The 2002 Brighton Breezy
Saturday 9th February 2002 saw the second Brighton Breezy main line steam run. This time the train was hauled not by a Southern engine but by what many people call the class 47 of the steam world... a Stanier Black 5 no 45407 (as No. 45157 "The Glasgow Highlander"). On the other end of the train was a class 47 "Prince William", one of the engines used for hauling the Royal Train. Whilst everyone was up the other end of the platform drooling over the Black five I took a little time to take a photo of "Prince William" Chuntering away at the buffer stops among the mops buckets and other cleaning implements
Prince William was to prove the hero of the day but more of that later! I eventually wandered up the platform to get my shot of the"real" engine without a dad or a grandad or a son or a grandson in the picture. To my surprise I succeeded and the result is below...(note the South Central "throw a bucket of paint over the train" livery in the background!)
Ok so we're ready for the off.. Just enough time to take one more shot before jumping aboard for the ride to Victoria
A Shot of the nameplate just before I boarded the train
So then.....once on the train what do you do...well you eat & drink a jolly good picnic and round off with a cake or two......So are all those cakes for you then Pat or are you going to share them round?
"Oooh look!!! there's a rarity...." I overheard someone say "A South West Trains train....moving!!!"
Our train needed to arrive at Victoria away from the main South Central platforms.. to do this we used a connection to the South Eastern Platforms which provides an excellent opportunity for me to dangle the camera out of the window and take this rather splendid shot of Steam in the shadows of Battersea power station ( or what was Battersea power station) ..... incidentally this was a click & hope photo, I just stuck the camera out of the window, pressed the shutter and it worked! I nearly lost the camera though!!!!!
And finally we reach our destination.. The Black 5 was given a rest and taken back to Clapham yard . Sadly it was to prove a terminal rest. (perhaps it should have been renamed "clapped out" yard for the day!) Whilst in Clapham yard the engine was declared a failure by the owner due to a hot axle box and we returned to Brighton courtesy of "Prince William" under diesel power. Prince William therefore became the hero of the day but even that brief accolade was curtailed. The train was supposed to return via Newhaven Marine & Lewes but due to a landslip on the line the train "high tailed" it straight back to Victoria
This proved to be the last of the "Brighton Breezy" runs between London & Brighton although since then a number of specials have run on the Brighton line but not into Brighton itself
All photos on this page were taken by me