Thomas has sent me these excellent images of the events, I will post without comments as they are there to enjoy for some relive an excellent day.
All images are © Thomas Woolley.
More of the freight driver experience and photo evening
Southern Freight Driver Experience
Today sees another freight driver experience on the railway.
This time 92 Squadron is providing the pulling power.
Here it is running round over the bridge approaching Wansford station.
Here we have the freight returning to Wansford crossing the River Nene.
Perfect day for playing trains though a bit on the hot side with the temperature here currently at 33.2c
Events like this are nice earners for the railway and enjoyable for those participating as well. No doubt a good day will be had by all.
Advanced driver experience.
Yesterday the railway held an advanced steam driver experience day.
The locomotive was Bahamas.
Here are a couple of pictures of the locomotive. Shame it’s leaving us on the 10th June.
Here the first picture shows the locomotive at Wansford station. Some nice rain clouds in the background.
The second image shows the locomotive coupled to the carriages at Yarwell before running back to Wansford, then onwards to Peterborough Nene Valley station.
Driver experience days, of all types are always popular. The opportunity to drive and fire a famous or large locomotive is always a draw for people of all ages.
My thanks to Matthew Alden Farrow for the images.
A funny old weekend
The Jubilee weekend was a funny old weekend.
The first two days were excellent weather wise and people were out to enjoy themselves.
Saturday was not too bad either. In the evening Bahamas arrived off the main line late and in the dark! At Wansford it was found to have an issue and therefore was not available for service as planned on Sunday.
92 Squadron pulled the Sunday services in its place. Most people seemed happy. There are lots of excellent photos and videos of the weekend on YouTube so well worth a trawl.
So all in all a great weekend and hopefully a profitable one for the railway.
Here we go……
Writing this before we begin four days of services celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of the Queen.
We have steam services all four days with 92 Squadron the first three and the locomotive Bahamas on Sunday.
I think this is a weekend where I will miss not being at Orton Mere, time like this were fun with nice visitors and plenty of business for the railway,.
Enjoy the Jubilee.
Getting ready for the weekend.
Thursday to Sunday sees the Queens Platinum Jubilee, and like everywhere else we are celebrating this special occasion.
We have numerous events over the four days culminating with the locomotive Bahamas visiting us and pulling the three services on Sunday.
No doubt this will be popular, when the locomotive was with us before it generated a lot of positive interest.
So whatever you’re doing this Jubilee weekend have a great time, and if you’re visiting the railway look at all we have on offer a visit is so much more than just a train ride.
Southern Photographic charter.
The four days of Easter
Easter can be a funny time of year, it’s success or otherwise is very dependent on the weather. Many say it always seems colder on Easter weekends.
Anyway, this year was different, we had four nice days weather wise and on all four days 92 Squadron provided hauling of all services.
It does no harm to be running a large locomotive on busy weekends. 92 Squadron did us proud. All services were almost to or on time.
For me personally it seemed quite strange not to be at a station, but circumstances dictate otherwise. So as with other running days we manned the Webcam and chat and we were busy there instead with people after anything from a chat to specific information.
The trains were busy and the visitors happy judging from the feedback we got on the cam. Nice to see smiling faces as the train passes.
Credit must be given to all the working members who were working over the weekend, the railway was shown at it’s best.
I could of course post some pictures of previous Easter holidays complete with a mixture of the following, rain, sleet or snow but that would not be fair. We had a super weekend on the railway and hopefully it will be the first of many in the future.
When the webcam had sound
Thw Wansford webcam used to have sound, and hopefully will have it again in the near future.
Here is a video when there was sound. Enjoy!
Back in the day.
One question that often pops up is Do we have any famous locomotives visit from the main line?
The answer of course is yes, and you just have to do a search to find any number of pictures.
But here is one taken some years ago, it shows Britannia at Orton Mere.
This is of course in the early days and those who know the station will see how open it used to be before the park was developed. How the place has changed over the years.
