricing Navy crew (in what I think is a Merlin not being too up on modern navy choppers) have a a quick fly by to get a look at the T3

 

Day 2 of the T3 driver experience, and some got better weather than others.

 

I was guard, bloody hell that was low. Lads having fun from Poole

 

Thought Yeovilton was the nearest military air base but perhaps the SBS want a new target ?!

I believe the SBS have to cadge a lift all the way to RAF Brize Norton when on exercise being dropped into Studland Bay from a circling Hercules or the larger Airbus A400M Atlas.

Military Flyers generally seem to like 'buzzing' the Swanage Railway from time to time. When the Red Arrows display at the annual Carnival and Regatta, they normally form up over the line and announce their presence by overflying the town (at CAA minimum flight altitude it seems) and across the bay out to sea.
After taking off from Bournemouth International Airport they have been known to formate near Wareham and come in to Swanage from there. 2025's workings were different it seems as I was told they went to somewhere in the Weymouth area before travelling back east to intersect the railway close to Harmans Cross and then the three mile sprint to Swanage. Clouds forced a low-level display this year - impressive nonetheless.

Apologies for thread drift.