A Steam Delight For a Stormy Saturday
We have all seen the Bluebell railway, mostly incognito in movies and television shows and now some videos to watch the Bluebell in action.
From Wikipedia.
The Bluebell Railway is a heritage line running for 11Ai??mi (17.7Ai??km) along the border between East and West Sussex, England. It uses steam trains which operate between Sheffield Park and East Grinstead, with intermediate stations at Horsted Keynes & Kingscote.
The first preserved standard gauge steam-operated passenger railway in the world to operate a public service,the Society ran its first train on 7 August 1960, less than three years after the line from East Grinstead to Lewes had been closed by British Railways.
On 23 March 2013, the Bluebell Railway commenced running through to its new East Grinstead terminus station. At East Grinstead there is a connection to the UK National Network, the first connection of the Bluebell Railway to the national network (in 50 years) since the Horsted Keynes ai??i?? Haywards Heath line closed in 1963.
Today the railway is managed and run largely by volunteers. Having preserved a number of steam locomotives even before the cessation of steam service on British mainline railways in 1968, today it has the largest collection (over 30) of steam locomotives in the UK after the National Railway Museum. The Society also has a collection of almost 150 carriages and wagons, most of them pre-1939.
Please watch.
Zwei, I love that place I wish the Railway Museum I volunteered for could do what they did. The Blue Bell is a great place!
So, OK shameless plug here, if you get the chance, go to the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario (RMEO), in Smiths Falls, Ontario.
It’s a wonderful example of a preserved historic Railway Station and rebuilt Yard built by the 3rd Canadian Trans-Continental Railway, the Canadian Northern Railway during their grand expansion east to Toronto and Montreal. There are very few Canadian Northern Railway Station’s left in Eastern Canada and this one is a beauty. The town its located in Smiths Falls, Ontario, and it is still regarded as a CPR town and still has major operational CPR yard. The CNoR new it couldn’t out compete the CPR yard’s massive imprint so the town got a much nicer station than a town the size of Smiths Falls normally would have had. This stretch of the CNoR’s Ottawa-Toronto mainline officially opened in 1914. The CNoR went bankrupt and was taken over by the government in 1918 and became the Canadian National. CN adopted many of the CNoR’s vehicle numbering scheme’s, official colour’s Green & Black, station design and need for innovation. CN later in 1923, absorbed the Grand Trunk System which meant it had many extra lines, including 2 Toronto-Montreal mainlines. This meant most of the Canadian Northern’s railway lines in Eastern Canada being newer and poorer performing then the older more established Grand Trunk meant that they were the first to disappear from history.
The RMEO is no Blue Bell but we try come and take a look sometime!
Zwei replies: I had the privilege riding the Bluebell in 1980 when I lived in London, I also was, for 15 years, a member of the Great Western society at Didcot. Love those Pannier tanks!