Bluebells at the Bluebell

Last year I only broke my duck with going lineside when the bluebells were out, so save for one little photo I didn’t get any great shots featuring them. This year, I was keen to make sure I didn’t miss out, so with that in mind, at the start of May I headed out lineside with the aim of getting some decent bluebell-dotted train photographs.

I had a plan for the day, and almost immediately I threw it out the window. I had originally intended to head lineside from the Tremains foot crossing, near the spot I know as Rock Cutting, and head north towards Lindfield Wood, which looked like a spot that would be full of bluebells when we passed by a month earlier during the Branch Line Gala. I had only been there on foot from Sheffield Park, but with it being a normal running day, there wouldn’t be as many trains as during a busy gala and I wanted to maximise my shooting opportunities. The problem was, having not entered the railway from that point before, I had no idea where I could park my car amongst the narrow country lanes. I was also running a little later than I had intended. So as soon as I had signed on at Sheffield Park that morning, I spontaneously decided to head lineside from there, instead of returning to my car and heading out.

As is customary when I go lineside from Sheffield Park, I paused to take a photo of the locomotive on platform that would be pulling the first service of the day. Today, that honour fell to 73082 Camelot.

Presently one of the crew popped out of the cab, and after they’d conducted their business I checked with them to make sure when they were leaving, so I didn’t get caught out crossing the bridge just outside the station by a train doing some shunting.

Having confirmed that the loco was on platform until its scheduled departure time, with no further shunting moves planned, I headed up the line to try to find some patches of bluebells before Camelot came by. For the first half a mile or so of the track the pickings were sparse. I found a small patch and briefly planned to stick by those, partly because it was also a spot I’d not shot at before. Ultimately I decided to take my chances further up the line, and found a decent patch just up from my lucky corner on the outskirts of Ketches Wood. There I waited, and it wasn’t that long before a steam train was heading for me.

I shot at f/6.3 rather than the f/4 I normally use when shooting trains to try to get more of the bluebells in focus.

As nice a spot at this was, I continued on up the track looking for some other suitable locations. I elected to position myself at the bridge on Freshfield Bank, which had worked nicely for me during the Branch Line Gala. That said, there wasn’t a lot of bluebells to make use of, so I decided to make use of my telephoto to get shots of the next train from a distance. That train would be 32424 Beachy Head.

As you can see, there were some hints of colour in the foreground, but not a lot.

I carried on. I soon came to the broken bridge, a spot popular with photographers at the Bluebell. There was a decent smattering of bluebells here, so I seemed like a good spot to stop. The next service would be the lunchtime Golden Arrow service, pulled by № 65. Given that the bridge blocked the view down the line, I made use of my 14-35mm wide angle lens.

The Pullman coaches are very pretty amongst the green of the trackside.

This was a good spot, and considering the next service wasn’t that far behind, I waited here to reuse the setting. That next service was Camelot on her second run of the day.

At this point it was time to head back towards Sheffield Park. But before I left, I made use of the relatively close focussing distance of the 14-35mm by photographing some bluebells.

On the trek back I saw Town Place Bridge near Freshfield Bank, and liked how it was framed by the trees. Making doubly sure that there was nothing coming, I snapped a quick photo.

Having seen some other shots from near this spot, this is another area I’d like to shoot from in the future. I believe I shot one of the trains from here at last year’s Branch Line Gala, but I can definitely do a better job nowadays.

I kept walking. By the time I encountered another service, I had reached the bluebell swarm I used at the start of the day. This seemed like a good place to end the day too, although I positioned myself in a slightly different spot where there were more bluebells in front of me (which happened to mean I was standing in a ditch). The next train was № 65 running tender-first with the Pullman coaches. Normally I wouldn’t bother photographing a locomotive running backwards, but given the allure of the coaches amongst the bluebells I couldn’t resist.

The next train up would be Beachy Head on her second run of the day.

At this point I was tempted to hang around at this spot, because I believed that № 65 would be coming back out at some point shortly for her second run. The problem was, I didn’t know when (the Golden Arrow trains aren’t on the normal public timetable – I have since learned about the separate enthusiast/photographer timetable where they are listed, which I’ll be sure to bring along with me next time). If 65 didn’t depart until Camelot came back down the line into Sheffield Park, I’d be waiting for more time than I had available to me. I decided not to risk it, and headed back towards base.

It was of course perhaps inevitable that just as I was approaching the bridges into the station that I heard the signal behind me drop, meaning that something was leaving Sheffield Park imminently. Not being in a great spot, I turned around and headed back, not really expecting to make it back to the bluebell patch, but hoping to at least get somewhere a little better.

I ended up using the signal itself as a framing device when the train went past.

With that, there would be a bit of a wait until another train came by, so it was time for me to call it a day. Despite not following even the slightest bit of the plan I had set for myself at the start, it ended up going pretty well, and I got quite a few shots I’m pleased with.

Other than this wander, I have been out to the Bluebell Railway a few times since the Branch Line Gala – but those will be coming in a future post. Although if you find you like this sort of thing, then do head on over to my train-focussed Instagram account @RobDoesTrains. These days my best photos from any train-related outing are posted there first.

As always, I’ve picked the best shots for the post above – there are a few other options in the gallery below.