The Fawley Hill Railway - No.31 turns 100! - 18/05/13

A suggestion from my dad saw us heading towards Henley-on-Thames to the Fawley Hill Railway, a private railway owned by Sir William McAlpine and part of the McAlpine family estate. Usually entrance is by invitation only, but we were visiting on a public open day. More specifically this was their first Steam & Vintage weekend and was held in celebration of the 100th birthday of Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST no.31 'Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons', who has been with the McAlpine family for over 48 years. The event featured a variety of attractions across the site such as steam traction engines, vintage cars & buses and fairground rides. Although our main reason for visiting was for the railway, which boasts the steepest standard gauge gradient in Britain at 1 in 13! We didn't manage to get a ride on the railway as tickets had sold out by mid day. So for now I shall let you enjoy the site and sound of 31 celebrating her birthday in style, barking up the line sounding glorious! A few of other attractions featured are: Hunslet 0-4-0ST 'Lilla' visiting from the Ffestiniog Railway Aveling & Porter 0-4-0WT 'Sir Vincent', a very unusual machine indeed and she spent the day shunting up and down in the yard. Ivo Peters' famous Mk.VI Bentley B31KL You'll notice a few shots are on the wobbly side, this is because for the first part of the day I decided to use my monopod instead of my tripod as I didn't want to keep repostioning and leveling my tripod every couple of minutes. I soon realised that I'm rubbish with a monopod, so I went back to the car, got my tripod and re-filmed the shots I had gotten with the monopod. Although some of the shots I was unable to redo, so they're not as still they could be. Filmed on a Panasonic HDC-HS900 with Panasonic VW-VMS2E and Pro Sound L92AA microphones. Enjoy