Our final post from the Bluebell Railway, again looks at the ‘big’ trains, and my two favourite locomotives from our visit.

Firstly, I was delighted to see the Southern Railway ‘Q’ 0-6-0 in steam and even better, it hauled us both ways between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes.  Designed by Maunsell in the late 1930’s, it was a slightly dated, but absolutely typical, freight and mixed-traffic 0-6-0 design.  All British Railways had similar locomotives from the early years of the century.

I’m a fan of the Q, as I had an ‘OO’ version, built from a Wills Finecast kit when I was a teenager.  Like the Bluebell, it appeared both in Southern green and in British Railways black.  It’s a very neat locomotive, and I’m wondering how easy it would be to convert the Farish LMS 4F to a Q.  My ‘OO’ version ran on a Triang ‘Jinty’ chassis, that has the same wheelbase as the 4F.  In fact, I wonder why no-one made a kit to do just that.

So, unashamedly here are most of my photos from the weekend, showing the engine from all angles, and hoping they might inspire a model or two.

The second highlight was a visit to the ‘Atlantic Shed’, where a team of enthusiasts are building a Marsh Atlantic from scratch.  We have seen the results of this with ‘Tornado’ heading main line specials, but it seems a little odd to start building a scrapped locomotive again – and there are a number of projects in progress.

But the Atlantic could be something special!  It’s take 10 years to get to the state below, with the frames, wheels, motion and footplate complete, and the cab in part.  The boiler is also in the shed, ‘borrowed’ from another loco, I think.

And here are two shots of ‘Beachy Head’ in British Railways days, the second one taken on the Bluebell before it’s original closure.

And here’s 20 minutes of the whole weekend, prototype and model, that appeared on YouTube.  ESNG appears, briefly, at around the 19 minute mark.