A Trip to the Dorset Seaside

Monday 20th July

I had a brief trip to the seaside in Dorset before all the schools broke up for summer and for a visit to the Swanage Railway. I stayed in Bournemouth which meant I could travel by train - Swanage is no longer connected to the national rail network - rather than sit in traffic heading for the coast. Most of the journey would be on a CrossCountry Voyager so I treated myself to a 1st Class ticket, Standard Class on those trains is hellish, livestock would get better conditions. At Reading I settled into a single seat at a table and just before departure was joined in the seat opposite by a guy who appeared to have been on “a very good weekend in London”. When the ticket inspector arrived he took ages to locate his ticket, emptying his entire wallet including a big wad of cash onto the table before having it pointed out that he was sitting in 1st Class with only a standard class ticket. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed” No, because the seats and doors with ‘First Class’ clearly written on them aren’t a clue, are they? The chancer was dispatched into the next coach and I got the full legroom back. After a nice complementary on-train lunch we arrived on time in sunny Bournemouth.

I had 45 minutes before I could check into my hotel room so walked the long way around via the East Overcliff before turning inland to Bournemouth’s “hotel land” to find the Langtry Manor Hotel.

Built as The Red House in 1877 Edward Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) provided the house for his mistress, socialite and actress Lillie Langtry. Prince Edward was, as the plaque on the wall outside states, “A Frequent Visitor”. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

I had a nice room, furnished in period style with a four poster bed and a large free-standing bath of the kind with sides so high as to provide a challenge to getting in and out. It also had a balcony with a chair and table on it overlooking the garden. This was accessed via three steps out of a window with a sign reading “Mind your head and the steps” above it. I looked at the mis-aligned unsupported ends of the balcony deck boards and decided I didn’t need to sit on a balcony :-)

Once the heat of the day had started to abate I headed into Bournemouth town centre for something to eat. It’s very “student orientated”, at least the end through which I walked. Also it has either gained a large South Asian population since I was last here (a long time ago and I was here for work) or it has become a favoured destination for such holidaymakers.

Having eaten I headed to Bournemouth Pier and then walked along the prom all the way to Boscombe Pier. It’s an even longer time since I’ve been to Boscombe. I finished my walk along the prom with a pint of cider in the Harvester overlooking the pier because there appears to be a dearth of proper pubs in Bournemouth, especially the Boscombe end. the sun was setting as I walked up through Boscombe Chine and back to Langtry Manor.

Tuesday 21st July

Next morning I was up, washed and ready by eight o’clock for breakfast, served (by the lovely Anna) in the Derby Manor Hotel a short walk across the road. I’ve walked further to the hotel restaurant when it’s been in the same building. Of course it was a nice sunny morning, if it was pissing down with rain it would be less ideal.

Off to the Swanage Railway.

This would involve a bus. I walked to the bus station to catch the Route 50 Purbeck Breezer, operated by an open-topped double-decker. I could have caught it a little closer at its first stop but going to the bus station proved to be the right choice - it was a very full bus that left the bus station, definitely no room for any more up top. It takes the bus about an hour and ten minutes to get to Swanage Station via Sandbanks and Studland, which means you have the novelty of being on an open-topped bus on the chain ferry. The £3 bus fare seems like a particular bargain since the ferry alone would be £1.18 as a foot passenger.

Swanage Beach was very busy as we passed, arriving at Swanage Station in good time to buy a ticket (Adult day ticket £27.50) and await the 1200 departure to Norden at the other end of the line, beyond Corfe Castle. This was operated by an Ex-South West Trains BR class 121 ‘Bubble Car’ No W55028 with two units from a Class 117 Diesel Multiple Unit to make up a three coach train. Unusually for a heritage railway the services appear on Real Time Trains so you can see it left 2 minutes late but made up 1 minute by the time it reached Norden. To my great surprise though by no means empty it was not a very busy train, nor were any of the other trains that day which made for a very pleasant day out.

The Swanage Railway at five and a half miles in length is long enough to feel like a proper train journey and runs a frequent enough timetable that you really can hop on and off at the intermediate stations and feel like you’ve got your money’s worth. From Norden I caught the 1320 to Corfe Castle, hauled by resident steam locomotive SR 2-6-0 - U Class No. 31806. Built in Brighton and a long way from its original working patches of Nine Elms, Basingstoke, and Guildford. It would be fair to say that it isn’t working as hard on the Swanage line. At 1405 having made good use of the Corfe Castle station cafe I took the diesel train to Harmans Cross, a peaceful rural station which happens to be where trains pass each other on the mostly single track line. So every so often there’s a burst of activity although few people seemed to alight. A German couple appeared from who-knows-where and since the ticket office wasn’t open had to buy tickets online. They must have been on a different mobile network to me, Three UK doesn’t acknowledge the existence of that part of rural Dorset.

At 1453 No.31806 took me back to Swanage where it was bloody hot. The Co-op next to the station provided ice cream and a cold drink before I went for a last round trip, catching the 1600 diesel to Norden, sitting in the “Bubble Car” along with a family, all three generations of which were equally excitable and noisy. The busy train emptied out at Norden, most of the passengers making a one-way trip back to the station car park. The handful of us going back to Swanage at 1640 were all in the “Bubble Car”, the other two units having been locked while it was standing in the platform at Norden. Even so it was a quiet run back.

I enjoyed the Swanage Railway. There’s a video too (on PeerTube). 

And a shorter video (on YouTube) as the full one might take a while to load. 

I went for a stroll along the seafront and then to the White Swan for beer (Purbeck Brewery Operation S.M.A.S.H. 4.2%, very nice) and dinner (liver & bacon with gravy and mashed spuds, food of the gods). The next bus back to Bournemouth wasn’t until five past seven so obviously I had another pint before walking back to the station. No trouble obtaining a seat on the open top deck, shame about the group of teenage tossers who also boarded, who carried on the argument with the woman they’d upset before getting on board, throwing insults and misogynist comments over the rail at the back of the bus. By the time we reached Studland the temperature had dropped a bit and once across the ferry it was breezy enough that I was glad I’d put a long sleeved top in my bag that morning.

It had been a long day. By the time I’d walked back to my hotel I was ready for bed but first copied the photos and video clips to my laptop. I backed up my photos to my Synology NAS at home too - by tethering my phone to the laptop because the hotel Wi-Fi was woeful. Then I slept like the proverbial log.

Wednesday 22nd July

I had no particular plan for today but over breakfast decided to visit Weymouth. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Weymouth though we might have driven through back in the 90s and failed to find anywhere to park the campervan. I could have gone by bus or train. Train would be quicker. Walked to the station, bought a ticket, discovered that the train before the one I’d intended to catch was running so late that I caught that and was still later arriving than if I’d been on the one I’d gone for. SWR have already paid out the Delay Repay. Weymouth was hot and busy. I stopped at a cafe in town because there were seats in the shade outside. Walked across the bridge over the Wey into the old town and all the way to the point below Nothe Fort.

I returned to the old town, near the former brewery. Mmm, brewery. Warm isn’t it? Important to stay hydrated and there are some tables outside The Red Lion which are shaded by trees. It would’ve been rude not to. (Otter Brewery Lifeboat Ale, 3.6%, very good)

Weymouth centre was filling up with the sort of people who think a narrow street is the ideal place to all stop and gather round to have a long discussion. I returned to the station and caught a train to Poole. I’ve only ever been to Poole for a brief work visit so decided to stop and take a look around while I was “passing”. I walked down the high street to the quayside, losing count of the number of vape shops, barbers, charity shops, and nail bars. So far just like any other high street then. The Quay was much nicer. Busy with boats going to and from Poole Harbour past the very expensive toys in the Sunseeker boatyard opposite.

I walked along the Quay to the old Lifeboat Station by the boat haven and back to the Baden-Powell memorial, surrounded by Scouts just back from Brownsea Island for a commemorative photo. I considered a boat trip to Brownsea Island myself but there was only one more round trip which meant no time on the island itself. That will have to wait until another time.

I found a seat in a shelter out of the sun. The Scouts were still milling about in a disorganised fashion. “Could you all quieten down and gather around?”, said the Scoutmaster, to no obvious effect. What happened to “Shut up you ’orrible lot and fall in by Patrols!”? It worked on us. Do they even still have Patrols? It’s been forty-odd years since I was involved in The Scouts.

There are some nice pubs on Poole Quay, it had been a long time since breakfast so I went to The Portsmouth Hoy where I had Haddock & Chips washed down by a pint of Fursty Ferret (3.4%, very good). Always impressive when you get two pieces of haddock. Crispiest batter ever too.

Back to the station and to Bournemouth. It had been another long day, which called for a soak in that bathtub. After which I couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere else.

Thursday 23rd July

One last full English breakfast then packed and at the station in good time to catch the 1045 to Reading. Which trundled so slowly along that it arrived 17 minutes late, at exactly the time my connecting train departed. Oh good, another hour sitting at Reading Station. Delay Repay claim submitted to CrossCountry, four days later it’s still “In Progress”. What’s the betting they try to wriggle?

Great Dorset Steam Fair 2022

I went to the Great Dorset Steam Fair for the first time in a few years.

Here's some of what I saw

It's really to big do do it all in a day trip, one year I'll stay over again.

I did take some photos too, in this Flickr Album 

Engines and ironwork, Crossness.

20th October 2019

I took a drive around the M25 to Bexley on Sunday, not the nicest road trip but rail replacement buses made going by train a bit impractical on this occasion, to visit the Victorian sewage pumping station at Crossness on the banks of the River Thames.

 The Crossness Pumping Station is a former sewage pumping station designed by the Metropolitan Board of Works's chief engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer.

It was built between 1859 and 1865 by William Webster, as part of Bazalgette's redevelopment of the London sewerage system, it features spectacular ornamental cast ironwork, and still contains four large beam engines. one of these has been restored to working condition. On Sunday this engine, named Prince Consort, was in steam. Interestingly the reason the four engines are still there is because the cost of dismantling them when they were no longer required in the 1950s was considered too high. Which was lucky for us six decades later.

 If you want to know the history of the works I suggest having a read of the Wikipedia Article which gives far more detail than I have space for here, however since 1987 the Crossness Engines Trust, a registered charity, has been overseeing the restoration of the site. They have a huge job on their hands frankly.

What was the boiler house now contains a museum with displays of information about the subject of London's sewage problems and solutions. Also quite a lot of "toilet exhibits". And a cafe and gift shop obviously, which always helps when trying to restore what is really a huge money pit!

Surrounded by toilets it took me a minute to spot the signs for the actual conveniences, which are tucked away behind the cafe and rather disappointingly modern 🙂

Off the boiler house is the engine hall. This is a mandatory hard-hat area and volunteers are on hand to issue suitably sized titfers to visitors. (It was nice to see that they were cleaning and sanitizing them when they were handed back before reissue too.)
The engine hall is where the real action takes place. Nikolaus Pevsner described Crossness Pumping Station as "a masterpiece of engineering – a Victorian cathedral of ironwork".

He wasn't wrong. As well as getting Prince Consort running a lot of work has gone into restoring the decorative ironwork. The Victorians didn't do plain and functional engineering. A nice humourous touch is that the capitals of the iron columns are decorated with fruit and leaves - figs and senna plants 😀

Even had the space not been busy with hard-hatted visitors and volunteers the scale of the steam engines (strictly speaking, steam pumps) means that it's impossible to adequately photograph them. From basement to upper deck they're three-storey behemoths of 19th century engineering. And yet when Prince Consort is running it's actually quieter than the crowd watching it.

Outside the main building there are machine workshops and in the former Valve House a collection of smaller engines and pumps, some of which were also running albeit on compressed air as the works now only has a small boiler producing enough steam to run Prince Consort.

Once you've visited that you can take a scenic (depending on your definition of scenic) walk along the Thames Path. I wandered down as far as the pier that was used to bring in coal for the boilers and later to take away sludge for disposal at sea before that was outlawed in 1998. Oh and there's also the RANG Railway.

For a flavour of visiting Crossness watch:

And there are more photos too:

Tram, train, rain, tram.

Friday 6th September 2019

Manchester's Metrolink Tram system extends far beyond the city to the surrounding suburbs and nearby towns.

Such as Bury, 8 miles north-west of Manchester on the River Irwell and famous for black pudding and as the birthplace of Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Metropolitan Police and the Conservative Party. One of which facts probably makes him a hate figure, you can decide for yourself which.

The Metrolink trams are not low-floor vehicles, surprisingly since they run through the streets, and so require stops that are more like railway stations with quite high platforms. unlike the trams in Croydon where the platform is little more than a raised height kerb.

Handily for the visitor the system allows contactless payment with daily caps, almost like London's Oyster except that you need to touch in and touch out again at the end of your journey. Failure to touch out will result in a £4.60 incomplete journey charge. Failure to touch in will get you a stonking £30 "standard contactless fare". Since I can't see any journey that would cost that much why don't they just be honest and call it a penalty charge? Either way, don't forget to touch in and out. So I touched in using G-pay at St. Peter's Square and hopped on a "green line" service to Bury. The trams run for part of the way over what was the East Lancashire Railway line and there are some far reaching views of Lancashire along the way. The line terminates in the town centre at Bury Interchange. 

The original East Lancashire Railway however terminated at Bury Bolton Street station, about 5 minutes walk from Bury Interchange and the current East Lancashire Railway is still there.

The street level building dates from 1952, the previous one having burnt down after the war. The rest of the station and platforms are below in a deep cutting.

There was about an hour to wait before the next departure to Rawtenstall so I walked across Bolton Street and down the slope to the Bury Transport Museum which is connected with the heritage railway and housed in a former Castlecroft Goods Warehouse. Entry is free although as with any free museum they are donation-hungry. Chuck a few quid in if you can.

It's not a huge museum but they have managed to pack quite a lot in there. They have a wide selection of vehicles including buses, lorries, tractors, vans, cars, and even a steam roller.

There's plenty of hands-on stuff for children to play with too, though as it was Friday there weren't any, at least while I was there. I expect it's different at the weekend.

It certainly kept me interested until it was time to wander back to the railway station, purchase a return ticket to Rawtenstall (£12.50) from the traditional ticket office window and go down to the platform and await the 1455 departure.

It was a pleasant trip despite the weather coming over all "northern" and I made this video which covers the trip there and back.

Having returned to Bury it was Friday evening commuter time. It was also time for something to eat. Bury isn't short of fast food outlets which provided amply for that requirement.

I singularly failed to get any black pudding but I had nowhere to keep it until I went home anyway.

So I touched in at Bury Interchange and rode a somewhat busier tram back to Manchester city centre and walked back to my hotel.

Considering I'd forgotten that the steam railway was there until I actually got to Bury I consider that was a good afternoon all round.

Victorian Steam Pump (A Big Machine for Shifting Sh*t)

22nd April 2019 - Easter Monday

In a corner of a park in South Tottenham, next to the River Lea, is a survivor from the era of grand nineteenth century engineering. The Markfield Beam Engine is a rotary beam engine believed to be the last engine produced by Wood Bros. of Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire. From 12th July 1888.  It saw continuous duty until around 1905, when it was relegated to standby duty for storm water pumping.

Rated at one-hundred horsepower the engine drives two pumps, of the plunger type each capable of moving two million gallons-per-day.

That's an awful lot of sewerage, to put it politely.

The engine house and engine is all that remains of the former sewerage treatment works built by the pioneering Tottenham Local Health Board in 1852 and expanded in 1888 after the original had fallen into disrepair - resulting in Tottenham once again discharging its waste into the River Lea, to the detriment of Londoners downstream.

An increasing population required increased pumping capacity. ‘New Extension Works’ were opened in 1905 including three new additional sets of steam-driven pumps in another new engine house. The 1888 engine then became a standby pump for storm water.

The engine is impressive in size - the beam 21 feet long and 17 feet above the floor, the flywheel 27 feet in diameter and weighing 17 tons.

It's big scale engineering and being Victorian it's big on decoration too. Doric columns and Acanthus leaves abound.

The rest of the works were demolished after it became redundant in 1964, the works at Edmonton having supplanted it, leaving only the 1888 engine in its house.

It was then bricked up until the 1980s when a trust took it on but didn't have the resources to restore it. 

In 2007 Haringey Council regenerated Markfield Park and restored the Grade 2 listed Engine Hall. The Trust restored the beam engine to full working order in 2008 and the Markfield Beam Engine and Museum opened.

Since the original boiler house and coal fired boiler is gone steam is now supplied by a gas-fired boiler in a new boiler house to the rear of the building.

Entry is free but they really welcome donations - every time they steam the engine cost £500. On this sunny Bank Holiday Monday (which are of course rarer than working steam pumps) it was very popular and the engine was run three times for around 40 minutes each time.

There's a very handy cafe next to the engine house too which was doing good trade with many families partaking of chips, tea, and ice cream. They do a nice cappuccino.

Photos cannot do the engine justice so here's the video I shot on the day.

More information and history on the Markfield Beam Engine & Museum web site.

After visiting the museum I took a pleasant walk south along the adjacent River Lea towpath, busy with afternoon strolling Hasidim, many sporting large shtreimels which looked like an unsuitable choice for the warm weather.

At the Lea Bridge Road I hopped onto the threatened 48 bus to London Bridge for a bit of a rest and a chance to recharge my phone which having been used to record the above footage was getting a bit low on juice. Having crossed the Thames I had an early evening pint in the Mudlark in Southwark before heading for the Jubilee and Piccadilly lines and home.

More photos as usual in this Flickr Album

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 😀

South Devon Railways

3rd September to 7th September 

Went to Torquay for a week, stayed at Atlantis Holiday Apartments which was good and very handy for the railway station - I decided to leave the car at home - albeit uphill. South Devon was busier than I expected for September, lots of "SAGA Louts" 😀

Anyway, I seem to have spent some time riding on the heritage railway lines in the area and here's some video evidence:

Epping & Ongar Railway 12th August 2018

New video. Trains, Buses, and Traction Engines.

Experimentally shooting with my Panasonic bridge camera rather than mobile phone. Except for one clip - see if you can tell which 🙂