Only 1 week from the Talyllyn Railway’s Awdry Extravaganza 2 of 2022 was the Fenchurch 150
weekend at the Bluebell Railway. I was very honoured to have produced
the animated promotional video for the event, all made in stop-motion with real miniatures.
Being a bit of a fan of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Terrier class,
I was thrilled to have worked with the railway to mark such a special anniversary.
Whilst Stepney is pretty neat, it was Fenchurch and Poplar that were the first
of Stroudley’s A class to enter service, so this birthday bash weekend was all about them.
However, it was their birthday and they could cry if they wanted to, and that’s exactly what they
did. Due to a little known, unexpected virus and a whole lot of firebox work,
poor Fenchurch just wasn’t ready in time to make it to its party. At the time of this video,
it is very close to returning to steam once more in its original Improved Engine Green livery.
For the event, the boiler was out in the yard awaiting its steam test, whilst the rest of
the engine was temporarily put together like a kit to have on display in the shed.
Still smiling, Stepney was moved from its display case to give Fenchurch company.
It's very strange walking in here and not seeing Stepney there. It's Bluebell instead now.
Visiting from the Kent and East Sussex Railway was Poplar, recently returned to working order…
more on that later. From the Isle of Wight Steam Railway
was the award-winning Brighton, which sadly couldn’t pull trains on its own
because it works with air brakes on the island rather than the vacuum stock on the mainland.
At Sheffield Park there was a miniature railway set up in the yard, the nearly
complete Beachy Head was on display, children’s author Christopher Vine was giving presentations
and there was a magic show too, whilst at Horsted Keynes there was a dog show… because Terriers. In
the Steam Works part of the shed, I had a little display of the props used to make the advert. Good
morning from the Bluebell Railway. Look at this! We've got a stand in the shed! Well I'm standing
in the shed, but we have a table in the shed! Let me guide you through. So there's the fake Stepney,
and there's Captain Baxter and all his friends. And we have a little table
showing the models that were used in the advert and just
Stepney in general. So yeah. I would say come and say hi, but by the time this video is out,
it's all over. You've missed it. I didn’t get to see a whole lot of the event
but it was really nice to talk to some of you who came along and I hope you had a good time.
Radio Redhill even stopped by and asked if I’d like to do a 5 minute interview for their Sunday
programme. So when it came to actually making the animation, so you made all the trains as well. Was
it a stop motion animation? That's right, yes, stop motion. So everything is made with physical
models and thousands of pictures. And when they're played really quickly it makes it look like it's
motion, you know, it's actually real like it's life size. It takes a lot of patience as
everyone would kind of expect, but it's very satisfying when you get the actual result, so.
And what was your inspiration to make the film? Basically I'm just still a child, I've not grown
up, I still just play trains but I sort of do it as a living now. Thomas the tank engine, huge
inspiration. For anyone who tuned in, you could probably tell that I wasn’t expecting to suddenly
be given a microphone to talk into, 2nd time in a week, who’d have thought. Hello, you're live!
Meanwhile, outside, it was extremely hot and dry,
and the good old Q class had a field day setting the fields ablaze with sparks from the chimney.
In several places the loco crews of passing trains had to stop to extinguish fires,
and in one case the fire brigade were called to help too. This wasn’t long before the steam ban
that most railways took to during the drought. Still, could be worse. On its second trip, Poplar
threw a strop and bent its motion out of shape, and quickly came to a stop. This left just one
Terrier at the Terrier weekend that was working, but that just happened to be dear old Brighton
who had incompatible brakes, so it couldn’t take trains without double heading them. It hitched a
ride back with the O1, and the 09 shunter came up to rescue Poplar. I didn’t see any of this,
but it was almost difficult to believe what people were telling me as they stopped by the stand.
Oh, there's people! I'm just filming because he's found a new home. The miricale of childbirth.
Special thanks to those who came and took over the display
with their own models. Ah, Isle of Wight bois.
TheUnluckyTug, Peter Sam’s Funnel and Mads actually came from all over the world
just to say hi to me, or at least that’s what I’m going to make myself believe. How nice of them.
So that was the misfortunate Fenchurch birthday bash, where the engines had the last laugh.
Despite everything, it was a really fun day and I wish I could have stayed for the whole weekend,
but I actually had a holiday the very next morning so… that had priority I’m afraid. Right afterwards
I came back and picked up the models ready to start filming another animation for the railway,
this time for their Beer Festival, so do check that out too. Cheers. With the
Terriers tucked away, now it’s time for a venture northwards… We made it back! It's been 2 years.