Bluebell Railway: Model Railway Weekend 2026

Although the Model Railway Weekend is primarily an exhibition of model railway layouts, as well as featuring stalls from sellers and resellers, I’ll be honest from the outset that’s not what I was there for, so there isn’t any model railway content in this post. I’d have loved to have spent a bit more time looking at the layouts, and maybe even let myself be tempted by a model or two, but my focus, ultimately, was the real locomotives running on the day.

My day started by meeting up with Chailey Stowe and 72B Photography to sign out our vests. 72B and I planned to wing it together for the day, whilst Chailey was doing his usual thing of running up and down the line like a madman getting clips from all over the place. With the admin done, we briefly had a wander around some of the loco sheds having a skim of some of the layouts being set up, and saying a quick hello to Stepney, famous for his appearance in the Railway Series, on a rare excursion from his usual pen. With that done, Chailey headed off, whilst 72B and I headed down to the platform, with the idea being we’d start out by wandering up the line from Sheffield Park and figure things out as we went along.

On Platform 1, 2999 Lady of Legend was already in steam, ready for the day. With not many people in the way, I grabbed a shot of the roaring fire.

As we headed down to the lineside entrance, I looked back and shot one of the crew talking to a member of the public. It’s a nice shot, but because of how prominent the other person is, I’m not sure if I’ll include it as one of my weekly ‘Crew Tuesday’ posts on Instagram.

Then it was time to trek up the line a bit and find our spot for the first departure. We settled on a corner a little further south than usual, on the southern side of Ketches Wood, based on the theory that if we went any further north the light would be behind the loco, or we’d be in the shade of the wood, and that it was a warm enough morning that we’d not lose the locomotive in a cloud of steam, as can often happen on colder mornings this close to Sheffield Park. Luckily, it paid off. I say luckily, I mean thanks to our skill and experience. Obviously.

With it being high summer, the dramatic exhaust that has become the hallmark of my rail photography is nowhere to be seen – not helped by the fact that we were out only a couple of days removed from a rare Met Office Red Warning for extreme heat. It is the main downside of shooting trains in the summer. I’ll definitely be happier when the autumn comes, at least as far as my photography is concerned. Although it’s also a little more pleasant to be out exposed to the elements in autumn than in high summer too.

Despite the lack of exhaust, this still proved to be one of the runs where I was very happy with most of the shots I got from it. Some select choices are here, but there are a few more in the gallery at the end of this post.

This next shot, however, is probably my favourite. A little by accident I ended up replicating the shot that has become my profile picture for my rail photography across social media.

All in all then, a decent start to the day. Not bad for two guys without a plan.

We headed up the line to find a spot for the next service, and settled on a spot very close to my lucky spot at the corner of Ketches Wood. The idea here was that the mottled light coming through the trees would make for an interesting shot.

Somewhat unusually, the next service would be a light engine movement, as 32424 Beachy Head needed to head up to Horsted Keynes to collect the coaching stock she’d be using for the day. The quirk of a light engine movement is that, as there’s no passengers to wait for, the service can set off as soon as the section is clear, so can potentially be early if the preceding service made good time to Horsted. Which is why, as I was still working to clear some flora to clean up my shot, 72B pointed out that Beachy was already bearing down on us. This meant a quick hop to grab my camera and start my video recording. In the rush my camera caught on my bag, slipped out of my hand, and landed on a stray bit of ballast, so my camera now has a small war wound – perhaps surprisingly, its first one, considering the unforgiving nature of the lineside environment it spends a lot of its time in.

Despite the rush and the warm air, we still got some decent exhaust, which was backlit nicely by the light through the trees.

With the light engine movement out of the way, we had a little more time to make progress up the line. We decided that Freshfield Bank would be the ideal spot for the next train, pulled by 73082 Camelot. This area is quite open and exposed to the elements – it’s not called Freshfield for nothing – so we took some time to figure out the locations for our next shot in a lovely, cooling breeze. Panning shots out in the field were debated, but ultimately we settled on a slightly more front-on shot, from a spot that I don’t think I’ve technically used before.

We didn’t venture far for the next service, which was comparatively not far behind, as it was a shuttle service only operating between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes. For this shot we split up; 72B headed out into the field, whilst I positioned myself down in the cutting near Town Place Bridge. I’ve done this spot a few times before, but this time I followed the light, and stood on the up side of the line. Although I was still in a position of safety, the track is closer to the embankment on this side so the angle was a little steeper, and I had to position myself carefully to ensure the crew of the locomotive could see me. It made for a slightly different shot.

Thanks partly to some indecision, we stayed in this area for the next service. Beachy was running in a top-and-tail consist with 72 Fenchurch, operating the shuttle service between Sheffield Park and Horsted; Beachy was on the north end of the train, pulling it towards Horsted, whilst Fenchurch was on the south end, pulling it back towards Sheffield Park. This meant the train could run between the stations with minimal turnaround time, because there’s no need to shunt a locomotive from one end of the train to the other. For us, this also meant the train would be running back southbound not long after it had gone by northbound – good for having more things to photograph, not good for drastically changing your location between runs. So we stayed here, and ventured out into the field to get a wide shot of Fenchurch‘s first southbound run of the day.

With the spot working well for us, and no better ideas coming to mind, we stayed at Freshfield for the next train, which would be Lady of Legend on her second run of the day. For this, I decided to stand out in the field and get a low shutter panning shot, which came out quite nice.

This shot was posted to my Instagram just over a week ago and has already become my second-most liked photography-based post.

To change things up a bit, for the next shot we trekked up the line towards the broken bridge, thinking we could probably get some decent shots of Beachy on the power south of the bridge, and then Fenchurch on the power north of it. We split up a bit, with 72B going right up to the bridge, while I stayed a bit further south where I hoped Beachy would be more likely to be putting down power. Ultimately we were both a little disappointed, but we weren’t exactly expecting much in the heat.

With the quick turnaround at Horsted we didn’t have too long to wait before the shuttle came back.

For Camelot‘s next run we headed back to Freshfield Bank again. 72B elected to go more front-on, whereas I went wide. I’d originally intended for another panning shot, but time was not on my side and I had to just drop my stuff and run to get a decent, yet more traditional shot.

I then reunited with 72B, who had himself reunited with Chailey Stowe and The Southerner. The latter quickly headed off for another shot elsewhere, whilst Chailey, 72B and I waited for the next run of the shuttle.

Having no better plans (the theme for the day), 72B and I then decided to tag along with Chailey up to Horsted Keynes by car, in order to head up to Vaux End Bridge for the next run by Lady of Legend.

At this point Chailey headed off for another shot, and 72B and I realised we were a bit stuck, as my car was still back at Sheffield Park. We headed back to Horsted Keynes station to get some water and look at some stalls, with the idea being we’d catch a train back to base. Before long, however, Chailey let us know he’d completed whatever shot he had left to do, and was coming back to the station, giving us the freedom for some extra shots at this part of the line. We headed just south of Leamland Bridge, thinking that the trees might give us some interesting mottled light for the next northbound departure. In the end, Camelot was in full sunlight, although she was on the up line closest to us which was not entirely ideal.

Originally, 72B and I had thought to head back to Sheffield Park to shoot the last few departures of the day back closer to Ketches Wood. We weren’t particularly wedded to this idea though, so when Chailey suggested heading to Three Arch Bridge we went with it.

Sadly the temperature had risen to the point there was barely a hint of exhaust. At least the sun came out and helped bring out the colours of the flowers lining the track.

The spot worked well enough that we decided to stay here for the final northbound service of the day.

Despite the lack of exhaust, all told it was a decent day. I got good shots of every train we saw, and I survived the heat. That said, I do much prefer shooting in autumn and am looking forward to Giants of Steam in October when the exhaust should be back in droves.

As always, there are a few extra shots of many of the passes in the gallery below.