Black 5s to Chichester - Saturday 14/12/13

Just to pick up a few earlier points -

Pathing on the Arun Valley is tight. Until the resignalling is completed in March 2014, there are not the paths available between the 2 fast and two stopping trains per hour on weekdays. On Sundays. the service is 2 trains per hour, but Amberley SB is switched out.

Route availability. Has been RA8 for some years. Most locos (apart from LNER pacifics) are OK. Certain engineers wagons have to be downloaded to RA8. ( No commercial freight to worry about over the route.)

Thorndell viaduct is being rebuilt August 2014. Look up -
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse documents/Rules Of The Route/EASyearYY/70ksYY.pdf
and then search by P2014/1727333.

Cheers, Neil

 

South west trains do their best to block the view at Brookwood :

http://simonwhittinghamphotography.zenfolio.com/p414890625/h1acfd509#h1acfd509

Fortunately I moved from one platform to the other at short notice. Pity the people who didn't move.

 

I wonder if that was the same train at Brookwood that was shadowing them out of the station at Woking? We were very grateful that he seemed to hang back to leave us all a clear view!

 

Yep same one - Brookwood was worse as there was an up train which arrived a minute or so before.

 

Got lucky at Kew East Junction and then the scheduled signal stop at Old Kew Junction - after a bit of a sprint by me to get to the latter…or as much of a sprint as I can manage these days.

Set of 11 photos at the link below. Obviously click on individual images to enlarge and then click again:

The Cathedrals Express Kew East and Old Kew Junctions

 

A disgraceful blockage as there could have been children waiting to watch the train on the Up platform: you know, the kids that travel round in the 44 seater bus waiting to disembark at very short notice and be disappointed as often as they can be. And even worse if the two locos didn't whistle. As well as the fact that every single person waiting on the Up platform to see the two Black 5s will now cancel plans to travel on all remaining steam main line trips this year because of this dreadful happening today.

What is the world coming too. I really don't know.

 

Fortunately, no other trains got in the way at Fleet. The exhaust steam did though!


RD8898. 44871 & 45407 passing Fleet. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

Especially in the next picture in the Photostream. Go on. Have a good laugh!

 

Very lucky with a bit of sun at Chertsey this morning:

 

You are so right - I have written to SWT about it. And yes no whistling - it ruined the whole upcoming festive season for me.

 

Seen passing Addlestone http://stephenleek.smugmug.com/Railwayphotos-1/Mainline-Steam-2013/i-DZB9T4H/A

 

Might nip down to see them on the return at Haywards Heath.

 

Looked very nice this morning on the Gospel Oak-Barking line. Pity the sun dipped just at the wrong moment, but it hasn't managed to ruin it, per-se.


44871 45407 Leytonstone High Road 14-12-13 (V10492) by TimEaster, on Flickr

I'll echo the comments above about these two really looking the part.

Cheers,
Tim

 

OMG no, fancy a steam special being blocked by scheduled trains. Whatever next? Palace to win at Man U? Kim will execute the offenders!

In the quiet of the Hants countryside here are the two 5s.

We should be aboard from Sals on Montag.

Don

 

As it's the festive season, may I direct you to the first comment under one of those 11 photos from yesterday. A great spot by Jon:

Steam Scales

 

Some small similarity with the reason Woking got the name, "stop all junction" by such as Fred Hoare and other drivers, (but not the Bournemouth gnomes, they had to open up to be fast enough to even struggle past the signals there).

Only we all felt at the time it was because the signalmen only shared a camera with a maximum 1/50 sec shutter speed. So had to slow down all steam hauled trains to avoid blurred photos.

 

At risk of being boorish, whilst I know it helps the crews, why bother starting in the burbs at all ?

Starting at Southend ( or any other sub branch) kind of limits / focuses your market to stations on that route.
It helps with publicity as the local rags get a story line and good publicity seeing an engine on a local platform where one would otherwise not see it.
This translates into ticket sales. To say it isn't true is fallacy, it is the very reason why steam dreams is more successful in London than RTC and can charge more too.

If it's all about convienence of a suburb start, we'll consider this, the very fact a suburb is called a suburb as it's easier to commute to the capital, otherwise peole wouldn't live there, and own an annual travel card that let's them commute weekend for free.

So on that basis the argument for steam on at southall is negated to one of the following:
1. Start it all from a terminal in London, convienient for crews and commuters.
2. Start from a different suburb every week, steam on at southall and run to the same route and destination with the same engines... Maximum convienience but not steam in the burbs.

If neither appeals then my argument stands up... Steam from the burbs is the key, trade it for convienience and watch revenue fall.

In regards to item 1... We saw Eastbourne from Victoria canceled.. 10am start, 4pm back and tickets at £49 a head... How could it possibly fail... But it did and has, as did others similar to it in the past.

I suspect steam dreams have had a bad year with DBS, but haven't got back to what they had before.

Let's see what 2014 brings, but before we do I see one I convienient looking trip that looks ripe for canceling... Starts in the burbs, circles the burbs And doesn't go to southall at all.

 

Managed six locations yesterday, Virginia Water, West Byfleet, Fareham Viaduct, Chichester, Angmering and Preston Park. Video below, photos to follow. Couple of videos from my parents who decided a trip to Preston Park only was enough!

 

I am getting pretty p'eed off with this ruddy bus of yours, Its taking up the room at the car parks, and Its getting in the way on the country roads when I race to the next video opp.