As I have mentioned on most of my recent posts about the Bluebell Railway, I’ve been looking forwards to the Diesel Gala for the best part of six months, pretty much ever since my first excursion trackside.
The Diesel Gala is a bit different from all of my previous visits to the Bluebell Railway, for the very simple reason that there’s no steam trains involved at all. Whilst the steam trains usually get all the attention, there is a healthy preservation movement restoring and preserving diesel locomotives. Many of them end up plying their trade on heritage railways in one way or another – either as part of regular services, or as backup vehicles in the case of steam engine breakdown, or weather conditions prohibiting steam operation.
The Bluebell rarely runs diesels – I’ve only seen one in operation in all my previous visits, and that was moving a maintenance wagon – so the Diesel Gala would be an interesting opportunity to photograph some locomotives I don’t often see. Most of the running engines were visiting for the event, so I’d never seen them before anyway. It would also be a final time to prepare for Giants of Steam, which is now only a month away.
After exploring more of the trackside last time, my plan this time was to base myself out of Sheffield Park Station, and take photos both at the station and slightly up the line.
The first train of the day was to be pulled by D6851 Flopsie. This is a more traditional-looking diesel if you ask me, and one of my childhood friends had a similar-looking Hornby model.
I didn’t have a huge amount of time to photograph Flopsie before it was due to depart, so I made my way over the bridge (having learned my lesson from last time, I spoke to somebody first). I had enough time to stop and grab a quick snap of one of the crew cleaning their headboard, although I was a bit far away for my 70mm lens.
I made my way to the same spot where I took my benchmark Bluebell photo, and waited. Soon Flopsie was on its way.
The driver gave me a grin as the train went by.
The other good thing about photographing diesels compared to steam trains is that the bright blue plastic fire dousing spot looks a bit less anachronistic.
I made my way back to Sheffield Park Station, where 33111 was preparing to pull 3417 Gordon Pettitt.
This pairing was of particular interest to me. 33111 was visiting from the Swanage Railway, and looks a bit like the model train I had growing up. 3417 is one of the last survivors of a class of passenger train that would go by my childhood home. We used to call them screechers because of the noise they made when they went by at full speed. This particular one is painted in a brilliant blue. They were never that colour when I was a kid.
Quite by accident I’d previously kept an eye on 3417’s restoration, as I have been following one of the volunteers involved on Twitter for some time (since back in the days when Twitter was worth visiting, long before I moved to the area and discovered the Bluebell Railway). 3417 is owned by the Bluebell Railway, but this is the first time I’ve seen it here. Normally it lives in a traincare depot in south west London, near where I used to live and attend university (because it’s a small world after all).
With a good half an hour before this train was due to depart I had a bit more time to walk around and get some photos from a variety of angles.
Including photographing inside some of the passenger compartments.
Whilst I was walking around taking pictures I caught sight of one of the Bluebell Railway’s resident diesels, E6040 The Bluebell Railway.
Also nearby was another of their resident diesels, although this one is in a bit of a state awaiting restoration.
(D33111 itself will be off for a refurbishment after the gala is over.)
Then, as before, I made my way over the bridge to the same spot as before to prepare for its departure, stopping on the way for a quick snap.
I was back in my spot in good time.
This time I was far more keen to photograph the departing carriages, as they were obviously more of the attraction than usual.
With 33111 and 3417 on their way up the track, I once again returned to the station to repeat the cycle. The next train was already at Platform 1 getting ready.
D8188 a very different-looking locomotive. The front, with the curvature of its dome and the text, constantly reminded me of old 60s sci-fi. I was getting Robby the Robot vibes throughout.
Once again, I took photographs from various angles.
This included taking a few random closeups of various mechanical bits.
This included a shot into the cab.
I also took some more traditional angles.
Then once again I was off to that same spot ready for departure.
And then I was back again to the station to see the next train.
Next up was D4106, a diesel shunter belonging to the railway I’ve seen on many previous visits, albeit parked. Here it was pushing a set of coaches out of a siding ready to run around to the front to make up the next train.
To run around it travelled up Platform 1.
It then had to travel a decent distance up the track to the nearest set of points to rejoin its coaches on Platform 2.
I also tried to get a shot through the cab window, although I might have been a bit far away – although I do like that we can see the surround of the window.
Soon someone was checking the connection to its coaches.
Soon the crew were loading back up.
I like to make sure I get shots of the volunteers whenever I can, which is why I like this last shot of a couple of young volunteers on Platform 1 whilst D4106 waits on Platform 2.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to hang around long enough for this train to set off, as I had to leave before it was due to depart. I still managed to see most of the locomotives I came to see, but unfortunately circumstances were not in my favour this time and I was only able to see each of them once.
I’ll be back to the Bluebell Railway in a month for Giants of Steam, hopefully taking all that I’ve learned over the last six months or so to take some decent photographs of visiting locomotive 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, something I’ve been working towards since I found out about the visit back around Easter time.
As with my last visit, I took more photos than I’ve included in the post above, so the full set is in the gallery below.
