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Foxfield Railway Summer Steam Gala 21st & 22nd July 2018


avonside1563
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The annual Foxfield Railway Summer Steam Gala will be over the 21st and 22nd July this year. As usual it features an intensive passenger service betwenn Caverswall Road and Dilhorne Park and demonstration coal trains on the notorious 1 in 19 (average 1 in 25 for 2/3 mile) of Foxfield Bank.

 

This gala will be the last appearance of Bellerophon in steam as she is at the end of her 10 year boiler ticket and will be withdrawn from traffic following the gala weekend.

 

Locomotives confirmed for this year include:

 

Hunslet 0-6-0ST Wimblebury - in the last stages of a repaint in NCB livery following axlebox repairs.

Hunslet 0-6-0ST Whiston

Haydock Foundary 0-6-0WT Bellerophon

Dubs 0-4-0CT 4101

 

Guest engine, Hunslet 0-6-0ST Brookes No.1 - courtesy of the Middleton Railway.

 

Beyer Peacock 0-4-0ST 1827 may appear if repairs to the tank and motion are completed in time.

 

A free bus service will run between Caverswall Road and Foxfield colliery for those who prefer not to walk from the summit down Foxfield bank (particularly if it has been a wet few days before hand)

 

If you have never seen Bellerophon doing battle with Foxfield Bank I can guarantee you it is an experience not to be missed, so make a note in your diary, this will be your last chance for some time!!!

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  • 4 weeks later...

A brief update on the gala in just over a weeks time. The Beyer Peacock will not be participating as repairs to motion and the tank have taken longer than anoticipated and will not be completed in time. At present we anticipate the normal gala timetable but there will also be a water bowser train stationed at Dilhorne Park in case of fires. Brookes No.1 is due to arrive next week.

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Despite the ongoing dry weather we are still running the gala as planned, however we have had to make a couple of alterations to the original plans due to staffing levels and the need to mitigate fire risks. Therefore the Knotty coaches will not be in service this weekend and the fire response train will be operating as required.

 

Other than that Brookes No.1 has arrived and will have its FTR and acceptance trials tomorrow ready for Saturday morning. Timetables will be available on the day but first passenger train leaves Caverswall Road at 10am and the last at 4pm, the first freight from Foxfield Colliery is 9.50am.

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Have missed the last two Foxfield Summer Galas as they've clashed with our usual week on the Talyllyn. However, was able to make it this year. Intended just going over there this morning and ended up staying all day!

 

Was great to see Brookes No 1 visiting, hopefully a 7mm version of the Judith Edge kit for the Hunslet 14" tank will appear one day... There is an album of photos on my Flickr page here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pandaonetwofive/albums/72157671468700888

 

However, this was my favourite from the day.

 

41767770610_9ed7dfba18_z.jpgBrookes No 1 by Andrew Young, on Flickr

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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Have missed the last two Foxfield Summer Galas as they've clashed with our usual week on the Talyllyn. However, was able to make it this year. Intended just going over there this morning and ended up staying all day!

 

Was great to see Brookes No 1 visiting, hopefully a 7mm version of the Judith Edge kit for the Hunslet 14" tank will appear one day... There is an album of photos on my Flickr page here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pandaonetwofive/albums/72157671468700888

 

However, this was my favourite from the day.

 

41767770610_9ed7dfba18_z.jpgBrookes No 1 by Andrew Young, on Flickr

 

Cheers,

Andrew

 

Nice selection of pictures on your Flicker link.

 

Gordon A

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Thanks to all who attended, we managed to avoid too many fires and the few that did appear were quickly dealt with. There were a few other small problems over the weekend, one of which was Brookes had decided to blow her valve chest cover joint which was spotted on Saturday morning half an hour before she was due off shed so she missed her first trip up Foxfield bank. Some hot work saw the cover removed and a new joint made and fitted in time for her to pick up her timetabled slot part way through the morning.

 

Thanks to all who attended and I hope the fact we weren't able to put on quite as much as normal didn't detract from peoples enjoyment. Hopefully we will have had some rain before the Autumn gala and it will be back to normal.

 

On a related note, we also launched the restoration of Ackton Hall No.3, if anyone wants to keep up with how that is progressing or help to assist in anyway here's the leaflet we published for the gala.

 

post-8705-0-19223900-1532423762_thumb.jpg

 

post-8705-0-58087800-1532423770_thumb.jpg

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