West Somerset Railway 21st Gala March 1997; My Journey in becoming a Steam Enthusiast, Part 7 Chapter 2

Continuing from last Saturday’s post is the final chapter of part 7 in my journey in becoming a steam enthusiast.  I hope all locoyard followers will enjoy these photographs! Todays post begins in Minehead and then follows 43xx Class 7325 and Castle Class 7029 Clun Castle double-heading to Bishops Lydeard. Post thread continues – click…

Steam Train Diary

In an attempt to organise locoyard blog entries, a new web page gas been created as a one-stop shop for visits made to steam railways and mainline viewings.  Click here to view this exciting new page.  This will help those of you who would like to see real steam engines and guides without anything else getting…

Havenstreet

As promised in the previous article on the Isle of Wight steam railway, we take a closer look at Havenstreet, the headquarters of the railway. Most people join the train at Havenstreet and it has a large car park.  It isn’t the terminus of the railway however and the train will travel to Wootton, return…

Ajax and Invincible in 2011

Just a quick post tonight; showing a few photographs taken on the Isle of Wight Steam Railway last November.  No locomotives were in steam, but I had the opportunity to have a good look at two of the railway’s locomotives; Ajax and Invincible. Invincible is a Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive built for the…

West Somerset Railway 21st Gala March 1997; My Journey in becoming a Steam Enthusiast, Part 7 Chapter 1

Following on from my previous post, this is one of the final of this series of memories and a fantastic one at that!  One of my most fond steam memories from my younger years came from a visit to the West Somerset Railway when it was celebrating its 21st anniversary in March 1997.  An incredible…

8750 Class Pannier Tank 3738 at Didcot Halt

During last week’s visit to Didcot Railway Centre, British Standard 7MT 70000 Britannia was not the only locomotive in steam.  On another demonstration line, pulling an auto-coach was GWR black liveried 8750 class pannier tank 3738.  This locomotive was operated from “Didcot Halt”, a faithful recreation of a GWR branchline. A Great Western themed attraction would not be complete without…

Locoyard becomes a Southern Railway Depot

A quick catch-up tonight from Locoyard to show that it has, as promised, gone back in time to the 1930 – 1940’s.  A bit of an unlikely mix of liveries to be fair, with a combination of Maunsell’s olive-green and Bulleid’s malachite green with sunshine lettering.  The malachite green in particular has brightened the layout and indeed the room…