Fairlight Works

Amberley Railway Gala

I’ve got a few blog posts lined up, but as I’m commuting by car rather than train at the moment the time to write them is lacking. This one gets to the front of the queue by virtue of being timely.

I took my daughter (age 11 months) to the Railway Gala at Amberley Working Museum yesterday. It’s a great place to visit at any time if you’re a fan of “old stuff”, but the railway gala is always a treat as they try to have a load of industrial steam and diesel locos in operation and there’s a model railway exhibition too. The little ‘un really enjoyed riding on the trains, and was fascinated by the Lister rail trucks – there were ten of the things puttering about during the day.

The small size of the Lister rail truck is really apparent here.

Slightly larger was the Orenstein & Koppel loco named “The Major”

More substantial still, the Ransomes & Rapier which is air brake fitted for passenger trains

There are always good opportunities at Amberley for detail photos of industrial stock. I was particularly taken with the brake arrangement on these decrepit open wagons.

During the 3pm ‘cavalcade’ where each of the operating locos are shown and described, the once which had passed by were parked down in a siding. The sight of 15-20 industrial diesels ticking over in a line was quite surreal (and loud)!

You can see more photos from the day at this Flickr photo set. There’ll be more updates on other topics soon, hopefully!

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