Bluebell Railway | Giants of Steam | 16th-18th October 2026

I’m not aware of any rule saying you can’t stand in the compartments, but I’m not sure if you or your fellow passengers would want you to! The third class compartments (theoretically) seat 10 per compartment and the first class compartments seat either 6 or 8 depending on the coach.

It has been mentioned on the forum before but our gala timetable planner was a train planner for quite a number of years based at Waterloo, so has a knack for knowing exactly how long everything will take. I think the latest we ran today was 10 minutes.

Regarding people walking on the crossing in front of the engine, the issue is that people will arrive on the 1510/1515 arrivals and want to make their way over to the Paddock to get their pictures of the line-up. You also have people then leaving the Paddock to go catch the 1545 departures. You could perhaps hold them for a short amount of time so the crossing was clear, but it’s a difficult one to make a decision on. Really it would be helpful if there was another access point so everyone didn’t have to use the crossing, but that’s just wishful thinking!

 

Unbelievably busy today, we luckily just made it onto first train of the day from EG. Never seen so many people on the trains, filling all the gaps down the aisles, meant traveling with a 2 year old in a pushchair was less than ideal. Only two trips we managed to get a seat were when we boarded the train pretty much when it had just arrived at Sheffield Park. Spent one journey in the kitchen car squashed in with loads of others.

Brilliant for the railway, but did take the edge off the day. Assume no more carriages available to make the set of 5 into a 6, I know Pullmans have been used some previous years.

 

Another succesfull lineup at Horsted Keynes with all 4 standards posing at the north end of the station

 

Getting clear photos of the lineup was always going to be tricky. Only 34059 (which was at Sheffield Park) wasn't at Horsted Keynes while it took place and so almost all the travelling passengers were congregated at HK (apart from any who stayed at SP or were located at Kingscote or East Grinstead), wasn't it said that last year's lineup had something in region of 1000 people at HK at that time?

Plus the only way of seeing the lineup was either the paddock or Leamland Bridge, though some tried getting pictures from the embankment opposite the paddock, but we're swiftly told to move away (presumably because it's not a publicly accessible area), and a lot of people realised they're chances of getting pictures were slim in the paddock so went back to the platforms.

 

The Branchline Gala( which was Spring Gala this year for some reason) and Bluebell on Parade ( which was cancelled due to fire risk this year,) are quieter compared to GOS and still have interesting timetables. The later has the Pullmans running and you can travel in them for a supplement to have breakfast for the first run and Cream Tea ( or Cake) for the second and third trains.

 

There was an evening Pullman hauled by the Duke.