At some point we will auction the carpet with the proceeds going to restoring another Bulleid Pacific. Maybe before the auction though I'll let you drive your locos over it as well!

If all goes well this year you may have a choice of 2 Bulleids to drive at Tunbridge Wells.

Great idea Martin. We may just do that. The proceeds would go towards its next overhaul.

That carpet definitely is!

Once you had found them amongst the ballast!

Hello Jozef. It's the Spa Valley Railway in Tunbridge Wells. It runs from Tunbridge Wells West to Eridge. If you get the chance to ride on the footplate of any large steam loco you'll realise that visibility is not great. You are positioned at the wrong end of the loco, (at the rear) and you look forwards along one side of the boiler through a small window. When the loco is negotiating a right hand curve the driver (looking along the left side) will not be able to see the track ahead so the fireman will be his eyes instead. If I remember rightly the incident you mention occurred during a very foggy day and a SPAD occurred resulting in the collision. There was no AWS installed back then unfortunately.

@@railwaymaniacs7392 Many thanks! Here is a link to 'Pathe News' of the day: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/sKhklNZk2KnSj4U.html Regarding lack of visibility, I have sometimes wondered how locos were not designed with the driver at the front? Yes, SPAD is what happened and while AWS existed in some form, the railways were reluctant to adopt it on the grounds of cost and their reasoning that two pairs of eyes should be enough to see the signals! Following the enquiry into the 1957 crash, AWS gradually came into being with priority to lines using semaphore signals and Lewisham/St Johns already had 4-aspect electric fitted. As a further note, I think the damaged/destroyed bridge was replaced by the Army with a trestle made from steel girders which seemed to still be in place when I went from London Bridge to Lewisham in late 2014 but not sure what might be there now.

Actually DJM explicitly put a warning not to do so in their instuctions, I have a set right here and yup it says not to. sam also himself admitted on camera he has to spend extra hours cleaning all the fluff out of them to make sure his are not damaged sooooo... How about this quote from the instructions for the accurascale 92 "Avoid running the product on track laid on carpet or other unprepared surfaces." Quote from the instructions for a hornby A3 "The locomotive chassis may, from time to time, pick up fluff, fabric fibres and pet hairs which can become entangled in the gears and around axles. For this reason, it is not advisable to run the locomotive on track which is laid on a carpet." Followed rather enjoyably by a whole bit about how your warranty will be void by improper use🤫 🤣yeah. At the risk of sounding like a massive geek that's simply not true now is it. That's ignorance or a lie... only you know which. But were it the former it becomes the latter if you now repeat it. It advises you not to, it further stipulates a penalty of loss of warranty repair, this combined amounts to a warning not to in as much as it impacts their responsibility towards you under consumer law. Though, if you want an actually affimative "do not" warning you really cannot beat the delicious combination of words found in the hattons P class instructions, you know hattons, sams best mates... lets read shall we children "Do not run this model on carpet or other floor coverings as dust and hairs can damage the mechanism" 🤯BUT, THERE IS NO WARNING NOT TO... Amazing what literally 5 minutes and google and an ability to read comes up with. Try it some time.

The Locomotive was taking part in the Christmas festivities at the time of filming and was pulling the Polar Express to the North Pole to see Santa. Just like the movie!

Before Christmas the loco was playing it's role as the Polar Express from the movie

We were so surprised with the lack of damage to the carpet.

@@railwaymaniacs7392 good carpet, nice weave.

We hope to actually auction the carpet at some point to help raise funds for its overhaul. When this happens I will mention it in a video so anyone can place a bid.

On the front of the loco and rear of the tender.

@railwaymaniacs7392 This is sign of very good quality!

Hopefully, he'll love it! Sam is awesome.

@@railwaymaniacs7392 next see if it works underwater, then see how fast it go, then see how much pressure the boiler will hold, then see how many people it takes to stop it doing full speed, then see what happens when you leave the fire box doors open and enter a tunnel. Gotta channel the true sam experiment mind set.

@7812 productions just suggesting fun experiments. Putting stuff on the track is fun kids.

@7812 productions pro tip when you're at a preserved line, bit of lard on the rail, you'll get a good slip video. 😉 Its fine to put anything you want on the railhead, thats the messaging of this video. Its all just a laugh.

@7812 productions I'd maybe be more forgiving if I hadn't seen kids go from one piece of ballast on the track being a laugh to mounding it up over the rail, that was a fun emergency stop. Not. I'd maybe be more forgiving if I'd not witnessed a 16 year old kid almost get his skull crushed flat by a big miniature loco rolling over, an incident all born of this kind of b.s. behaviour around railways. Keep it clean, keep it professional. Run the train, carry the passenger, there is zero need for this kind of nonsense creeping into real railway operations. Call me alarmist today, call me wise when you have a derailment caused by some prat deciding this kind of thing is fun to set up and film and does something a bit more stupid. Railways are not jokes, play things, or toys. They are deadly serious and require better than this pathetic display of childish behaviour. Maybe these folks need to see some injuries and near misses up close to get the message. Or maybe they just need to think before acting.