Bluebell Northern Extension - so what's occurring then?

Those were the days.........:smile:

 

Will passports be checked at Kingscote, as that's where you will cross the Medway?

 

fantastic day ; finally after 15 years I can see trains from my house :clap2:

here's a couple of off beat pix from today

the very first ECS through the cutting





home at last! thanks to everyone on the Bluebell for your fantastic achievement; you've put East Grinstead firmly on the map!!

 

Nope it will be the dukedog case packed on back of tender, "At last, i can escape back home to wales"

 

Mind you , with all this talk of "nocternal movements" through the gate, i should think that Clapham Junction at 2am could get very interesting how long before reports of someone seeing galetia running towards EG

 

And Stepney was the 1st engine on the first ECS, excellent!

Chris

 

can anyone tell me what STEPNEY's headcode was on the ECS to east grinstead saturday morning please? 2 white discs on one side and a white disc on the other.
shame about the weather but hope it proved a success. plenty of TV coverage!
cheers,
julian

 

According to this site:

Southern Railway Locomotive Headcodes

If the two discs were on the RIGHT when facing the approaching train it was the Southern Railway route code for:

London Bridge or Bricklayer's Arms and Brighton via Oxted, East Grinstead and Lewes

and if the two discs were on the LEFT it was the code for:

Victoria or Battersea Yard and Brighton via Oxted, East Grinstead and Lewes

 

Just caught part of what appeared to be a live broadcast from the footplate of a Bluebell tank engine running running round at EG. Was on the BBC News Channel, and I think it was in respect of the 50th anniversay of the Beeching report.

46118

 

It was mentioned that this would happen on Bluebell yahoo group yesterday and it is in respect of Beeching Report. Apparently reporting every hour. BBC Producer is a Bluebell memeber.

 

Does anyone know what the visitor numbers were for last weekend? It will be interesting to observe the impact that the "Northern Effect" has on numbers this year.
I'd say based on the Mid Hants experieince visitors will be 20% up this year despite the economy.

 

If anyone is interested, I have put the story of my Great Grandfather, who was a labourer involved in the construction of the line in the 1880s and was subsequently a ganger at Horsted Keynes until his death, knocked down by an engine, in the "Bullhead memories" section of the forum:

[thread]39833[/thread]

Tom

 

Was he deaf....

 

Not to my knowledge - in any case, the accident report suggests that the driver was at fault, not my great grandfather, so perhaps a better question would be about the driver's eyesight.

Tom

 

I was not being horrible when i put my question, but as you said he was your great grandfather i presumed he was getting on a bit and in them days the old hearing aids today were not about, thats why i asked.
judging by your answear the eye tests weren"t up to much either.

 

He would have been 55 or 56 at the time - old, but not especially so. He also had more than twenty five years' experience in his job, so certainly knew what was what. Although I'm not 100% sure, my assumption from all the reports is that the engine was coasting downhill at the time.

Tom

 

Yes I saw that, very good coverage they gave I thought. The presenter looked by turns utterly thrilled to be on a footplate and utterly terrified ('I must be careful not to hit that big red lever'). A good counterpart to the main Beeching Story I think.

 

From the local paper about opening day : - "More than 400 tickets were sold on the day in East Grinstread with an estimated 3,000 passengers stepping onto the towns's Bluebell platform"

 

Mr Philpot mentioned on his website that he thought there had been some movement/slippage of the steep western cutting side, where the mesh has been installed. Has anyone passing this site on a train seen anything untoward in any way?

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Presumably he has informed the railway of this fact. Or has he?