Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Glad it wasnt just me whos eyes read it like that.

 

The forum software auto-truncates the words of hyperlinks.

Tom

 

The curse of the ellipsis strikes again...

 

Yes, it's sadly a little tricky to find - it's a bit of a below the radar page, but very useful.
Go to the What's New page (which is where it was linked before): https://www.bluebell-railway.com/whats-new/
The internal link "Read Archive News" takes you to the bottom of that page.
There, in the third column of
Other news, archives & helpful links
you will find "Weekly train running information".

 

Many, many thanks!

 

sadly the 7th March entry when selected shows the dreaded 404 error page not found wording!

 

At this moment https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pti/index.html has not been updated and Friday 7th is the last date mentioned.
I am considering a visit on Sat 8th and I am guessing from previous posts by @Jamessquared (thank you Tom) that 32424 is likely to be on the Golden Arrow, dep. 12.25 Sheffield Park and will be at Kingscote about 13.00. Accepting the usual caveats, does anyone know otherwise?

 

According to the internal rosters, it looks like:

• 32424 on the A service (10:30am and 1:00pm from Sheffield Park, and one hour later from East Grinstead)
• 72 on the B service (11:45am and 2:15pm from Sheffield Park, and one hour later from East Grinstead)
• 65 on the Lunchtime Arrow (12:30pm and 2:45pm departures from Sheffield Park).

Same allocations on Sunday.

Tom

 

Thank you very much Tom. That's most helpful.

 

And thank you from me too Tom, it does help some of us (especially a very fussy old bu..er like me) a lot.

I'm still keeping an eye open for 34059 on the lunchtime Arrow, and from your previous help that looks possible from 1 April onwards.

In the meantime we are just over a week away from SR 31313 (LM 41313 but built for the SR) on a green coaching set branch line train.

Which has got me to buy tickets for this event for the first time.

And re 68067: shouldn't the first two numbers be divided by 2 to give us the correct number of that visitor to the event?

Bryan

 

You do get a BR loco on BR carriages this weekend if you like that sort of thing ...

Roster says Set A is 4754, 1818, 4941, 21246. (Mark 1s)
Set B is the Mets.

For Branch line weekend, I thought the Ivatt on the Mets was the combination everyone wanted? https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgadsdon/39935784243 Everything looked grubbier in those days ...

Tom

 

Thanks Tom. Not sure what I'm doing this weekend yet.

From the timetable of the Branch Line event then everyone apart from me will be pleased to see the Ivatt on the Mets on Sunday.

And from the same timetable on Friday and Saturday the Ivatt is on green Mk1s plus at times the Bulleids. I do hope that hasn't/won't change?

Bryan

 

Just checked the Bluebell roster and see that 34059 is now booked for the coming weekend.

But if that is taking over from 32636, then it looks like the Bulleid is on the Mets.

 

I don't think there is any plan to change it. Set A = Mark 1s, Set B = Mets, Set C = Bulleids, Set D = Maunsells.

Set A = 4754, 1818, 4941, 21246 which are all green AFAIK.

Tom

 

Well, there you go, things have changed since I checked earlier today!

34059 = Set A = Green Mark 1s
32424 = Set B = Mets
65 = Golden Arrow

It seems.

Tom

 

Possibly a question that @Jamessquared may be able to kindly answer, or maybe others with a historical knowledge of the S & D.

My photo below shows Q class 30541 at Sheffield Park, looking truly magnificent, preparing to pilot almost totally hidden 73087 'Linette' (aka 73082 'Camelot') on the Pines Express; 12 October 2019 during the G.O.S. that year.

Was that based on the knowledge that Q class 0-6-0s did sometimes, perhaps very rarely, operate over the S & D from/to Bournemouth West? Either on a stopping passenger service or as a pilot loco on a heavier train? With the most likely time being a summer Saturday when almost any class of steam loco could be seen on a passenger train in that area. I can't find any definite confirmation via GOOGLE - yet!

I did have two excellent runs Sheffield Park to East Grinstead and return behind that combination on that day.

Many thanks in advance.

Bryan

 

I believe that Bournemouth had a couple of Qs in the 1950s that occasionally ventured to Templecombe and sometimes beyond. In "Footplate over The Mendips" Peter Smith recounts the occasion that the booked loco (a Bath WC pacific) for the 9.25pm perishables from Poole Yard failed on Branksome shed. Central sent over 30548 to cover the job to Bath and it got there in the end after no less than six stops en route for a blow up. He suspects that crew unfamilarity may have been partly to blame for this as the very similar 4F covered these jobs regularly.

Peter

 

My best trip on 541 was a six coach train to East Grinstead, when it just seemed to stay on the mark all the time. (The loco had been tested with 7 coaches before release into traffic, but our normal rostering practice was to limit it to five, so six was unusual, though permitted). They do take careful firing, since I think they are probably a bit underboilered relative to the cylinders.

Bryan's photo reminds me of the joys of the dog clips to close the smokebox door as well, common on Maunsell locos. I think it is actually a better system than the normal central dart, but you tend to revise your opinion when you climb up on the front to empty the smokebox and then realise you have forgotten the flipping spanner! With any luck, we'll have that joy to experience all over again in about a year's time ...

Tom

 

Out of curiosity, why do you think it's a better system - is it better at holding the smokebox tightly closed or something like that?