Masters Of The Mainline ! UK Steam Compilation (2019) 

Mark, thank you for your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed our coverage from 2019. Sorry about the late reply, your comment somehow went under the radar. Regards, Liam

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InstaBlaster

I agree, British steam locos are perhaps the most beautiful in the world.

And we are still building them .

It was Thomas that got me into British locomotives (and locomotives in general and British culture).

I'm an American and I agree.

Nice work done. How this gigantic work might have been done is any body's guess.

Bob, your kind words are always appreciated. Thanks as always. Regards, Liam

Hi Sue, thanks very much and hope you have a good Christmas and new year. Kind regards, Liam

Many thanks! Glad you enjoyed it, again !

Patrick Marshall

Don't knock it. LOL ;-)

You too 🎄🎅🏻⛄️🎊🎉🎊🎉

i love em i also love my thumping 500;cc Royal enfield single , someone said that we like these sounds because , when we were in the womb the only sound we could hear was your mothers Heartbeat 😃😃😃😃👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

Same to you. Many thanks for providing the excellent coverage of steam in the United Kingdom this year. Living in New Zealand, it's difficult otherwise to see such sights and sounds.

Correct, I had over 100 captions to input in this video and although I checked everything, this one slipped my attention ! Thanks anyway =)

@@MarshSteamVideosTM no worries. still a great job.

Cheers, indeed it was !

Different (iron) horses for different courses. They are massive, but UK would never have any need of them. Due to the smaller loading gauge, the trick in the UK was to design a lot of power into a relatively small package. Even a simple Mikado design was found to have more power than needed to suit the requirements of the operating department. That is why the vast majority of the UK's largest freight locomotives are only 2-8-0 Consolidations (only one class of 2-10-0 and some military wartime 2-10-0's bought into service) and some Garrett locos built for a specific route. Passenger locomotives tend to be 4-6-0 Ten Wheelers or 4-6-2 Pacifics. (There was one small class of 6 2-8-2 Mikados built for one specific route) UK also has a much higher proportion of tank locomotives as well when compared to USA.

Originally, before the railways were nationalised and became British Rail, the railways in the UK were owned by a variety of different companies. Some of those companies used upper quadrant and some of them (most notably, but not exclusively) used lower quadrant signals - The GWR was also right hand drive whereas the vast majority of companies were left hand drive. When British Railways took over they never chnged the semaphore signals to a nationwide uniform pattern. As lines were gradually upgraded and modernised semaphore signalling was replaced with colour light signalling (a process some companies had already started, but WW2 brought to a halt). The semaphore signalled stretches you are seeing are predominately of secondary cross country routes or relief routes, as the vast majority of UK mainlines are now colour light signalled.

Yes, there are few sites that list all the tours and then on the day you can track their movement through certain apps and sites. Thanks for watching.

@@MarshSteamVideosTM what are the sites that list the tours? thanks

@@themightyzanoss8409 Railway herald railtours

The check rails on modern points means that there is a potential conflict with the centre flangeless wheels so no 9Fs for now. A few on heritage lines though.

@@Pesmog A few equals two I think.

@@984francis Have a couple come out of ticket recently as the NNR, NYMR, GCR and Watercress websites all show their 9F's as operational?. The 9F is a wonderful loco that I always enjoy riding behind. The NNR are very lucky to have two 2-10-0's with their WD Austerity as well as 9F Black Prince.

@@Pesmog I know the watercress lines 9f got withdrawn last autumn (if that helps).

Mainline, of the top of my head, about 20, 21 I think. That number will fluctuate this year due to boiler tickets expiring and the return of a few locomotives having been overhauled. I've no idea of the current amount of preserved operational locomotives running on heritage/private railways. I'd hazard a guess, it's way north of 50+ !

@@MarshSteamVideosTM Certainly is way north of 50+ - probably well north of a hundred on heritage/private lines. Of course, they may be operational, but they won't all be operating every week. There are approx 180 heritage steam railway sites regularly open to the public in the UK + a number that are not yet ready to be open to the public on a regular basis, but still have operational locomotives in use from time to time for special events and service activity. We are so blessed with numbers of locomotives and more down the pipeline of restoration and 'new' build/replica in the UK. It's part Dai Woodham and part a British love for all things steam.

I think they provide heat and power to the coaches, as well as the braking, like you say. Most modern coaches won't take steam heat

They are not there for braking. For some coach sets they provide power for the in train utilities, but primarily they are there for carriage movements on certain routes. There are very few places left on the Bristish Railway network where there is the infrastructure to handle single locomotive hauled trains. All passenger trains on the UK network are either multiple units or top and tailed. Therefore trains on a route where there is adequate infrastructure (eg somewhere like Kingswear) will usually never be towing a diesel - other routes such as the Pembroke Coast Express, where not only is the infrastucture lacking, but the train reverses for part of the route will always have a diesel on the tail. Sometimes diesels are also attached according to the requirements of the operating diagram of the trip - eg. the steam locomotive may not be rostered for the full round trip because it is required to be somewhere else the next day and the diesel will complete the trip. They are not there as sometimes espoused by armchair experts to 'help it up the hill', 'make sure it keeps to time' or 'for back up in case of breakdown'. There's even one guy on the web who insists that all steam trains in the UK are legally required to tow a diesel back up locomotive for safety and insurance purposes - in spite of being shown countless hours of video footage to the contrary. LOL. He knows who he is. (He also insists the GWR always put the smaller engine inside the larger when double heading)!!!

BTW - the 'modern' locomotives you refer to, are actually usually very old 'heritage' diesels themselves - often locomotives first put into service in the early 1960's and kept running by the tour operators pretty much just for this type of work!!!

They are all excursions except for a few locomotive test runs.

Sort of both - in as much some excursions have a regular running timetable through the year as opposed to what is usually thought of as an excursion being a one off, special event, so in the traditional sense some of these are more akin to the regular seasonal specials that maybe ran on a weekly basis through a period of the year, and then some are pure excursions ie one offs and private/corporate charters. Here is the core timetable from last year - you can see as you get closer to summer the number of 'regular' repeat services increase, as they do towards Christmas as well, but outside the main holiday seasons there is a greater preponderance of one off excursions and charters.

Thanks Edmund. Here's a list of what should run unassisted. Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express (london start only) Shap, S&C The Dalesman, S&C ! The Fellsman, S&C The Cotswold Venturer (likely) The Cotton Mills Express (Miles Platting, Standedge, Copy Pit) The Great Britain (Certain days) The Royal Duchy to Cornwall (Summertime) Scarborough Spa Express (Summertime) Shakespeare Express (Summertime) The Bard Of Avon (Summertime) There's plenty of other day excursions that run, but it's a lottery whether it runs as 'Pure Steam' ! If you get to the point of booking a trip, let me know I might be able to advise you better near the date. Regards, Liam

@@MarshSteamVideosTM Liam, huge thanks. The operators ought disclose this on their websites, Facebook pages and brochures. The UK almost certainly has the highest number of mainline steam tours in the world though, a great achievement. Quality video from you and others makes these tours come alive to those of us thousands of kilometres away.

Wow. Get these shots up on TV! They're something else . Thanks to dedicated filmsters for this exceptional compilation. Regards JR.

@@johnream7132 Agreed! Wholeheartedly, especially if you live in a place where you can crank the volume to the max without having the neighbours call the police. Home cinema with full on sound system - awesome. My Spanish father in law sat and binge watched for hours when he discovered he could get youtube on our big wall mounted TV.

Green party members

In reference to railways it's one word, it always has been. Thanks for the nitpicking and positive feedback on my video.