Steam & Cream

44422 leaving Wansford in the 1950's.

It was our autumn steam event down at the NVR over the weekend, and rather enjoyable I thought.  Rather than compete with the big Steam Galas currently on offer around the country, the NVR did everything in house with an emphasis on small and personal.  Locos in steam included the Fowler 4F; Austerity 22 and the Polish Slask tank loco 5485.  Passenger trains ran with the 4F and Austerity operating alternately on the Mk1 rake and 5485 on the DSB’s, resulting in prototypical consists.  Highlight was the operation of several freight trains hauled by the Austerity and 4F in between passenger duties.  Thomas was also in steam, sans face, operating top n’ tail shuttles between Wansford and Yarwell.  Our flagship loco, City of Peterborough, is out of service under repair so was not available for traffic, but was moved to the bay platform to facilitate cab visits.  This positioning permitted some great evening shots as the sun gradually descended on Saturday.  Finally the Bullied Pacific 92 Squadron was shunted into the café platform (known as the loco crew drive-thru!) for inspection by the public.  Members of the Battle of Britain Locomotive Society were on hand to discuss the loco’s restoration with interested visitors.

You need one hell of a tin opener to get inside this spam can.

My role for Saturday was TTI and the atmosphere was good with well-filled trains throughout the day.  Towards the end of the afternoon I was preparing the last passenger train for departure when a family group approached, led my Vicky Pollard in her size 39 tracksuit.  They’d bought tickets for Ferry Meadows because they wanted to go there for the day.  At 4:10 pm.  With their disabled mother.  I told them that as this was the last train, they’d only get half an hour at Ferry if they left the train on the outward trip and rejoined it on the return leg.  They weren’t happy about this, and complained loudly.  The only other option was to travel in the freight wagons, and then they complained even more loudly.  I suggested they simply upgrade their tickets and have a round trip.  No way; they weren’t going to spend anymore money than strictly necessary.  Need the rest for fags n’ booze innit?

I thought that was that, but got accosted again on my way down the platform.  “This is all a con you know,” Vicky Pollard informed me.  “We’ve brought our kid down ‘ere special to see Thomas an’ he ain’t ere.”

Oh for f…

I pointed out that Thomas was not only here; he was in steam at the end of the platform complete with nameplates and Number 1 on the tanks.

“Yeah but he ain’t got ‘is face on.”

“Madam; if his face is anything like yours then we can say thanks to the Lord for making it so.”  Okay, okay – I didn’t really say that.  I wanted to, but protocol and all that … instead of which I tried to explain about the steam gala; the fact that Thomas was here every other day of the year and that just for this weekend we remove the face and run it as an 0-6-0 shunting locomotive.  Just as it states on the website.

“We ain’t got no website,” was Vicky’s reply, although I think what she meant was, ‘I can’t read but I can watch my 54 inch TV what you bought me with your taxes.’

Fortunately, thanks to Vicky’s inability to tell the time I only had to put up with her group on the final train and not for the whole day, which otherwise was a great success.

If it says Thomas on the nameplate but you can't read, 

does it still say Thomas?  Discuss.

Sunday was a whole new experience for me.  I wasn’t on duty as such, but Jayne was doing catering on the trains and was desperately short of staff.  Short enough to ask me to help out.  The lunchtime train was serving Ploughman’s lunches in the Club Car; when it returned to Wansford it would be turned round for afternoon cream teas on the 14:45 service.  This was an excellent idea, and I’d seen how popular they were the previous day.

I turned up at Wansford nice and early in order to get some good pictures of the freight trains, before starting on the lunch service.  Only three of us were doing the catering, but we were well prepared and the Ploughman’s went out smoothly and successfully.  It was proper food service as well; plates, cutlery and crockery – the works.  None of your cardboard and Styrofoam rubbish on Jayne’s Trains at the NVR!

The cream tea service wasn’t pre-booked as the lunches had been, so it was all done to order.  With tea, coffee, scones and a choice of three types of cake the service was very ‘bitty’ and I’d have appreciated the services of an octopus as I tried to manhandle the teapots, coffeepot, milk pot, cashbox and take orders – plus take the platter with the different cakes around to show people.  Methinks I got the short straw …  It didn’t help that tea was the most popular option, and the teapots held around four cups before running out – and this got more problematic the further I walked down the coach because the walk back for refills got longer each time.  I also need to teach young Steven how to make tea.  He was fine with gnat’s piss, but the train was populated with lots of pensioners who know exactly how tea should be made.  Take away their pensions and heating allowance; confiscate tartan rugs and comfy slippers and you may get a glance of disapproval.  Dick around with their tea and you’ll never hear the end of it.

To complicate matters further, the adjoining coach had a party of 30 old folk on an outing – and they got a sniff of what we were up to.  Well, it would have been churlish to refuse and make them walk to the bar car where they’d get a Styrofoam cup, so we served those who wanted them as well.  Mark 1 coaches have never seemed so long!  We also began to run short of hot water so I was glad when Peterborough hove into view.  

Despite the logistical problems everyone got served on time and only the last table served received cold tea – which we replaced with fresh cups at Peterborough where we had an urn brewing away waiting for our arrival.  Everyone was happy, and we even served a few bonus afternoon teas on the return leg of the trip to Wansford as well.

Working the trains makes you appreciate just how hard the catering staff work on a day to day basis, and you come away with renewed respect for what they do – very much the unsung heroes of the operation.  There’s talk of doing more of these services next year.  I think I’ll stick to eating the leftovers!

The sun sets on another successful event at the NVR.  

The full photo set may be seen here as part of my Steamy Scenes Photo Gallery.

Round The Quorn

Following on from my previous post, here is the completed film from the Great Central Railway’s Steam Gala last weekend. Essentially, it’s a procession of varied steam workings shot at Kinchley Lane and Woodthorpe, and tries to recapture the feel of the intensive timetable and the fascinating variety of trains that operated over the weekend. It has the advantage of enabling the viewer to watch all the trains without freezing their nadgers off, but if you’d really like to recreate the complete atmosphere of the day then turn off the heating, open all the windows and get 50 photographers into the living room while you play the video.

I’ve managed to edit out almost all of the annoying and intrusive hi-viz orange jackets that some people insist on wearing – I already know what kind of person you are, so you don’t need to advertise the fact! Hopefully what is left is reminiscent of linesiding in the Midland Region in the early 1960’s.

The score for this film is by Gilbert & Sullivan, so viewers will either love it or hate it - I can see the complaints rolling in already. But then again, I feel that the soundtrack is as much a part of a video as the visuals, and to my mind the various clips compliment the resonant brass while adding atmosphere to the end product.

All Steamed Up With Stan & Ollie

Faced with another dull weekend of ‘sitting’, I was idly flicking through various websites on Friday night when I happened upon the Great Central Railway’s pages, and discovered that they were holding a Steam Gala over the weekend. My interest heightened when I read that no fewer than eight locos would be in traffic on a mixture of trains operating to an intensive timetable. This was more like it! The motive power line up was impressive, but the clincher was LMS 5690 Leander – a loco that I’ve not seen before. The theme was LMS / BR Midland orientated, so all the trains would be pretty much running in period, and over an appropriate length of line between Loughborough and Leicester. Although the railway is only about 40 miles away I’d not visited it since 1995 – my interest in railways has been pretty dormant until last summer when I discovered that steam locos make excellent filming subjects, and so now was a good time to get reacquainted.

First job after packing the Grumpy Git camera-and-butty bag was to walk 5 miles to Marston in order to retrieve my car from a layby. Why? Well, good old Gordon Brown is in full ‘save the planet’ mode with the election coming, and has been ordering all of us to drive 5 miles less every week, which, by default, means that you have to abandon your car on the Friday evening homeward bound commute long before you actually finish your journey. Hmmm. This apparently saves a polar bear’s life, but adds an hour and a half to the journey. I really don’t think Gordy thought this through – now there’s a surprise.

Once I was reunited with my vehicle, I braved the early morning frost and set off for the Great Central Railway. I’d Google-Earthed the area online the night before and studied various photo albums to seek out some good vantage points. There appears to be only two good photographic locations, Woodthorpe which lies just outside of Loughborough, and Kinchley Lane near to Swithland Reservoir. Trees and vegetation hem in the vast majority of the line, although driving my car another five miles a week will presumably sort this out.

I set off initially for Kinchley Lane, and soon discovered that it was a favourite spot due to the amount of other photographers already on location, despite the early hour. It felt quite strange being in such vast crowds – when I film on the Nene Valley Railway I have the run of the entire line and only ever meet dog walkers and bird watchers!

Now I should say that I don’t generally follow the herd instinct, and after a few trains had passed by I started walking around to find some alternative photo spots. This was partly because being stood in one spot was boring, and would make the film I was shooting rather bland – plus I was freezing my nadgers off. I soon found several different vantage points within the general area, and was able to shoot from some more interesting perspectives. There was also much more freedom of movement than being in the large crowd up the embankment.

The day’s menu was exciting; starting with local branch line trains with a main course of express passenger services. This was followed by a dessert of freight trains and garnished with a TPO set. In between various courses, there was a medley of light loco movements – no shortage of interest or variety.

After several hours at Kinchley lane, I headed down to Woodthorpe. Another large congregation of photographers proved that I had the right spot. The field at this location offers some good panning shots, and it is also possible to get trackside for some close ups. There are two overbridges in the area offering more potential, and for the suicidal there is also the bridge that carries the A6006 across the line. Most photographers crowd round the signal and get in each other’s faces …..

….. or they do the same thing on the overbridge. That’s not my idea of fun. By moving around the area between shots, it was possible to create some variety in the film clips, so I was quite pleased with the end results. However, I’d like to return on a quieter day and really explore the line, as there must be other locations off the beaten track just waiting to be discovered. I also fancy taking a trip along the railway as well; a fair chunk of it is double-tracked and has the atmosphere of a real mainline.

I enjoyed Saturday so much that I returned on Sunday for some more shots – in particular the overbridges at Woodthorpe that I hadn’t tried the previous day. The weather wasn’t as good as Saturday, but otherwise it was pleasant enough, apart from the cold. I called it a day around lunchtime after exhausting all three sets of batteries in one morning – I’d accidentally purchased alkaline instead of my usual lithium, and they kept giving up. I lost three excellent clips this way – not impressive, given the price of batteries. The lithiums can usually give me a couple of days of intensive filming; the alkalines lasted about as long as a thought in a Cheeky Girl’s head.

The film is now in production at The Grumpy Git Productions Studio (my back bedroom) and I’ll upload the photos in due course. Given the number of photographers who were present at the event, the ‘net and YouTube should be packed full of photos and film from the weekend! There really were hundreds of enthusiasts present, and we all drove out there … so here’s a thought for five-miles-less Gordon: if you politicians hadn’t closed down these railways, then we wouldn’t all be driving hundreds of miles every weekend to photograph them in preservation! Think about it.

Stan and Ollie? Oh yes. Well, Stan is Stanier, and Ollie is Oliver Cromwell (70013 BR Pacific). But you knew that already…

Anyone interested in the Great Central Railway should visit this exceptional photographic website by Paul Biggs