We’re on our way home again - and a
break in the long drive down the M6
would be good. A quick look at the
website beforehand revealed that the
Ribble Steam Railway would be open for
business midweek - albeit operating a
four-wheeled railbus. We’d had a short ride on such a vehicle
at Whitrope - this would be an example of the earlier
generation - one of the Waggon und Maschinenbau
vehicles built for BR service in the late 1950s. Could
be fun...
...It was - a most enjoyable short journey along the
bank of the Ribble at Preston, including that unusual
road and rail swing bridge, remeniscent of our trip to
St. Valery last year.
We had been promising ourselves a visit
here for some time - and were most
impressed by what we found - on the
whole... There’s real industrial railway
operation here - passenger services are
interrupted while the bitumen tanks are
shunted for the nearby works. Substantial
and well equipped workshops are open, in
a necessarily limited fashion, for public
inspection, and there’s a very fine
museum. The locomotives are a mixture of
industrial and main line machines, and (oh
no! Why oh why?) they’re almost all
wearing faces. They’re not quite of the Thomas and Percy
variety either - they’re a strangely grotesque mixture
of weird expressions and unlikely colours. A nightmare
for the enthusiast (and nightmares for the more
sensitive kids?). Did those two lovely little 0-4-0 saddle
tanks, ex-L&Y and LNWR, really need enhancing with
nasty plastic visages (perhaps the Louvre should fit a
glowing red nose on the Mona Lisa, to make her more
interesting for small children)? Happily, the prototype
Deltic and the little EE battery-electric beside it seemed to have
escaped the face-fitting (because they are, in effect, two-
faced?). Maybe it’s a stunt to get exposure
on Facebook? Perhaps they’ll have put
them away when (if?) we return to see
steam in operation along this interesting
little railway.
Link:
Ribble Steam Railway
Riding the Ribble
Railbus:
Our tickets were “Day
Rovers” - but one ride was
enough - this was just a
flying visit, so to speak. We
took seats at the rear of the
railbus, behind the driver’s
compartment (the seats
beside, with a clearer view,
were occupied).
The video is a compilation
from the return run,
including the traverse of the
swing bridge.
Note the RR diesel at the
station - if we’d wanted
another ride, we’d have had
to wait until the bitumen
tanks had been shunted.
