Very nice video, thanks. I have always had a soft spot for the Bulleid Pacifics. The station closest to my childhood home was Clapham Junction so have seen the pacific hauled A.C.E. charge through platform 9 many times. Fond memories.
I was fortunate enough to be on the ACE yesterday and I can honestly say the whole tour is one of the very best I’ve ever experienced behind Clan Line and I’ve been on a lot behind CL since the mid 90’s. It’s ability to make up loss time was astonishing. The run from Salisbury to Exeter was a case in point, the people standing on Tisbury Station if they blinked they would have missed it. The run up the Honiton Bank was the best I’ve ever had, considering we were held at Axminster for some while and the drivers like to fly through Seaton Junction to get a good run at the bank, but this was not the case, the track was wet and the sanders were going the whole time but it never slipped and it topped the Bank just under 30mph, someone had a GPS tracking its speed. The run from Exeter to Bristol couldn’t have been better, after leaving 23 minutes late due to difficulties in coaling at Exeter, by the time it got to Bristol it was only 11 minutes down! If one adds in the superb food as well it was a truly rememberable day. The tour length was 384 miles. If anything let the tour down it was the shabby Riviera trains coaching stock. The video clips are excellent, looks like you did a fair bit of travelling yourself!!
Thanks for your eloquent and insightful comment. I was also lucky enough to be with her over the weekend of the trip. Honiton was brilliant, the rain stopped as we set off and the whole thing was done with only 180 pounds in the chest. Pure Bulleid brilliance, modified or otherwise!
Each individual puff of black smoke was a shovel full of coal being added to the fire. The black smoke on the approach to the tunnel was caused by shutting the firebox doors to stop a blowback from the fire into the cab on entering the tunnel. This has the downside of restricting secondary air to the top of the fire, reducing the completeness of combustion, and resulting in black smoke.
It was a great trip on board. There had been half a dozen slips on the way up Honiton Bank, hence the sanders on in the shot but no, it didn't slip over the last stretch. I clocked the entrance to the tunnel at 27.7m.p.h. Would have romped up were it not for slippery rails I suspect. Great shot at Whiteball. The brakes were applied pretty sharpish to keep within the speed limit shortly after that point,
