5043 Thunders Up Sapperton On The Cotswold Explorer - 2013 

Liam, two absolutely stunning shots showing a Castle at her best, and what a sound, music to anyone's ears, thanks for sharing, it's a like, cheers...Bill

Brian seeing 5043 at level of performance was as good as it get's for us !

Thanks Tom ! Seeing scenes like that makes the long trips and long days worthwhile

Great shots! That's a wonderful spot to get steam storming along, and you captured 5043 barking along very well! Tom

Another top notch performance from the Earl. Nicely csptured Liam at a great location

Another super video mate..................nathan

Well caught Liam, 5043 performing at it's best & with some nicely timed 'flash firing'!! Regards, Brian.

Excellent footage and location Liam compared to mine. All the best Mike

Liam, two first class shot of the Earl at a classic location. The Earl sounded gorgeous as usual and great use of two cameras. I really must visit the location for myself sometime! Thanks for sharing - Regards, Sam

Cracking shot of Earl Of Mount Edgecumbe! Keep up the good work!

Very nicely done Liam. The first foot crossing looks a little better compared to the one that we was on, but wo fine shots nevertheless. Thanks for sharing regards Andy

complimenti per il filmato meraviglioso bellissimo convoglio a vapore grazie di cuore dalla sicilia giuseppe

Great shots of the Earl in full flow. Beast!

Steep gradients- Who needs em? Bloody Hell that Was amazing!!!!!! :D

What a cracking sight and sound Liam. Great action Mike

Thanks Bill was a ear deafening performance !

Nice shot. Did the track worker who was mooching about say anything to you guys down there?

Two great shots here mate!

John very much enjoyed the performance from the Earl and will definitely like to go back in the future. Regards, Liam

Glorious!

Thanks Mike and cheers for watching

Sam it's as good as it gets at Sapperton and you'l be well rewarded for the long trip. Thanks for you comment, Liam

Andy agree with your assessment on the crossing, the one my dad was at looked a tad longer. Good to catch up and cheers for the comment. Liam

Austin having seen previous videos of steam up Sapperton we decided to go and sample some of the action, and as no surprise to us we were well rewarded.

Thanks for watching and commenting. Regards, Liam

Excellent clip Boggy, very nicely filmed. The hawthorn looks great in the shot. A GWR engine would have needed a diesel on the back to get 11 over Sapperton at that speed!

Thanks Nathan comment much appreciated.

Not to us but notified my dad and the other enthusiasts at the lower crossing of a signal problem at Standish Junction which could of delayed the Castle's approach but was fixed pretty quick. Thanks for watching, Regards, Liam

That is one angry choo choo

What an engine,who ever the footplate crew are they certainly get the best out of her, well shot matey

Great audio! Cheers.

Cheers ! Will try are best

Cracking stuff Liam, you can't go wrong with The Earl up Sapperton! Did bump into your dad at Frampton Mansell, I take it he mentioned we met? :P

Great!

Oops! Meant to put this on your clip of 35028 on the climb.

Oh if only we had smellaputer it would be to die for

Great loco - well shot. It's really flying up there... (Pity about the grotty BR paint job though. I'm getting heartily sick of seeing pre-Nationalisation locos in BR schemes now. Pretty daft since most of them only wore BR schemes for the last part of their working lives.).

Too bad somebody hit the fast-forward button to make it look a lot faster than it was. Steam doesn't doesn't billow in a steady stream like that on a hard pull and if it did you'd never pull a hill like that without losing all your steam pressure. Even significant drops screw you because the blastpipe is creating your draft and a small drop in boiler pressure starts a vicious cycle since the blastpipe steam is coming from the cylinder exhaust. And the cylinder leakage and pressure drops are highest at high speeds and loads. Not to mention steam pressure powers your water injector, so you sure as hell don't want to lose capacity there when steam demand is maxxed out. Going uphill the water in the boiler runs rearward and its impossible to judge and maintain an ideal water level. You also lose heat transfer to the water because its too deep in some places and too shallow. Not to mention steam locomotives have a fairy narrow speed range for maximum tractive effort and you want to stay well UNDER it because maximum tractive effort is never sustainable, but its always the point where you're most likely to spin out. And if that happens, you have problems. Stop and think about what is going to happen when a locomotive loaded to its maximum tractive effort - which occurs at maximum steam pressure and the ideal combination of torque and speed - suddenly loses the traction that is keeping all that steam power under control? It'll spin out so suddenly and violently that nobody can react quickly enough to shut it down and it won't shut down instantly when the throttle is closed. Not that you WANT to slam the throttle shut with that much steam pressure. Which may actually RISE during the spin-out because the load disappears and not nearly as much steam is needed to drive spinning. People who look at but don't understand trains and especially steam locomotives are easily suckered and impressed and think faster is better with trains. Or any other vehicle. But yet I seriously doubt that is their OWN approach to driving somewhere or even riding a bicycle or walking. Because who drives wide open when traveling? Or runs their groceries home from the store? Even all the "bullet train" hype and propaganda is just that. People see whatever seemingly super fast maximum or "cruising" speed and think the train leaves the station and 30 seconds later is at 220 mph and stays there until a mile from a station and slams on the brakes. Not even close. It is a rare day on ANY railroad maximum allowable speed is reached at ANY point on the line. Much less from departure to arrival. Bullet trains get even less impressive when you realize that light, aerodynamic and "efficent" bullet train is consuming more power at 200 mph than an American 110-car unit coal train that is 1.5 miles long and weighs 15,000 tons and "only" goes a maximum of 70 mph. Ther are benefits to all that weight once you get it moving. And benefits to diesel-electric locomotives that make maximum tractive effort when starting the train and then from there are working less and less as they go faster and faster. You get 10 times better fuel economy at 50 mph than at 5 mph. Bullet trains do nothing but suck more power the faster you go and use it less and less efficiently.. Overall, given the fact that any engineer that wants to keep his job AND his life NEVER runs at a hill like he needs the speed to climb it because that REDUCES his chances of making it, I'd say whoever uploaded this sped-up video must not know much about trains. Otherwise he would have realized that the train's ACTUAL speed up that hill was a more impressive display of power and performance and professional railroading than a fake, sped-up propaganda video that does exactly the opposite. After all, what intelligent railroad operating personnel would waste that much power on so little train? Which would be the case if it were really going that fast? 90% of railroad operating costs are automatic and unavoidable and actually INCREASE on a passenger-mile basis when speeds are increased because fuel, maintenance, repair, track maintenance, accidents and necessary safety equipment and quality standards all increase the faster harder you run. But the passengers THEMSELVES are very little extra expense. Railcars are way cheaper to own and operate than locomotives. And adding 2 cars to a 10-car train doesn't increase the weight by 20% when the locomotive and tender are 1/3 of the total weight to start with. The weight increase is more like 10% but you don't need 10% more power to pull them as long. You just give up MAYBE 10% of your top speed. Which you will never run at profitably and sustainably anyway. So you cut back your speed from say 80 mph max with a 50 mph average to 70 mph max with a 45 mph average and in a hard pull you lose 7 mph instead of 8 mph. You're still going to be doing 63 mph instead of 72, but you're making way more money at 72 because all of your costs are greatly reduced AND you have 25% more passengers and revenue. And guess what? They don't care if it takes them 10% longer to get there even if the tickets don't get cheaper because they don't know any better. Unless you're stupid enough to sell SPEED instead of distance. Its all simple business and economics and basic common sense when it comes to operating machinery that you will NEVER be able to go fast enough to outrun the expenses that are still there even if you don't at all. Just more evidence that most "historians" that push some b.s. national-pride "faster is better" and "speed record" nonsense bragging about how fast their trains were or are don't know anything about railroads or business. And since most railfans don't either, they just eat that crap up. God only knows nuts they'd go if they lived in a country that isn't stuck in 1945 when it comes to its rail industry.