Late News!! : SOUTHERN DAY ON THE BATTLEFIELD LINE - APRIL 1ST!

Hi guys

LATE NEWS! The Battlefield Line will be running the LSWR T9 No30120 on Easter Monday (April 1st) as planned. However, as a special treat our other gala star...Beattie No30585 will ALSO BE RUNNING!!

The two Southern engines will be in steam together throughout the day and will share the services. The final departure from Shackerstone will be DOUBLE-HEADED!

Bring in April 2013 by joining the Battlefield Line for the very last SOUTHERN HURRAH!!

This is the last chance to see either of the Southern's in operation on the railway...a once in a lifetime you might say. This will not happen again!!

Cheers guys

 

hello
thanks for the info i managed to get over for a ride and a few photos which are at Zenfolio | steam photography
thanks

 

I paid a visit yesterday to see the two LSWR locomotives in action. Had never seen a Beattie before so was a nice treat.

But to be blunt the only upside to my visit was the two locomotives as i was extremely disappointed with my visit as a whole.

From a visitors point of view there were several things i felt the railway let itself down on:

Lack of steam heat, it was a bitter cold day and whilst i understand the Beattie doesn't offer steam heat the T9's rake should have been a place of refuge for freezing passengers. Yet at one point of the day the T9 was sitting alongside the stock nearest the cafe for the crew to get a drink for a considerable length of time whilst the rake sat there freezing. I only need to compare to the SVR on Saturday which was extremely warm and the steam heat was a priority. This goes to my second point, whilst sitting in the griddle car what little steam heat made it into the coach was soon gone when the volunteers kept walking through leaving the doors open. We kept closing them but they kept opening them and not closing behind. I have never been to a railway where staff leave the doors open on cold days when they were already closed.
The fire wasn't lit early on in the ticket office, again where do people go to keep warm, surely the fire should be one of the first duties of a station master?
The griddle car - Great idea, lovely interior but there was no gas so no option for hot food.
Cafe - No bacon.... it was only mid day and with the amount of people there i was rather surprised they had run out of a main item of food. As a result we drove off and had a rather nice lunch at a near by cafe by the canal meaning the railway lost out.
General maintenance - On both rakes there were doors out of use and i know a toilet or two on board were out of order aswell. Add to that the footbridge out of action and the rather scruffy appearance of the leading two coaches plus the extremely dirty interior of the southern liveried 'first class' coach in the T9's rake it doesn't leave a lasting impression sadly. I also saw a poster advertising the gala two weeks ago, and signs of the gala lineup last year on one board! I know this is down to volunteers and money but some of these things are quite easy and cheap to fix.

These sorts of things can sadly leave a lasting impression on a family/visitor, £10 for an all day ticket with the above issues or £17 for SVR which had everything spot on. SVR is bigger and extremely well established but most of what i listed are the basics of any railway surely?