Rain , Wind, and Steam

3rd March 2019

Many heritage railway places are closed at this time of year but a chance mention on Twitter alerted me to a special out-of-season open day at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre near Aylesbury. For some reason I'd never visited this place despite it being only an hour and a quarter away. I'm quite surprised that we didn't go there with the school railway club, which was even closer. So with nothing else planned why not?

The reason for the special open day was to launch the newly restored Wightwick Hall locomotive back into service. (GWR, 4-6-0, No. 6989 if that sort of thing is important to you.)

They've spent more than forty years rebuilding this machine, which is incredible. That means I was still at school when they started. That's commitment.

At least the sun could have come out for the event. But unlike last weekend February had returned, wet and windy. Ideal for making pictures of trains but only if your name is JMW Turner. For those of us working in bits and bytes rather than oil on canvas it was a bit more challenging trying to keep the water out of the electronics.

The Railway Centre covers quite an area. Based around the disused Quainton Road Station built by the Great Central Railway and the Metropolitan Railway which ceased to see passenger services in 1963. It was also the junction with the excellently named Brill Tramway until 1935. The main entrance is in the building transplanted here from Rewley Road Station where there's a cafe and gift shop as well as the ticket counter. Admission was £14 Adult, £13 senior, and £10 child as this was a special event. It's slightly less on normal days.

Mildly depressing (apart from the weather) was being asked "adult or senior" when I bought my ticket. Cheeky bugger was almost certainly older than me as well 😄.

As were many of the visitors, especially the Men-Who-like-Trains™ although there were quite a few families out too.

No Thomas the Tank Engine, thankfully.

You could spend a few pleasant hours exploring this place which has a large collection of locomotives and rolling stock and several tons of bits and pieces dotted about the site, many with information boards adjacent. There's also two restoration sheds and a museum shed with more formal displays including a good collection of signs.

A return visit will have to be planned.

Today they had two trains running, the star of the show Wightwick Hall pulling a couple of carriages up and down about half a mile of track - it's a shame they didn't have access to the single freight line that still runs through the site - and a small Bagnall 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive doing similar with an open ended brake van. It wasn't the weather for standing in an open brake van but I did ride on the Wightwick Hall hauled special. Standing room only which limited opportunities for photography.

I did manage to get some photos though which are in this Flickr Album.

And this atmospheric video with the atmosphere mostly moving sideways 😀