Sunday was a grey, dreary day in York, where the rain seeped imperceptibly through one's clothes, and any sensible man would have stayed inside and watched the Jubilee Pageant on television. But Ian and I are not to be stopped by a little water: we were going to Railfest 2012, a giant exhibition of old steam locomotives, diesel engines and modern electric trains all set in the grounds of the National Railway Museum. Such an event is not held often - the last was eight years ago - and as it only lasts a week we wouldn't have another chance. And anyway, we'd already paid in advance.
The United Kingdom has a rich engineering heritage, especially when it comes to trains, but too often this is overlooked and cast to one side, with the seemingly more important task of keeping the infrastructure running taking precedence over celebrating that it exists at all. Sometimes we are all too willing to complain about trains being six minutes late, and too quick to ignore the fact that it's quite amazing that we can make a vehicle comfortable enough for passengers to travel in that's capable of hurtling along the rails at 125mph.
From Stephenson's Rocket of 1830 running on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first inter-city railway in the world, to the high-tech super-fast Pendolinos and Javelins of our modern railway network, Britain has never been far from the cutting edge of railway technology. Indeed, we still hold the world speed records for steam and diesel trains (though I might argue that that's because we didn't move on with everyone else and kept trying to beat the world at yesterday's technology). Where better to showcase this excellence than at the National Railway Museum?
I wasn't quite sure what to expect at Railfest. I knew there would be many visiting exhibits, including 60163 Tornado, the first steam locomotive built in the UK for forty years, and 91110, the electric locomotive which held the British rail speed record of 162mph (at least prior to the opening of HS1), and many other steam locomotives and modern trains alike.
But I wasn't sure who would be there: part of me was worried it would be overrun by trainspotters - perhaps a little rich coming from me, but I know that we aren't always the most fun people to hang out with - and that, rather than celebrating Britain's railway engineering excellence, I'd end up arguing about the precise colour of paint a locomotive is painted in. The event was trailed in the media as an event for all the family, but I worried about how true that would actually be.
Regardless of what we thought it was going to be like, we knew it would be busy, so we'd bought our tickets online in advance. Unfortunately the rain on Sunday somewhat dampened demand: the elaborate queueing arrangements went unneeded, and we were issued with our wristbands - permitting us unlimited access to the Railfest area for the day - in no time at all. We immediately found ourselves in a huge site dotted with trains old and new, with the unmistakable smell of steam engines thick in the air.
We were spoilt for choice for what to look at first. We chose the first thing that caught our eyes: 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, an LNER A4 Pacific locomotive which holds the post-war steam speed record of 112mph, which was preserved and normally resides at the NYMR we visited on Friday. It looked beautiful in newly-polished BR Blue, and in spite of the persistent rain sat resplendent next to 60163 Tornado.
What I hadn't quite appreciated was the level of access we'd have to the exhibits: they were not just static exhibits, they were living machines, running in "light steam" (enough to make the whistle work and keep the engine crew warm!) which you could, in many cases, climb aboard and talk to volunteers about how they work and how they came to be preserved. After a short queue, we got to climb aboard the footplate of Gresley and behold the machine in all its glory. It was quite a feeling to stand on the footplate of a steam train; I had to resist the urge to squeal with excitement.
Unfortunately we couldn't climb aboard Tornado just yet - that would have to wait until later - so we went next door to the two HST power cars. The original prototype HST power car number 41001, complete with matching Mark 3 coach (still in service with FGW but specially repainted), stood next to 43159, one of FGW's power cars that was recently reengined to give it another few decades of life. Both were open to go and not just look around but sit in: forgive me if I sound like I'm five years old, but I got to sit in the driver's seat of an HST!
The differences were stark: most notably, the prototype just had one driver's seat, but the unions kicked up stink about the safety of one-man operation and the production fleet of HSTs was built with two seats in the driving cab, one for the driver and one for the "secondman," who was presumably there to provide an extra vigilant pair of eyes but whose purpose was clearly deemed unnecessary by their abolition in the 1990s.
After looking hopefully at Tornado but seeing no-one present to enable us to step onto the footplate, we wandered over to the "Red Zone", at the far edge of the site. Here there were a large variety of modern locomotives on display, interspersed with a few old ones too. Virgin Trains had sent along one of their Thunderbird locomotives, 57008, as well as their two redundant power cars which now make up Voyager number 221144 (the two centre cars having been "borrowed" to lengthen two other trains from four to five carriages); we got to look around both and sit in the cabs of each.
One common theme that played out across most of the driving cabs we got the chance to visit was the lack of visibility: even the Voyager, with its modern cab, has a relatively small windscreen; perhaps this is to keep the driver's attention focussed on the "road" ahead. But when compared to the visibility afforded to steam train drivers, Voyager drivers win hands-down; steam train drivers get very little forward visibility at all, at least without sticking their heads out the window.
There were a number of other locomotives around which, at least today, were on static display - including a class 92 locomotive owned by GB Railfreight and a class 37 locomotive owned by DRS - as well as a number of specialist vehicles used by Network Rail, including an MPV (multiple-purpose vehicle) used for, among other things, water-jetting or sanding the track to ensure adhesion during leaf-fall season, and a snowblower. Both are often heard of and without them our network would often come to a complete standstill; seeing them in the flesh, however, was pretty unusual.
After a good look round, we headed for our first train ride of the day. Oh yes, some of the trains were not just on show but running in service. We got on a train on the 15-inch gauge line, with Synolda from the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway on one end and Hawk from the Kirklees Light Railway on the other. The ride took less than a minute - there wasn't much space for 15-inch track on site - but was fun enough nonetheless.
We then headed towards the Southeastern high-speed unit number 395019, better known as a "Javelin" thanks to the Olympic shuttle service they will run this summer during the Olympic Games. While I'd been a passenger in one, I hadn't seen the driving cab of one before: this was particularly interesting, since the Javelins have to work not just on conventional lines but also on HS1, the high-speed link from London through east Kent to the Channel Tunnel where the systems are more akin to the French railways than the British.
Our final stop before lunch was to the Brighton Belle. Fifteen plush carriages were built to run three very special "Pullman" dining services between Victoria and Brighton in the 1930s; eventually they were replaced by standard passenger trains, but many of the carriages live on, some as restaurants and bars, but others remain largely intact, and the hope of the "Bringing Back the Brighton Belle" group is to restore one of the three five-carriage sets to service by 2013.
One of the cars already under restoration, car 88 (a motored third class carriage), was on display to look around and sit in, and once on board we got talking to one of the preservationists about the project, which involves almost complete structural rebuilding of the train. It's a monumental task which involves taking bogies (basically the wheel axles) from another old train (but one not nearly as old) and chopping them to fit, among many other things like trying to get the electrics to work again. We wished them well and head off for lunch.
After a nice meal in the NRM cafe, we headed into the NRM proper for a look round the indoor exhibits (not part of Railfest) to give the rain the chance to ease off. We took a look round the Search Engine, the NRM's library of books historic and modern about all things related to railways, as well as The Works, where all the eclectic railway-related stuff that doesn't quite fit into place in a display cabinet is shown off, including everything from discarded station name-boards to old signals.
Also included in The Works is a real-time feed from the signal box at York, showing the computer screens signallers use to regulate and control the service. The screens are a little unintelligible to a newcomer, but they look almost exactly like SimSig, a computer game (well, simulation) that accurately replicates the environment in a modern signalbox and lets you try and run the railway from the comfort of your own home. It's harder than you might think, and has kept me amused for hours on end for over six years now.
The only weird thing about seeing the live feed in York was that I had to keep reminding myself that it was real, and not the simulation I usually play with at home: I noticed a train to Harrogate just leaving the station and pointed it out to Ian, whereupon he pointed to the window and said "yes, there it goes!", and it roared past and left me slightly disorientated.
We then took a look round the rest of the Great Hall, including the model railway layout; the Japanese bullet train; various steam locomotives such as 92220 Evening Star, the last mainline steam locomotive built by British Rail; 26020, one of the 1500V DC electric locomotives built for the now-closed Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield; and a replica of Stephenson's Rocket, the first ever railway locomotive which hauled passengers between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.
After a good look round, we headed back outside to queue for the best train ride of the day: two carriages hauled in one direction by D6700, the first ever class 37 diesel locomotive built in the early 1960s as the beginning of BR's modernisation plan to eliminate steam from the network, and in the other direction by 3717 City of Truro, the first steam locomotive ever to top 100mph. Although the ride was fairly short - a few minutes in each direction to the end of the yard and back - it was satisfying to feel and hear two historic locomotives running under their own power and hauling us even on this short journey.
We headed over to look at an LNER observation coach - a carriage specially designed with windows on three sides, to give maximum visibility to the rear of the train - before moving on to the highlight of my day: standing on the footplate of Tornado. Although it had been closed earlier, it was now open and while we had to queue for a few minutes, the privilege of standing on the footplate of Tornado, and talking to the operators about how it's maintained and operated, was not something I'll soon forget.
Tornado is the realisation of a dream had some 20 years ago, that a steam locomotive could be built from scratch and brought into service on the mainline. None of the original 49 LNER Class A1 locomotives were preserved, and so in 1991 a group of volunteers set about building one from scratch from the original designs, updated to comply with modern safety standards. In 2008, after a total cost of some £3 million, their perseverance was rewarded when the locomotive first moved under its own power. It now regularly hauls charter trains up and down the country, at up to 75mph, and I look forward to being hauled by Tornado on the mainline some day.
Our visit to Tornado over, we moved on to the Yellow Zone, where there were two true record-breakers, nose to nose. On one side, 4468 Mallard, the LNER Class A4 Pacific locomotive which still holds the world record for a steam train, set at 126mph on 3rd July 1938. On the other, 91110 Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which had been thusly named the previous day with an RAF flypast, one of East Coast's class 91 electric locomotives that holds the British speed record (excluding HS1) of 162mph, recorded on 17th September 1989. Both were on static display, but even to be in the presence of such incredible machines, and to touch them, was quite something.
We rounded out the day with a couple more train rides, one pulled by Courage, a diesel locomotive built by Hunslet with just 20hp, and the other by Ffestiniog Railway locomotive Palmerston, on a specially installed length of 2ft gauge track. In between times, we spent a long while wandering around the marketplace, where a number of stalls were selling railway books old and new: I found some gems, including a book of gradient profiles and some old maps, while Ian bought an old timetable from 1993 (the first to include Manchester Airport).
All in all, we were surprised at just how much Railfest had to offer: it was fascinating not just for enthusiasts like Ian and I, but also to families with kids able to brag about how they sat in the driver's seat of a train, and to the general public interested in learning about the history of our railway network. Indeed, I suspect we could have spent even longer wandering around but tiredness and the rain got the better of us - admittedly after nearly seven hours at one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to.
To all who helped organise Railfest - the staff at Network Rail and the train operating companies for giving up their time and equipment, the magazines like Rail and Steam Railway who spearheaded the whole event, and the staff at the National Railway Museum who made it all happen - thank you for one of the most enjoyable days of "playing on trains" I've had in years.
Railfest runs until Sunday 10th June, at the NRM next to York station; if you can, go before it closes - you won't regret it.
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