Mid-Hants spring gala shows the way ahead
THE Mid-Hants Railway's spring steam gala was not only one of the first special events of the year on any heritage line, but the first since the pandemic to not require seat allocations.
Numbers were controlled by restricting the amount of tickets sold to significantly below the seating capacity on the train sets being used; three five-coach trains and a twocoach shuttle set.
It seems that this freedom-to-roam strategy worked. During my visit on the Saturday, every train seen or travelled on had plenty of spare seats. The staff were very diligent with cleaning, and all coaches had full barriers behind each block of seats.
Locomotives from the home fleet were Schools 4-4-0 No. 30925 Cheltenham, BR Standard 4MT 2-6-0 No. 76017, S15 4-6-0 No. 506, and Ivatt 2MT 2-6-2T No. 41312.
Visiting engines were GWR small prairie No. 5526 from the South Devon Railway and pannier tank No. 4612 from the Bodmin & Wenford Railway. No. 4612 was a substitute for Bodmin pannier No. 6435, which was failed on arrival and quickly returned home. The Ivatt tank was mostly engaged in shunting at Ropley and the pannier on a shuttle which ran every 90 minutes between Alresford and Ropley.
The other locomotives alternated on the full line trains, being changed every round trip at Alresford, so if anybody wanted to experience being hauled by each loco in turn they simply needed to stay in the same seat all day.
Operation
It was a robust timetable, which helped to minimise train hopping. Operating on the Saturday was very good, with locomotives being changed over as required using No. 41312 at Ropley, which was engaged in shunting in between ‘thunderbird' duties. It covered for No. 30925 (lubrication issues – it returned to its booked turn later) and No. 5526 (clinkered fire).
The moves at Ropley return
No. 30925 to its booked train and to take No. 5526 off, leaving No. 41312 to carry on, were very well thoughtout and executed with the minimum of delay. No. 5526 had stopped for a blow-up on the bank out of Alton on the 1.15pm from Alton, but carried on gamely to get over the summit at 7mph.
I knew it was in trouble as I watched the crew trying to clean the fire at Medstead after a reasonable climb from Ropley, although speed fell from 25mph to 20mph on the 1-in-60 before we stopped.
Perhaps the crews were unused to the narrow firebox and limited footplate space of this little engine, but from what I saw at Medstead, the driver knew exactly what was needed. Once a fire gets to a certain stage, however, it is often beyond recall. I have seen this happen on Bulleid Pacifics, even with good firemen.
All in all, it was a very good day after all the problems leading up to the gala; mainly due to the website being rebuilt, thus limiting the amount of information available. Let's hope other heritage lines follow the example of how to do it, with Covid-19 still around.
Attendance was good, including quite a few families, so here's hoping the Watercress Line has made some money as well as setting a trend for the safe operation of future galas.