Bluebell Railway- Branch Line Gala- 10th-12th May 2024

7812 "Erlestoke Manor" announced as 1st visitor
https://www.bluebell-railway.com/branch-line-gala-weekend-2024/

1369 as the second
7714 the third
6989 "Wightwick Hall"
72 "Fenchurch"
80151 as 80100
65

 

While I am more than delighted to see a Westerner on a Southern line and showing them how things are done properly, I just have to say one thing:
A Manor? Really? A Class 5MT tender engine capable of pulling 10 mark ones? Working at a Branch Line Weekend?

Bit OTT me thinks.
Still will turn up though.

 

Given that the "all Great Western 4-6-0s look the same" school of thought is well represented on this forum, no doubt some joker will raise the question as to whether the Bluebell really intends to hire 7812 or whether it will just put a different name and number plate on 6989

On a more serious note......

Interesting that the blurb mentioned the use of Manors on Reading-Redhill services, although the 43xx Moguls were more common. You have a point inasmuch as this line is a cross country route and not a branch line. All the same, I expect 7812 to be a popular visitor, given the successful visit a few years back of sister engine 7822 to the even more unlikely environs of the Kent & East Sussex Railway..

 

Nah. The Manure is going there so the Southern guys can have a good laugh.

 

…at their own inability to drive a decent loco?

 

As apposed to those spamtins that blew up when oil slipped into places it shouldn't?
Personally, they look so much better as piles of scrap iron.

THAT'S TRUE!!

 

Where did Manors work 10 Mark 1s up a 1 in 55 gradient?

Tom

 

Was the Bluebell not a cross country line when Brighton trains went that way?

 

Not at all, more likely the strange idea that some people have that anything GWR is decent.

 

Talerdigg but usually with a pilot loco on the Cambrian Coast Express. Nothing wrong with the Manors in my view

 

I'd have defined a cross-country route as a line where the principal services ran between two places neither of them being a large city such as London. The Reading- Redhill route did include the celebrated 5.25PM London Bridge-Reading via Redhill service but essentially the trains ran from Reading to Guildford or Redhill, with a few extra trains such as the "Birkenhead" which split into several different portions at Redhill. The Bluebell line, by contrast, had some local trains (and indeed between 1956 and the final closure in 1958 had a service consisting just of four East Grinstead-Lewes trains) but prior to 1955 regularly saw trains run to or from London, the most famous of which, in latter years was the K Class-hauled 3.28PM Haywards Heath- London Bridge. In LB&SCR days it was often referred to as part of the "inner Circle" - i.e., the shorter of the two alternative London-Brighton routes east of the Brighton Main Line, with the route via Eridge, Uckfield and Lewes known as the "Outer Circle". In other words, it was viewed as a secondary route from London to Brighton, whereas the Reading-Redhill line was not realistically ever part of a route from London to anywhere, apart from the short section from Redhill to Reigate after electrification.

 

I’m asking myself the same question?

 

I answered that in the post before last. That carried on until late 1965

 

Yeah, I don't quite remember how many, but still, it would be certainly more than 4.
I guess they will be planning to run 4 Mk 1's right? All Crimson & Cream?

 

Southern enginemen liked the Pannier tanks, I have one saying that on a DVD I have.
I still feel pretty smug when I hear that.

 

There’s a quote in a Robert Adley book about S&D men being adamant about them damaging the track in the early 1960’s on the Burnham Branch.

Much as I have an affection for EE Type 3’s I really can’t say too much about what their like to work on as I’ve not had the pleasure of being tasked with given a spanner and asked to ‘go and sort that out’

Very easy to defend those you have an affinity for until you have to do a little work on them, try motaking a 50 without using several F words and a pit for example.

 

Different to quotes from Nine elms men who lost their M7s. Had the 46xx's from the South eastern before getting some Standard 3s and 4s.

 

Some people are easily pleased.

 

Nine Elms men did not like the Pannier tanks on the ECS