Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Here's part seven of my video taken on the Bluebell Railway last year:



One more episode still to be edited...

TTFN,

Ron.

 

Interesting that the Kerr, Stuart was evidently considered the more interesting loco. How times change...!

Sent from my SM-A125F using Tapatalk

 

From photos on Facebook, it appears that the last panel of track in the winter relay has been laid - ballasting and tamping still to do, but the line is joined up. That means there is now a continuous section of new line from the foot of Freshfield Bank to Horsted Keynes.

Also, it looks like the new Horsted Keynes up home signal will be commissioned by time the line reopens in February. The old signal was a bracket mounted to the right of the running line, with a single upper quadrant arm, a theatre indicator to show which road was selected, and a position light signal for shunt moves.

The new signal is to the left of the running line and somewhat lower, still a single main arm and theatre indicator, but with a semaphore calling on arm rather than the position lights signal (i.e. a red /white / red longitudinal striped arm with a large "C" on it). The theatre indicator also appears to be of a different style, though I'm not enough of a signalling expert to know the history of how those designs changed. Different sight lines for us all to work out, no doubt ...

Tom

 

Interesting about the replacement of Horsted's up home signal. To refresh my mind about the "old" up home, I dug out some photos taken over time and thought these two may be of interest. The first dates from May 2015 when I had a footplate ride on 1638. The second is from last October when Clan Line was operating. Not only is the signal interesting but just look at the developments in the old down yard in the intervening six years. The Bluebell is certainly not standing still.

Peter

 

Shock Horror!!The old yard is now smart!!

 

Rust on that water column ahs really not come on that much in 6 years either!

 

Answering my own question about the route indicator, the "new" one is apparently an SR-pattern casing, but with modern innards with LED rather than incandescent bulbs. The whole signal looks better than the gantry, IMHO, with a semaphore calling-on arm.

It has been transformed over the last few years, partly to enable access to the new carriage shed, partly to provide a better P/Way base.

@torgormaig photos show the developments quite well. Taking the 2015 photo first, the furthest left building, with one track disconnected at that point, is the original C&W works, dating I think from the 1970s. Next to it is the "Carriage Works Extension", finished in 2000. Those two buildings are the primary place for carriage overhauls, though in the past the extension has been used for storing a few carriages over the winter.

Coming to the more recent photo, the first gabled building is the maintenance road. This has a pit, hard standing for lifting jacks and a higher roof line than the rest of the complex along part of its length to allow carriages to be lifted. This is the primary space for routine maintenance and inspection of operational carriages. It is I believe equivalent in length to six Mark 1s.

The next gabled area, with four roads, is the "OP4" storage shed. Because of the road layout at the far end, it shortens in length the further to the right you go, but it is in practice equivalent to about 20 mark 1 carriages: given vintage carriages are generally shorter, it will take slightly more than that. The primary aim of that building is to store the wooden carriages that are awaiting restoration.

Finally, out of sight in Peter's photo is a two story lean-to building along the eastern side. This is the "Heritage Skills Centre" that was recently signed over for use. The trimming shop has moved in to part of that space; we'll see what else goes into there.

The Google satellite view shows the revised track layout quite well; the last road in OP4 has been connected since their photo was taken. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0450645,-0.0452892,283m/data=!3m1!1e3

Tom

 

There's an illustrated update here of the first part of the winter track relaying - this is the section round about milepost 9 in Lindfield Wood (just north of Tremains Crossing).

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/brps/infrastructure-news/

Tom

 

Small titbit from C&W recently picked up from Pullman & CIWL newsletter:
Photo by David Jones of the newly delivered table lamp parts for both Pullman cars No.54 and 36. These comprise the turned stems, finials and mounting pieces for the shades. These have been produced locally, by a firm of precision engineers in Burgess Hill, whilst the lamp bases and support brackets are being made in- house at HK. The shades have also been supplied, these by the same specialist company which has manufactured the new lampshades for the Brighton Belle:


Also worth noting is that with the newly expanded trim shop now open in the Heritage Skills Centre, some opportunities for lucrative outside contracts are now possible. One of these is the reupholstering of the chairs for Pat O'Connor's painstaking restoration of Pullman car "Formosa", at Portsmouth Arms.
This is using the same "Autumn tints" Jazz pattern as the Brighton Belle 3rd class seating, but looks perfectly at home in a 1921 vintage carriage (photo; Pat O'Connor):

 

There's a photo and report on the installation of the new Horsted up inner home signal here: https://www.bluebell-railway.com/brps/infrastructure-news/#jan22

Tom

 

Meanwhile, second report on the winter track relaying in Lindfield Wood:

https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/ipics22/winter22_relay_week_2.pdf

Tom

 

Thanks for this Tom. I was interested to see that the ex-SR route indicator is different to what I had expected. I well remember the ones that used to be at the down (south) end of the platforms at Redhill and they were more like the one that was attached to the up inner home in the 1970s

This is what the signal looked like in April '77 with a semi-circular indicator. Interesting to see how this signal has evolved over the years.

Peter

 

I'm interested in how much less lavish the SECR livery on 592 (I'm guessing) is in that picture than what we've come to expect from the Bluebell in recent years. Anybody know if there is a particular reason for that? Maybe lack of time to line it out, or expertise in how to do it? Or was that another authentic SECR livery (e.g. wartime) that they chose to represent? I seem to remember 323 had also been painted in a less lavish SECR livery at some point

 

I'm guessing 'all of the above'. Back in 1977, I don't think I'd seen a single carriage with original pattern Southern moquette and on the Bluebell, Horsted Keynes (even with lines of stored stock) still looked like hopelessly optimistic over-provision. Different times .... and a reminder just how far both our railways (and our expectations) have come.

 

I think that livery is a fiction. The basic sequence went "full-on Wainwright bling" - "bling but with done covers painted over" (that was a cost-saving, but apparently popular with crews as it lessened the risk of being dazzled by reflections from the dome) - starting in 1915 "unvarnished green with large yellow loco numbers on the tender or tank sides" - "unvarnished grey with large loco numbers".

The unvarnished green was discontinued because the sulphur in the air caused both it and the yellow numbers to darken until they were nearly black, and the loco numbers became unreadable.

So the livery of the C class above seems to be a fiction, i.e. a simplified livery but not really matching a historic one. Photos from Ashford works in the early 1970s show 592, 263 and 65 in somewhat simplified liveries, and given the relatively low ebb of locos in the early 1970s, I doubt there was much desire to spend time painting them rather than just getting them straight into traffic when 592 arrived from Ashford.

As for 323 - it did run in the SECR austerity green round about the time of the SECR Centenary in 1999 (and then went out of traffic and was stored for some years in that livery). (Photo here: https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/991c001m.html) The SE - Number - CR livery scheme was only applied to a few locos. It caused confusion when dirty, so soon after the livery standardised on numbers only on the tanks or tender; and a cast metal SECR ownership plate on the cab side. Some of those ownership plates remained well into SR days - photos of ex-SECR locos in Southern Railway livery but with SECR ownership plates are quite common.

Tom

 

I think that 592's livery was a work in progress. It is actually pretty complete below running plate level. The H Class was in much the same state at this time (1977). By 1979 things had progressed somewhat, but the livery on both locos was not yet finished:-


263 is the more complete of the two, only lacking the crest on the side tanks. On 592 the lining is only part finished and it now lacks lettering on the tender tank on this side although the other side was in lettering similar to 263. By the following year both were in their full SECR finery.

Peter

 

It was definitely seen as work in progress at the time, when I was working in C&W during 76/77. Its a long time ago now, but as I recall, 592 had only recently been reacquainted with its tender, having before that been using the Dukedog's, so the quick application of SE&CR in plain font was an expedient, but the general viewpoint around the carriage shed at the time, was "just wait til you see the finished item!"

 

Oh aye .... I remember 'The C Dog"!

 

Actually, I think that reads the wrong way round - the Dukedog had the C's tender. The C had damaged axle journals, and the Dukedog's tender had a bad bit of tinworm in the draw gear, so the SECR tender got a coat of GW green, (although it retained the SECR livery on the frames). Apologies fir the poor photo - and very gloomy boxing day!

Steve B