Watercress Line Spring Steam Gala: 25th - 27th April 2025

Can anyone who rode the QM brakevan in the mixed set confirm how much it is to travel between Alresford and Ropley and do you pick up tickets from the West Country Buffet like in the past?

 

Bit chaotic just now at Alresford. Full and standing train behind 563 arrived at Platform 2, everyone kicked off so the stock should be shunted onto the back of the (already full) stock in P1 to form the 8 coach non-stop special.
Meanwhile the passengers (including families with pushchairs) had to file over the footbridge (with photographers blocking the way) in order to re-board the same stock through just a couple of doors and walk down, as most of it was off the platform.

I know this sort of thing pleases enthusiasts and photographers but it does feel like sometimes logistics is not properly considered.

 

It was a bit like that yesterday as well.

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

How else do you suggest it is done? Passengers cannot be carried on shunting moves and none of the platforms can accommodate 8 carriages.

A gala, almost by definition, is for enthusiasts so unusual movements like this are appreciated by most.

 

There is plenty of time for this to occur and everyone to change trains, I don't really see the problem. This is an event catered to enthusiasts after all and they can't really help the event being busy.

 

I appreciate you have to work within the rules laid down, and on that basis you are screwed.
As an enthusiast do I think that getting off walking over a bridge and getting back on the same train is appreciated most certainly no, even on a dry day.
It does seem just another example of the bizarre rules that are enforced by the regulator.
Why is a shunt move unacceptable with passengers, yet locos can attach, at times quite "energetically" to stock with passengers?
Why is it OK at Carlisle to propel the stock with passengers back along the platform to get the loco inside the signal?
Before the current up platform was built how many pax were injured when the up train propelled back in to the Platform at Dorchester South?
I am sure there are may others folks could quote.

Glad things seem to be going very well pax wise and it makes me less disappointed that I could not make the weekend, both because I hate crowded trains and fighting for a seat or having to stand, plus from a dodgy health position loads of people increase the risk of another belt of Covid that my body may not take too well to.

 

Agreed, although I suspect the enthusiasts probably need to be aware of what is going on around them.

 

I can appreciate if it is not clearly communicated anywhere that this would be required that people might be a bit miffed to be told they have to leave the coaches to go and join it on the other platform. Arguably though if photographers on the footbridge was an issue I think the railway would have been justified in requiring photographers to leave the bridge for a time to allow a train load of passengers to navigate it

 

Yes, can't really argue with the enthusiasts on the bridge thing. Had that happen plenty of times at railway events, the footbridge at Bridgnorth is a specific example that comes to mind with people standing around and blocking the bridge when trying to make a connection.

 

A possible explanation is that the public are not allowed to be conveyed in stock over points that do not have a facing point lock or clip in place. It is entirely possible that the point the stock would have to traverse over as part of the shunt does not have a facing point lock in place and so the railway is not allowed to move passengers over it. Of course that doesn't explain why a point clip could not be sourced to have in place while the stock was travelling over it, but these clips are not quick to engage / disengage so it may have been that it was felt the timetable did not allow for this extra complexity and it was 'simpler / easier' to ask ther public to de-train. Of course, the question can then be asked over why an additional 5 minutes could not have been added into the timetable to allow for that, but my experience with galas is the more moving parts you try and employ, the more likely you are to accumulate delays and for them to compound

 

Fairly sure historically at SVR galas there have been signs on Bewdley footbridge explicitly stating photographers are not allowed to set up camp there. Maybe that's an example other railways should look to take - although if you turf the photters off the bridge, they have to go somewhere and they might just end up crowding another route people are trying to navigate!

 

Certainly a good idea

 

Can Pac waiting with the Express. Made a couple of customary slips up on departure. Hoping to catch her on it's last run up to Alton.


T3 shortly after. A really lovely loco and all credit to the team who restored her. Sounded fantastic going tender first back to Alresford over the Alps.

 

The difference being that from when I have been to Bewdley you could get on the bridge if you did not have a travel ticket. Unless the MHR Gala is different this year you cannot get on any station other than MFM without a gala ticket. So unless you say up front there are times the footbridge at X will be closed off to photographers you have taken someone's money and then restricted what value they can get from it if they perhaps choose to never travel on a train at all.

 

There is normally access to Alton, Medstead and Alresford as far as I am aware. I would know as I stood on Alton platform 3 for a while yesterday! Ropley is the only one which lacks access.

 

Here are some more of my shots from the fantastic first day yesterday including one which I have question about.
Whilst looking at 52322 in detail at Alton as she paused between her duties I noticed what looked like Bean cans incorporated into her inside motion. Is this a "Lancashire modification"? Does anyone know what they are for? I didn't get the opportunity to ask the footplate crew yesterday:

52322 bean cans mod:


11456 waits for the road:


T3 pauses at Medstead:


52322 rests in the Meon loop while in the back ground 11456 on the mixed set waits to depart to Alresford:


11456 works into Ropley with the mixed set:


52322 enters Ropley:


11456 pauses at Ropley box before going off to the yard for coal and water:


S15 506 already minus her boiler in the works:


Final shot of the day from the car park field as 11456 runs round the mixed set:


Thank you once again to everyone involved for a superb event. Thanks to the owners of the visiting locos for allowing them to visit. They were all a credit to the folk looking after them.
Looking forward to visiting again tomorrow and getting around to looking at the stalls as I just didn't get the time yesterday.

 

I saw this done back in 1973 on the Bagnall austerity at Graig Merthyr Colliery.

 

I would guess the bean cans are there to stop water and/or crud getting into the slidebar oilers. Whether there is some feature of 52322 that makes it particularly susceptible to this, I don't know.

 

I suspect there are oil pots on top of the slide bars, and the bean tins are a cheap and cheerful way to stop water getting in.

Tom