Steam Trains on the Mainline

Most of the December rail tours – and indeed most of the rail tours during the rest of the year too – tend to operate north of London, and slightly less commonly to the south west. It is not the often that these tours come to my part of the world here in Sussex, probably at least in part because there’s not far south to go before you run out of country. So it presented an unusual opportunity to photograph some steam trains in a slightly different environment when, earlier this month, we had two such excursions in the space of a week.

The first was ridiculously early on a Monday morning. Originally this train had been scheduled to come through after I’d left for work, and then some time in the weeks leading up to it, the schedule changed and it was due at 6.10am, necessitating me getting up at 4.45am in order to get to the station in good time. Because I still had to go to work, I was limited in where I could go to take any pictures, but besides that it was still pitch black at that time in the morning, so taking photographs at a station meant that there would actually be some light illuminating the train.

The train was a little delayed so there was a bit of waiting around before, eventually, you could hear the chuffing of a steam engine on the breeze and 34046 Braunton emerged from the darkness.

The train was scheduled to stop at this station, so it wasn’t travelling particularly quickly and soon came to a stop. Luckily the locomotive was still alongside the platform when it stopped – I was worried it might stop a bit further ahead, and disappear into the darkness.

With the engine stopped I could grab a few shots whilst it waited, alongside a few bemused commuters who clearly had no idea it would be there. Being so dark you could see the crew illuminated by the fire.

As you can see, the light was such that I was still needing to pull out some pretty high ISOs to get the shot. It’s certainly much easier photographing steam trains on a sunny autumn morning, but then you don’t get some more unusual views, such as the orange glow of the locomotive’s firebox.

I only had limited time. Before long a modern train came onto the platform I was standing on, blocking my view. Braunton then departed off in the other direction, bound for Bath. I was able to get some iffy shots of it disappearing into the blackness (which I’ve included in the gallery below), before I hopped into the train that was blocking my view and went to work.

A few days later, another service was running a similar route. This time it was on a Saturday, and the train was due to come by at a slightly more reasonable hour of just after 8am. This time I had the freedom to go where I felt appropriate rather than being tied to a station. The sun would have just risen at that time, so there would be a bit more light around. Originally, I’d planned to go much further afield, and head to the railway bridge across the River Adur. It would have made for an interesting shot, and would give me a bit more time as the service would not be due there until around 9am. I even got as far as visiting there a few weeks previously to scope it out. In the end, however, the weather was forecast to be dull and grey, and I didn’t think the journey would be worth it. Instead, I planned to position myself with my telephoto lens on one of the bridges crossing the railway closer to me. With a telephoto I was hoping I’d be able to fire off quite a few shots as the train approached. I knew I’d been to one of those bridges before, so I pulled up a photo I’d taken to see what the angle would be like, and liked what I saw.

This would turn out to be a mistake. Turns out, the shot I was using for reference was a blind shot from a phone held over my head, in order to shoot over the almost 7-foot tall bridge wall. There was no way I’d be able to properly aim a 500mm telephoto lens in that situation. Clearly I would have to come up with another plan, and I had precious little time left before the train was due. Luckily there was a path running through the nearby wood that ran alongside the railway. I briefly stopped partway through the wood in a relatively open area which I thought might work, but after a quick test shot of a standard commuter train I decided it wasn’t right. Although I knew there was another footbridge over the railway further on, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to make it in time, but I decided it was worth trying for.

I made it with minutes to spare. This time there were a few people waiting for the train, 35028 Clan Line, to come by. Unfortunately this spot had a relatively thick grate in the way of the view, so although I was able to get some decent shots, there is some banding visible as a result. Other than that, though, I pretty much got the shots I was after.

Due to my time constraints I ended up shooting with my standard zoom lens instead of my telephoto. Perhaps if I’d used the telephoto the banding wouldn’t be quite so pronounced.

One of the joys of seeing steam trains on the Other Railway is that they can stretch their legs. On heritage lines such as the Bluebell Railway, they are limited to 25mph. On the mainline they can go at 75mph, and it’s really cool to see videos online of them going at full chat. At this spot Clan Line hadn’t gotten up to those speeds, but it looked to at least be going faster than 25mph.

Because the sun had only just risen, I was able to get a bit of the best of both worlds: enough light to see the locomotive, but enough darkness that you could still see the lights on the front of the train and the orange glow in the driver’s cab from the fire.

The glow in the cab was a little bit more obvious once some of the train had already gone by.

As the train came out the other side of the bridge I tried to grab a shot, but the autofocus was insistent on focussing on the grate so I nearly missed the shot. It ended up not being very sharp at all.

And just like that, Clan Line was gone. Unlike on a heritage railway where another steam train would likely be along within an hour, there are few second chances with steam trains on the mainline.

Since these trains came through I have done my research and have jotted down a few dates next year when more steam locomotives will be coming near me on the mainline, so we’ll see how those go. Some of them are in spring and summer when hopefully the light and weather will be a little bit nicer. Until then, I will be back to the Bluebell Railway for my steam train fix.

As I often do for shots of things going by quickly, below is a gallery containing more shots than the ones in the post above.