I was happy on Sunday to catch the Bluebell Line’s S15 class 847 in action. It had been many years since I had seen it in action before and it was as impressive as I remembered it! The S15 class is a classic British two cylinder 4-6-0 design with its origins in pre-grouping…
After visiting the Bluebell Railway on Sunday, I thought it would be a good time to post a quick update from Sheffield Park works. We begin with a brief look of recently overhauled Maunsell Q class 30541, sporting (for the first time in preservation) a British Railways late crest, as pictured above. I was…
What an interesting day it was today! After an unplanned errand left me in Sussex late this morning, I was left at a lose end. Now for most people they would head back home, a mere 30 minutes away but instead I carried on in the other direction into the depths of Sussex countryside. A…
As reported in the latest UK Heritage Hub (http://bit.ly/ukhhissue51) the Bluebell Railway has been successful in bidding for funds to support projects on the line. The Play Carriage Project will get off the ground soon after the Arts Council Museum Resilience Fund awarded the Bluebell Railway £84,150. This will see an as yet to be…
In my opinion the Q class is one of the more humble of Maunsell’s career. It was designed to replace elderly 0-6-0 locomotives, from which it was only a little more advanced. The Q class was of a similar ilk to Fowler’s 0-6-0 design for the Midland railway of 1924 (being a bit more powerful…
The Bluebell Railway has an incredible collection of rolling stock, some of which have featured previously on this blog (click here.) The railway has long striven to put this unique collection under cover and now have an opportunity to raise funds to put up to 20 historic carriages under a roof. Thanks to some generous…
Rather remarkably, somehow I managed to skip this this beautiful locomotive when reporting about my visit to the Bluebell Line (click here to read more.) This was probably because I only saw it briefly as it pulled away with the line’s Wealden Rambler. It had been many years since I had seen this locomotive in…
The Bluebell Railway not only has an incredible collection of locomotives, but has a fleet of historic carriages that is also quite exceptional. Around 70 carriages make up a collection of vehicles that range from the Victorian era through to British Railways mark one’s of the 1950/60s. Tonight’s blog post looks at some of this…
No visit to the Bluebell Railway is complete without a peak inside the engine shed, which is home to the largest collection of locomotives of (UK) Southern origin. The Bluebell Line has another remarkable claim to fame to add to this – it has the largest collection of BR Standard Classes. Indeed, this collection is…
The Bluebell Railway for many years (until 2006) took much pride in being the only 100% steam standard gauge railway in the UK. However, as the picture of Sentinel Rolls-RoyceThomas Hill 4-w Diesel-Hydraulic loco 10241 at Horsted Keynes (complete with fluffy dice in the cab) goes to show, this is no longer the case!
