Just Flight & Just Trains blogs

25th Oct, 2009

What a Cress line!

Eh? The title? - Apologies, it’s a ‘take’ on the name “The Watercress line” also known as the Mid-Hants Railway which is located near Alton just north of Southampton in the south of England. So why have I corrupted the name? Well I and some colleagues paid a visit to the line on Friday 12th September (2009) and it was a great day as in “what a day!” (sorry if that’s over complicated!).

It was a day of several ‘firsts’ for me some of them being; First time to visit the Watercress, first time to see any of the 7 (yes 7!) locos in steam and running v/s static examples, first time I had been pulled by a ‘double header’, but ’Star of the day’ for me was seeing and being pulled by A4 ‘Bittern’ a fantastic locomotive. My last encounter with an A4 was with the world famous world steam locomotive speed record holder ‘Mallard’ up at the NRM (National Rail Museum) in York in the north of England when I made a visit back in 2003 (I think..) to take a set of cab pictures to be used in the then Trainz product that we were publishing. Auran had created a Mallard as the feature loco in our UK release of Trainz but they had used some other locos cab! Argh! - no good for us, so we spoke with the NRM and they kindly allowed me to go to the museum and take as many pictures as I wanted - very helpful of them. I was on the footplate merrily clicking away when a mother and child appeared at the side of the cab - there was a sharp intake of breath from the woman! ‘I thought you were a ghost’ she said as she looked in. ‘I did not expect to see anybody there!’ I assured her that despite appearances I was in fact alive!

The Mid-Hants were holding one of their steam galas and for an entrance fee of £18.00 you could chuff up and down the line all day as much as you wanted to or just stay on the platforms and watch the action. I had not been to a Steam Gala before and was sort of surprised by how well it was attended (although the weather was really nice for it) and by the numbers of photographers looking for that ’star photo’ in the fields beside the 10 miles of track. At the Alton end the line meets up with the modern day Southwest trains section and their modern stock was seen alongside the rather older but distinctly more interesting steam stock.

Sitting with my colleagues on the platform at Alton awaiting our return journey to Ropley station being pulled by the double header I reflected on the age of steam pulled railways and of course not surprised why they were superseded by diesel and and electric traction. Steam is just so labour intensive and inefficient v/s the modern traction. More manpower and time required to get the same results. With steam you need to prepare the engine hours in advance of the driving but with diesel and electric you just turn up and turn on. Now don’t get me wrong I love steam engines with a passion but as a modern everyday hauler they really have had their time unfortunately. Efficiency - now to be honest I don’t know which is in technical terms if steam, diesel or electric is more efficient but watching the boiler pressure release valves noisily blow off (vent) lots steam just seemed very wasteful to me. All that work and effort expended by the footplate crew to create steam and a pile of it is being thrown away - how times have changed! I did learn something that day was that each engine firebox was/could be fired in a different way to get the most out of it, it’s not just a case of shovelling coal in the hole in the front of the firebox (that I in my ignorance thought) but that several areas of the firebox has to be supplied (left and right near firebox corners as an example) with the correct amount of coal to get the best out of it - skilled and knowledgeable stuff indeed! Coincidentally enough last night I saw a old BR Promo film called The Elizabethan Express filmed in 1954 and it featured an A4 called Silver Fox on its journey from Kings Cross to Edinburgh and had detailed filming of the footplate crew and it was interesting to watch the fireman open the firebox door and look around the firebox to see how each area of the fire was burning and adding coal as required and not just shovelling it in the middle as such.

So why were we visiting some may ask? Well you should know me a bit by now ;-) I don’t give much away but here are a selection of pictures from the day - enjoy!