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Misc steam railway, traction, station and rail-related news

hash tag said:
What's the holy grail of trainspotting? Is it some sort of maintenance thing?
Click to expand...
It's a completist thing. I was fascinated by trains, but the whole crossing-off-numbers thing felt weirdly reductive - I was far more interested in what the actual difference between a Class 52 and a Class 55 actually was, rather less bothered by the idea that I'd seen every member of either class.
 
Likewise I've never been bothered about collecting numbers, but for many people who do do that, I don't think it's necessarily a reductive thing - it might be a kind of project that gets you out looking at things and going to places, it might even be a kind of meditative thing.

I think it's like how some people who go fishing aren't all that bothered about catching lots of fish - but the project of going out to catch some fish gives them an excuse to sit quietly on a riverbank for a few hours.

Or intensely supporting an essentially arbitrary football team because of all the social/communal stuff that goes along with it.
 
hash tag said:
What's the holy grail of trainspotting? Is it some sort of maintenance thing?
Click to expand...
It’ll be finding Lew in South America, or that class 06 shunter exported to Italy in the 70s which then just disappeared. Neither of which is likely to still exist tbh, but either would be quite a find if they did.
 
"Train Spotting" covers such a huge range of things, and not just crossing off numbers in the Ian Allan books.

So for a number-cruncher their holy grail would be getting everything crossed off.
For others, cabbing all possible classes ...

Then various other sub-groups of railway enthusiasts have their holy grails ...
some more sensible [?] than others.

Branch Line Society and their buffer stops in sidings come to mind !
 
Not sure what this blue stock is, not any of the scheduled services anyway.

Was moving between Newton abbot and teignmouth around 1620 or so

IMG_1714.jpeg
 
Midland Pullman ---- its a retired HST that used to run on the Midland Main Line, done up to look like the Blue Pullman from way back when .... does tours now so will pass over the entire network at some point
 
legz said:
Midland Pullman ---- its a retired HST that used to run on the Midland Main Line, done up to look like the Blue Pullman from way back when .... does tours now so will pass over the entire network at some point
Click to expand...

Nice, thanks for the info :)
 
Yeah he's got quite a fleet of well-known steamers if you look his company up -- a bit annoying if you look at it one way (I want to ride behind a Royal Scot // Britannia // Princess Class but it means handing ££ to the bankroller of Reclaim) ..... but if you look at it from the angle of "every time he buys a classic train and puts it on the mainline, its a couple of million quid less that Laurence Fox doesn't get to see" .... then its a little more manageable, maybe?
 
Puddy_Tat said:
none of the real 'blue pullmans' survived in to preservation

:(

have a brief bit of film -

Click to expand...


They were shamefully scrapped in South Wales at Briton Ferry -very quickly. However I am told they were full of very inflammable materials , a sort of mobile deathtraps had there been a fire on board.

Stylish trains though - prototype HST's in concept....
 
legz said:
Yeah he's got quite a fleet of well-known steamers if you look his company up -- a bit annoying if you look at it one way (I want to ride behind a Royal Scot // Britannia // Princess Class but it means handing ££ to the bankroller of Reclaim) ..... but if you look at it from the angle of "every time he buys a classic train and puts it on the mainline, its a couple of million quid less that Laurence Fox doesn't get to see" .... then its a little more manageable, maybe?
Click to expand...

Indeedy. Considering the mind boggling costs involved in assembling and maintaining his massive 1:1 scale model railway I doubt he sees any return on it from his charter operation. His politics certainly won't stop me photographing his 47s tomorrow morning and I hope to do one of the tours planned with 45118.
 
editor said:
Proper luxury!

Click to expand...

A bit of a YouTube odyssey led me to this splendid video of the original blue Pullman service. The score is really rather good.
Watch Blue Pullman - BFI Player

If you compare the advert in your link you’ll also see a slight difference in customers (fewer attractive women passengers in 1960, a lot more old men in suits!). I suppose that’s marketing for you
 
legz said:
Midland Pullman ---- its a retired HST that used to run on the Midland Main Line, done up to look like the Blue Pullman from way back when .... does tours now so will pass over the entire network at some point
Click to expand...
Not quite the entire network. There's a lot of SE England they aren't cleared for, for example.
 
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