Bluebell Railway General Discussion

I made the 280 mile round trip to the Bluebell Railway yesterday and was very impressed. Locos in service were 80151, SECR no.65 hauling the vintage stock and 73082 on the diner.

Full praise to the cutting back gang as the lineside was incredibly neat. It's a credit to the hard working, dedicated gang who keep it in check. It did remind me that I need to cut my lawn this week

The Bluebell is a wonderful railway to visit ....'I'll be back'. <BJ>

 

Another infrastructure update - renewal of the south end run round points at Sheffield Park.

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/brps/infrastructure-news/#4mar22

The infrastructure team have also been working in the loco yard, replacing 1 road and 2 road. I'm sure there will be an update in due course. (1 road is the siding that leads to the westernmost road in the running shed; 2 road is next to it, with the short preparation pit and leading to the middle road in the running shed).

Tom

 

Beat me to it ...

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/news/flyings-scotsman-returns-bluebell-railway-2022/

Tom

 

A shame on the website it says this;

"The Flying Scotsman will be running"

 

Seems to be the growing trend for Scotsman on preserved at the moment - Mid Hants did the same a few years ago when it visited them.

 

I assume to maximise revenue etc it will be a premium to cover loco costs, plus I seem to remember last time all seats were sold out well before the deadlines and not good publicity if you don't have booking and Joe Public turns upmand moans on social media either I went and couldn't,t get a ticket or it was so packed I had to stand all the way.

 

I seem to recall such was a stated objective within the NRM's overhaul (rebuild?) project.

 

For clarity, my issue wasn't with the pre-booked serves but the appearance of the extra "the". Now edited for clarity.

 

Glad I'm not the only one who gets irritated when people put an unneeded "the" in front of the locomotive name/number.

 

I'm sure this will not make me popular, but am I the only one who feels distinctly underwhelmed by FS? It is undoubtedly a wonderful ambassador for the movement, if not the best, and a moneymaker par excellence, but I just cannot get worked up about it. To my jaundiced eye, it's just a bit of an expensive mongrel with a distant historical pedigree. I'd far rather watch Lord Nelson, or an A4 in action. Perhaps its the culture of celebrity at work again, akin to 1997, when "Titanic mania" started, and I began to lose my fascination with the subject.
Am I awful?
That said, I did take Mrs T to see FS on the Bluebell, because, as she said, her mother told her she used to travel on "The Flying Scotsman", and I just didn't have the heart to disabuse her.
What was lovely, was she found the whole thing absolutely thrilling, so it was worth keeping my mouth shut, just to see her expression of girlish excitement, like she had just seen a film star, which I guess is what it's all about.
Anyway, enough waffle.

 

Nope, I'm the same! I'd much rather watch and ride behind more everyday locos, like the Ivatt in my avatar...

 

Like Mark, I am somewhat underwhelmed by Flying Scotsman, I prefer locos where the number starts with a 3....

On one of the trips by Flying Scotsman to Salisbury and a round trip via Southampton in May 2017, Mrs R and I turned out to photograph it close to home in Chandlers Ford. Quite a few people walked past over the Bournemouth Road bridge, some asked what was happening and a few stopped to watch. One woman said "I don't believe you, that's what they all say" and walked on about 30 seconds before Scotsman came into sight.

Cheers, Neil

PS I think that was the time a news editor of a local paper accused me of withholding the timings even though I had them. It was a rather pointed discussion after that as 1) I didn't have access to them as I was not involved in train operations and 2) Network Rail were withholding the timings to minimise cases of trespass, mainly whipped up by some elements of the media. After a few seconds I asked did he wanted to report on a fatal railway accident involving someone who was trespassing to watch Flying Scotsman?

 

While I'm with you regarding locos beginning with 3, Neil, I think it's just the hype that is offputting as far as Flying Scotsman is concerned. We should be grateful to Alan Pegler for ensuring that a non-streamlined Gresley Pacific has been preserved as they were terrific locos. I know there is some debate about Scotsman's "ton", but Papyrus's 108mph was an amazing achievement. With the BR era modifications, the last survivors were still hauling express trains over 40 years after the original A1 appeared.

So yes, on the one hand we are talking about the sole survivor of a very great class of locomotivcs, but it's a shame that it can't be treated a bit more normally - as it was in the 1980s.

 

On another note, am I the only one that finds it odd that they'd send Scotsman to the Railway for nearly a month, only to do 5 days of running it on services and the rest its static in the sheds in light steam? Not acting ungrateful in any way and I get it takes a lot for *Scotsman* to visit a heritage railway, and there's probably only so much running they can do with it, but I would've thought having an engine like that for so long that you'd get as much use out of it as possible. Maybe they'd add a few more running days if demand shows? Am I missing something???

 

I don’t know the details, but my hunch is that the loco has planned tours in the south of England before and after the visit, and keeping it based on the railway is more convenient than sending it “home” (where’s that? Bury?) and back twice. I assume the Bluebell has an idea of how many tickets it can likely sell. Worth remembering that when Clan Line visited last year, it also spent I think 10 days on the railway, but only did about four days in public traffic.

I’m sure we’ll see: the first thing I guess is to ensure the overhaul happens to plan.

Tom

 

When its doing tours down south its normally based at Southall, but yes its "home" home is Bury.

It ran at the gala for 3 days, then during the week did some other private passenger runs for MNLPS members and photo charters, before being on static display for the weekend, not public running of course but equally not static display.

That's what's taken a few by surprise. As much as it had a lot of work done during lockdown, will it be able to have its overhaul done in, if it starts in April and we're talking August here, 4 months plus loaded test runs etc?

Regardless, looking forward to seeing her there again if all goes well!

 

Mr Riley seems to work in weeks for overhauls, rather than months or years, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

When FS was at the Watercress Line in early 2020 it spent most of the visit hosting pre-booked footplate visits while in light steam. I am sure that the bookings were paid for, so an additional earner, to recoup the costs.
Pat

 

Exactly - the Southern had the best engines.