Matt Ditch Photography Blog

A trip to Lakeside I recently had a trip down to the bottom of lake Windermere to the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway. I was fortunate that on the day of my visit, Bagnall "Victor" was in steam. This was a nice change for me as every time I visit it seems to be "Repulse" or "Princess" out.  "Victor" was built in 1951 for Steel Company of Wales and was used at their  Abbey, Margam and Port Talbot works. 3 locos were built, "Victor" (2996), "Vulcan" (2994) and "Valiant" (2995). The 3 were replaced by diesels in 1957 and "Victor" & "Vulcan" were sold to the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham. "Valiant" ended up with the NCB in South Wales, but was sadly scraped in 1967. Both  "Victor" & "Vulcan" worked at Longbridge till 1973 when they were again replaced by diesels. Both engines were preserved and moved to the West Somerset Railway. "Vulcan" was so...

Peckett 1370 Beamish museum aren't running trains at their Rowley station site this year so Peckett 1370 "May", which normally operates these trains, has been moved across to the colliery railway. It was built in 1915 and is an R2 class 0-4-0ST. It worked at  Yates Duxbury & Sons papermill at Heap Bridge in Bury, Lancashire along with 2 other locomotives. Peckett "Annie" now preserved at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST also named "Annie".  1370 had been relegated to spare loco by the 1970s and was eventually sold into preservation first moving to Wigan with  Bryn Engineering. It later moved to the East Lancashire Railway with its current owners the  Jubilee Locomotive Company who Beamish hire her off. The above shot shows 1370 doing what it usually does at the museum, hauling passenger trains from the rebuilt Rowley station along the short passenger line they have. The below video captures the  Yates Duxbury & S...

  Austerity No.49 returns to steam at the Tanfield Railway Austerity 0-6-0ST No.49 returned to steam for the first time in 14 months at the Tanfield Railway during the late May bank holiday. Here are some shots of the loco at work along the line and a brief history of it. 49 was built in 1943 by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn in Newcastle for the MOD. It's unclear as to where 49 went immediately after leaving the works. In the winter of 1943 she was put into store at the Melbourne Military Railway in Derbyshire. From here it was moved into WD storage in Essex before returning to the MMR in the Autumn of 1944. The loco was loaned to the Ministry of Fuel and Power's Swannington opencast disposal point in Leicestershire from May 1946 to Bennerley disposal point in Nottinghamshire in February 1947. It had a relatively short stay there and by April of that year it had moved North to Backworth in Northumberland, which would become the locos home. And, where she eventually bec...

 Event Recap:  Statfold Barn Railway  "Trangkil 50" 12/06/21 I was lucky enough to have my first ever visit to Statfold Barn during their "Trankgkil 50" event. I've photographed a number of their extensive loco collection on a number of times when their engines have been loaned to Beamish & Threlkeld Quarry. This post looks at some highlights from the event and gives a brief history on those locomotives. Trangkil No.4 (the birthday girl) returning from the Balloon loop. The engine was the last Commerical made industrial steam locomotive to be built in the UK by Hunslet. The coach behind the No.4 was built for the aborted Kielder Green Dragon railway . Making its debut during the event was Andrew Barclay 0-4-0WT “Cegin”. It built in 1931 for the Burnhope Reservoir railway in Weardale. And originally named “Red”. It was sold in 1936 to the Penrhyn Quarry railway in North Wales. The engine behind, “Marchlyn” was built by Avonside again for the Burnhope Reservoi...