Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Some were still green! There's some great footage on YouTube of Victoria then, just as it was when I was a kid in the late 60s, it's called Steam loco adventure, parts 1,2 and 3, Gandey Dancer productions, there's even one of the Bury leckies on too, near Woodlands Road

 

It most certainly was.

Mother nature had been far too busy evolving the world into the place we now know it. And she only thought of adding colour to everything after BR SR main line steam had ended - having tested it on Bulleid pacifics before then.

Bryan

 

Getting more back on the Bluebell theme.... looks like 2999 is staying a bit longer

 

To be fair, the Bluebell has a better track record on that than just about any other standard gauge heritage railway in the country, with the possible exception of the IoWSR. But that's certainly not an argument to say "well as they have now got most of their carriages and many locos under cover, let's bring in Gladstone / 737 / Boxhill / take your pick".

It's worth remembering that for many years we displayed the T9 on behalf of the NRM inside our loco shed, and doing so came at the expense of one of our locos needing to stay outside.

Tom

 

So are you going to keep every single piece of the original locomotive? You're not going to scrap the old tubes, remove any of the old paint, scrape anything off any of the bearings?

 

I suspect it deaccessioning made it easier (even if it was not essential) to restoring the loco, since fundraising by an organisation is easier when you have certainty of ownership.

Many years ago, the Bluebell wished to restore the Bulleid Q1 for another period in traffic, but doing so required a new set of cylinders to be cast. To make that financially viable, the railway wanted certainty that it would remain based on the Bluebell for at least two further periods of operation, which the NRM didn't agree to. Without that certainty of operation over a period long enough to recoup the substantial investment in an overhaul, it would have been irresponsible of the railway to spend their money to overhaul a loco that could not be guaranteed long enough to recover the investment - so it didn't get overhauled and eventually was returned to York. Presumably anyone wishing to see that loco restored is going to run into the same issue.

Tom

 

For something like Gladstone, which hasn't steamed in 100 years, it would probably be more practical to construct a brand new replacement, setting the old one aside for conservation and study.
To my knowledge, the locomotive has been repainted at least twice since 1927, and also just for the record, I'm not being 100% serious about this. I just wanted to get a bit of a debate going, as things had been a bit quiet

 

Well Gladstone did visit the Bluebell once upon a time but that was back in 1982

Peter

 

Thing is, museums cannot be limited to only what people can remember, for pretty soon there would be no steam locos left. if memories start at the age of around three that would rule out most locos - and that's assuming that those who could remember don't prematurely fall by the wayside with dementia!

 

As a matter of interest, when Gladstone visited the Bluebell in 1982, did any of the fitters there check it over, to assess its condition?

 

Back on more of a Bluebell topic. The New Years Day gala timetable is out. A rare opportunity to see 73082 on the goods https://www.bluebell-railway.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/NYD-Gala-2026.pdf

 

And also appears to be banking Fenchurch on 1 coach

 

It looks like the positioning move to get Camelot to Horsted to pick up the goods.

Tom

 

Yeah I’d seen that, just a slightly unusual positioning move!

 

Yes, that's a shame. Who wouldn't want to see the Q1 on a demonstration freight? Not sure what the NRM were thinking of.

 

Gents, perhaps it's time to create a new thread for this discussion at https://www.national-preservation.com/forums/national-railway-museum.53/ and get back to affairs Bluebell on here?
Ray.

 

Thoroughly agree

 

Sadly the railways PTI on the website hasn’t been updated for this weekends services and I’ve just seen on the rail cam website the arrival of a steam lights service. Would anyone happen to have the departure and arrival times at SP & HK for this and any other steam light service that has run/will run for today and for the murder mystery train later tonight? Cheers.

 

There aren’t any more Steamlights services tonight, but the Murder Mystery timings are as follows:

SP dep: 8:00
HK pass: 8/30
HK arr: 8:45

HK dep: 8:55
HK pass: 9/10
SP arr: 9:30

SP dep: 10:05
HK arr: 10:25

HK dep: 10:40
SP arr: 11:00

73082 and 72 will operate the first service ex SP, with 73082 operating the second service alone.

 

Many thanks for these timings. Where it says HK pass how far north of HK did the service go? Out of interest would you have the timings for tonight’s steamlight service?