My first excursion lineside at the Bluebell Railway gave me a new obsession. Even though it was a short trip and I, in essence, only got to photograph two trains, the results I got were way above what I was expecting and I really enjoyed the experience. As I said at the end of that post, my goal for 2024 is to get ready for the visit of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley in October.
It was partly to that end, but also mostly because I wanted to go back and take more photos of steam trains, that a few weeks later I attended the railway’s Branch Line Gala.
I didn’t particularly expect much from this trip. The main goal was to explore more of the trackside on the Bluebell Railway, hoping to find some interesting spots where I might be able to photograph trains in the future.
The Branch Line Gala, a special weekend-long event, had a lot more scheduled services, containing a variety of engines and carriages (including several visiting locomotives), so I had a lot more opportunities to take photographs of trains in a variety of locations along the trackside.
My original plan was to walk along the track from Sheffield Park and see how far I got before turning back. Then a few days before the event we decided that my wife and kid would come along to see the trains too, so we ended up buying tickets for the day. This changed my plans to walking along the track from Sheffield Park to Horsted Keynes, the next station along, a distance of a little over four miles, and then get the train back.
We arrived a little later than I’d intended thanks to the usual perils of toddler wrangling, so as soon as I got my hi-viz jacket, I abandoned my family and headed out onto the track, without spending any time on the platforms. I only had about five minutes before the first service was due to depart, and I wanted to make it across the bridge and up the track a bit before it set off. Being a big event there were a lot of photographers around, so it was with a small air of smugness that I strode past a lot of them in the viewing area and through the gate onto the lineside. I made sure to stop just past the threshold and take a photo.
Hauling the day’s first service was my current favourite 6989 Wightwick Hall. I got some lovely photos of this locomotive on my last trip and fell in love with its beautiful green livery.
I hotfooted it over the bridge as Wightwick Hall started preparing to depart.
I got as far up the track as I could before Wightwick Hall started moving. I didn’t make it quite as far as my last visit when I first explored this bit of the railway. When Wightwick Hall started moving, I just stopped and, still feeling rushed and unprepared, could do little more than fire my camera as it went past.
This turned out to be quite lucky. The tree I found myself standing under quite by accident served as a useful framing device, and made for colourful sunny spots on the track. With the sun at my back, the lighting lined up nearly perfectly.
With the blue sky in the background, the green livery on the train, the light, and the framing, everything came together for this next photo.
So awkwardly we find ourselves in a situation where one of my favourite photos I’ve ever taken is here very early in this post. I love this photo – I’ve already got it printed, framed and hung on my wall (and the locomotive’s Facebook group has adopted it as their page header image).
I kept shooting as Wightwick Hall continued past.
It’s a bit of a shame the picture above is dotted with slightly anachronistic details, like the blue plastic bucket, the modern metal box holding signalling equipment, and the rolls of tubing still there since my previous visit.
When Wightwick Hall had passed I took the opportunity to photograph some lineside equipment, such as this old signal.
I continued my trek along the track. I was equipped with a copy of the day’s timetable but it needed a little bit of interpretation, as it obviously only gave the times trains would be at stations, and I had to estimate when trains would get to the part of the track I was at. I didn’t have any plans to get to particular places, I just kept walking, eyeing up locations, and stopping either when I knew a train was imminent, or if I found a spot worth waiting at.
I hadn’t got very far before the next train came by – No 65 and 80151 (the latter running as 80100 for the weekend) in a double header.
Once again I accidentally found myself framed by foliage, and caught the light nicely. The smoke has caught the light just right to bring out its depth.
This next shot gives an idea of the long straight uphill section of track I was about to begin hiking along.
Bringing up the rear on this train was Bluebell Railway stalwart 32626 Fenchurch.
I suppose I could have just claimed this train was going in the other direction and being pulled by Fenchurch. It might have worked if it weren’t for the relatively obvious smoke from the engines at the front.
As you could see above, there was a long straight uphill bit of track in my immediate future. Luckily there was a bit of a gap in trains so I had the time to make the trek before anything else came.
As I walked, I came across a distant signal. Being partial to a perspective photo I used the long straight bit of track for some framing. This is me looking back the way I had came, back down the hill.
For the first time I saw a few other hi-viz jackets on the lineside, There were a couple of people heading towards me. They were maintenance workers, walking the track, routinely hitting the rails with a spanner, presumably to identify any defects, rather than causing them. I soon made it to a bridge. On the down side of the bridge (the direction I’d just come from) were a couple of guys in hi-viz taking some video who I had a quick chat with. A train was due in relatively short order, so I decided I’d get a shot of it coming under the bridge. I passed the bridge, and positioned myself on the down (eastern) side of the track, mostly because that put the light at my back, and partly because the guys on the other side of the bridge were also on that side of the track and so they’d be out of sight.
I originally thought to position myself up the embankment, but it was a bit steep and overgrown, so I couldn’t get very far up at all. I made do with just a few steps up. Presently the next train was upon me – pulled by visiting locomotive 7812 Erlestoke Manor.
Annoyingly the sky was a bit more blown out here, probably because of there being less light in the cutting, or perhaps some clouds had blown in, and the smoke from the locomotive was less puffy as it was now up to speed, so it doesn’t look as dramatic as my earlier shots.
Once again, and completely by accident, I’ve found myself framed by foliage. This time it almost creeped too far into the frame, so I was glad I didn’t get higher up the embankment.
At the back of this train was the observation car, allowing for great views of lineside photographers.
Such was the theme of the day, there was a decent amount of buildup to a train arriving, then less than a minute of it going past, then a break for a little while until the next one. With the gaps between trains I continued to walk, photographing anything interesting I found along the way – such as this rail side hut, which at some point had clearly been on fire.
Other times, I took some shots of the empty track.
It was when I was slightly further around this bend that the next train caught up with me. 7714, another visiting engine, was the first train pointing southward, towards Sheffield Park, and so was pulling its carriages backwards.
Another train down, another chance to make up some distance and photograph some lineside paraphernalia.
This is something that greases the track. The trains run over it and spread it over the rails. If you’re like me and stare out of the window on normal train journeys, you’ll see these on the national rail network as well.
To this point, all of the trains had been heading northwards, out of Sheffield Park, a rapid-fire (compared to a normal weekend timetable) stream of trains, one after the other. Before long I encountered my first train going south. Wightwick Hall was bringing back the coaches Erlestoke Manor had taken north not long earlier.
There was a lot of this during the day – trains exchanging carriages and rolling stock moving in all directions, rather than trains going all the way from one end of the line to the other.
I continued walking and found another track greaser.
Just round the bend from the photograph above, I came to a place known as Rock Cutting. Here the track cut through some rock. On the inside of the bend, the top of the cutting was relatively easy to climb to the top of. I explored this area, scoping it out for future trips, but according to my timetable there wouldn’t be another train coming through for a good quarter of an hour or so. I soon decided it was worth the wait to see how this area was for photographs, now that I finally had found somewhere with a higher vantage point over the trains.
After a little wait, another visiting engine, 1369, came along northwards, pulling the railway’s set of 1930s coaches.
A quick check of the timetable told me another train would be coming by in the other direction a reasonable amount of time later, so I decided to hold my position and wait.
Soon, Fenchurch and 80151 came by in a double header. It was roughly at this moment I realised that at some point during the wait I’d knocked a focus setting on my camera, and instead of focussing, as it normally would, on whatever it decided was the subject, it was now focussing solely on centre frame. I realised this much too late to do anything about it, so I ended up being forced to frame my shot with Fenchurch dead centre.
With another lull in trains, I abandoned my new spot and ventured further up the track.
After some trekking, I came to another bend with another train due shortly. I decided to try to get a little way up the embankment, both for a higher angle and to get a little further away from the train (I have found on my trackside excursions using my 24-70mm lens that 70mm is not enough zoom for a train aways up the track, and 24mm is not wide enough for a large locomotive passing you only a few metres away). Unfortunately it soon became apparent that, despite it being a warm sunny day, the embankment was still quite muddy, and at least once my foot slipped under me. Luckily I didn’t fall on my arse, or my equipment for that matter. I found a spot slightly up the hill where I was at least stable, and waited.
Presently, Wightwick Hall came by northwards.
When it was past, I carefully negotiated my way back down the embankment onto steadier footing and continued my journey. Before long, I found another rail greaser.
By this point I was well and truly somewhere between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes and it was getting a bit tricky to estimate when I’d be seeing trains based on the timetable. I saw a bridge in the distance and thought I had enough time to get close to it before the next train was due, but unfortunately Erlestoke Manor beat me to it.
I wasn’t completely out of position in the end, and frankly the biggest problem I have with this image is that the engine is running tender-first, which doesn’t make for very interesting pictures.
The next bridge along was a bit more recognisable a landmark on the maps I have of the track: Three Arch Bridge. Someone obviously wasn’t feeling very creative when they named it.
I got a little closer to the bridge and took a more angled shot.
If you’re paying attention you may notice that the metal signal box to the right of the middle arch has disappeared. I’ll admit to removing it in editing because it made the shot look very untidy, and is apocryphal for the steam era. I don’t completely remove things very often and I do call it out when I do it. That said, it has gotten a lot easier now that Lightroom has Generative AI content-aware removal. Prior to this, it required a round trip to Photoshop.
I kept walking, and soon was on final approach to Horsted Keynes. Before the station itself is a substantial goods yard. I am not allowed in there, but could still see some cool machinery from where I was by the track.
This is a piece of maintenance equipment used for, I believe, laying or repairing track.
A little further up was one of the Bluebell Railway’s operational diesel locomotives, E6040 The Bluebell Railway, looking gorgeous in its blue livery.
I love a good diesel. In September the Bluebell will be hosting their annual Diesel Gala which I’ll be popping along to, mostly to photograph the locomotives, but also because it’ll be a final warmup for the Giants of Steam event a month later.
Hooked up to The Bluebell Railway was an assortment of goods carriages from the Bluebell Railway Goods Division, that would be used later that evening as a good demonstration train. I stopped to photograph a few of them.
At the other end of the goods demonstration set, No 65 was in steam and preparing to move about in a siding.
From this vantage point I could get a better view of a few scenes I’d to this point only been able to try to photograph from through a train window, such as this digger, in front of some carriages stored on the disused Ardingly branch.
And these carriage sheds.
I crossed the line to get to the designated walking route into Horsted Keynes station, which gave me a nice view of No 65 and the goods wagons, alongside some signals and the track.
Soon No 65 started to move, accompanied by a banksman .
Soon it stopped and I could get a nice side-on view.
From my vantage point I could see a little way down the Ardingly branch.
It wasn’t long before the next service came in, double headed by Fenchurch and 80151.
With that service passed, I could take a few more photographs of the equipment stored in the sidings, that I usually struggle to get a shot of from a moving train, such as this old signal box equipment (which I’d have liked to have gotten closer to, but I’m not allowed over there either).
And this crane, which I’ve taken several blurry, disappointing photos of in the past.
Just before I entered the station, I got a shot of the signal box.
Finally on the platform, I could take my first photo of the front of 7714.
And a closeup of its chimney and lamp.
I had assumed that 7714 would be pulling my train home from the platform it was on, but I soon learned that it would be swapping carriage sets and my train back would be from a different platform. Had I known this, I would have stayed by the train for some better photos of it manoeuvring. Instead I had to hop through the tunnel under the track to catch my train.
I took a last picture of the 7714-headed service.
I then went to find an empty seat on what was a pretty busy train, and took an enjoyable and well-deserved train ride back to Sheffield Park. All told, the four-and-a-bit mile walk took me over four hours. Probably something to do with constantly stopping to take photographs of trains.
I’ve now scoped out a good four-mile portion of the track I have access to, and have plenty of options for where to try to get photos of Sir Nigel Gresley in October. I still plan on exploring more of the track before then, but at the moment my ideal situation would be repeating that fantastic early shot of Wightwick Hall, only with a different locomotive.