Bluebell Railway

[Gafferbill]

The Flying Scotsman visits the Bluebell Railway......had a lovely Good Friday 4.5 mile walk in the Sussex countryside near where I live with a planned photo shoot of this national icon 🙂

 

[Jaydug]

Hello Bill - That's an interesting picture. When we first married (what a long time ago that was!) Sheila was always persuading me to take her to visit the Bluebell Line. It brought back memories for her as a little girl visiting her granddad who was the Station Master at Sheffield Park. His house was at the end of the platform.

 

[Gafferbill]

Hello John.......that's a nice memory to have.
I took the picture in a fairly remote part of the railway line only accessible by footpath or farm track.
I was amazed that about 40 people had had the same idea all wanting to take a photo or catch a glimpse.
I kept away from the stations as I knew there would be crowds there and they were charging £10 for a platform ticket!
The Bluebell Line is busier than ever since it is now connected to the national network at East Grinstead.

 

[reefside35]

Nice picture!

 

[Gafferbill]

Thanks. ......picture taken with my Samsung S4 phone that my daughter in law cast off as obselete!

 

[Montrose]

Hope you all enjoy it (Flying Scotsman)
It took nearly 6 million pounds ( of your - ie Public money) to restore.
The bill going higher and higher each time more and more faults were found by those - publicly funded engineers at the NRM at York.
Meanwhile....
Enthusiasts completed a new build ( ie built from scratch) Pacific Loco.
Oh.. their bill - well it was just 4 and half million pounds.i
That concentrates the mind somewhat, Eh ?
So enjoy it, the NRM wont be spending any more money on it again - ever !

 

[Hutch]

Hope you all enjoy it (Flying Scotsman)
It took nearly 6 million pounds ( of your - ie Public money) to restore.
The bill going higher and higher each time more and more faults were found by those - publicly funded engineers at the NRM at York.
Meanwhile....
Enthusiasts completed a new build ( ie built from scratch) Pacific Loco.
Oh.. their bill - well it was just 4 and half million pounds.i
That concentrates the mind somewhat, Eh ?
So enjoy it, the NRM wont be spending any more money on it again - ever !

Montrose this comes from the NRM , National Railway Museum,
"People have said that we could have better spent the money on other things. But life isn’t that simple. Exciting projects attract money that wouldn’t be there otherwise. The £2.3 million purchase price of the locomotive came from external funds with £1.8 million coming from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £441k from public donations to the museum and £365k match funding from Virgin Group.

"Over £1.8 million of the cost of the £4.5million restoration cost came from external funders, public donations and the sale of Flying Scotsman merchandise. This includes a £275k grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. And because we are part of the bigger Science Museum Group, the Trustees of the group made extra resources available to the National Railway Museum for the restoration project: it hasn’t come from the normal annual budgets of the museum.

I think a rebuild is better than a New build, but, thats just myself, we see lots of retro cars being built, but how many retro caravans, lots of rebuilds though.

 

[Hutch]

No wonder Gaffer Bill has such a high HMRC bill if he owns the Bue Bell line and the land around it, you never know who you share a drink with when on site. 😛

 

[Gafferbill]

Hi Hutch........the Bluebell Railway is a Charitable Trust and as such does not pay taxes.

HMRC threw out my application to be a Charitable Trust 😗 😉 😉