Barry Ten's S&D blog

Nice list, 

 

You can also add Ottery St Mary 34045 which is shown in  The Colour of Steam by Dick Riley in August 1961

Many thanks!

Having modelled the entire class, you're about to enter the deadly Light Pacific Tender Trap..

 

Boscastle & Braunton both ran with 5,250gl tenders in modified (rebuilt) form.

 

The majority of the second series that stayed in their Original Air smoothed form had their 5,500gl tenders replaced with 4,500gl tenders when the class started being being modified.

Yes, I had a suspicion it was going to turn into a minefield!

 

I've ordered a copy of The Power of the Bulleid Light Pacifics, which I hope will shed some more light on the matter.

Nice looking loco Al!  If that's a "Light Pacific" the heavy ones must have been enormous

16 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

Yes, I had a suspicion it was going to turn into a minefield!

 

I've ordered a copy of The Power of the Bulleid Light Pacifics, which I hope will shed some more light on the matter.

 

It's a good starting point, but you'd be better off with Irwell's The Book of West Country & Battle of Britain Pacifics - far more detailed info.

 

Though over the years, I have come across a few oddities that haven't made it into books or records

D'oh! I wasn't sure if there was an Irwell book, so I Googled "The Book of ... Bulleid Light Pacifics"! and nothing came up! Another one for the shopping list.

1 hour ago, wenlock said:

Nice looking loco Al!  If that's a "Light Pacific" the heavy ones must have been enormous

 

Have they passed you the smelling salts yet, Dave, after you fainted at the sight of a loco built after 1908?

21 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

Have they passed you the smelling salts yet, Dave, after you fainted at the sight of a loco built after 1908?

Lol! It’s like some kind of spaceship to my Edwardian eyes!  A Dean Goods Is large loco in my world!

I rather like the engine on the left of your photo. 

Given that I want to rename/renumber one of my Blandford's, I'm zeroing in on 34102 Lapford or 34103 Calstock as likely candidates. If I've done my homework right, neither was rebuilt, both have 9 foot cabs and both can be run with the same cut-down tender that comes with 34107. 66 Squadron is also a possibility but it's the one BoB that didn't have the airfield badge.

 

 

 

 

34051 Winston Churchill must have been one of the last pacifics to work a regular service train over the S&D. They sent her up from Bournemouth as the booked class 4 had failed. Can't remember the date but certainly late 1965. I was a fireman at Templecombe at the time.

Thank you, Quintus. Observations such as yours are like gold dust.

 

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my great grandfather was a porter at Blandford, and I was born a week after closure. Hence, the S&D is very much in my blood.

On 30/10/2020 at 19:46, Barry Ten said:

Given that I want to rename/renumber one of my Blandford's, I'm zeroing in on 34102 Lapford or 34103 Calstock as likely candidates. If I've done my homework right, neither was rebuilt, both have 9 foot cabs and both can be run with the same cut-down tender that comes with 34107. 66 Squadron is also a possibility but it's the one BoB that didn't have the airfield badge.

 

 

 

 

 

If you were playing tender battleships, you would have taken a spectacular miss with 34103 Calstock.

 

34102 had the same tender from new - so you are okay there - however never carried a Crest.

 

34103 gained a 4,500gl Tender in October 58 and the tender was cutdown at the same time.

 

34110* gained a 4,500gl Tender in August 58 and again it was cutdown at the same time.

 

*The nameplates are in different places between the BofB & WC so are the holes in the Hornby Bodies.

2 hours ago, Quintus said:

34051 Winston Churchill must have been one of the last pacifics to work a regular service train over the S&D. They sent her up from Bournemouth as the booked class 4 had failed. Can't remember the date but certainly late 1965. I was a fireman at Templecombe at the time.

I’d have to ask “How late in 1965 was ‘late’?”. I’ve seen a couple of withdrawal dates for 34051 - 1965/09/19 and 10/1965. I saw it dead in Banbury shed on 1965/09/09. It had failed there, and shed staff told us they didn’t think it was going to be repaired and returned to service. I would say it couldn’t have been on the S&D any later than the first week in September 1965.

51 minutes ago, pH said:

I’d have to ask “How late in 1965 was ‘late’?”. I’ve seen a couple of withdrawal dates for 34051 - 1965/09/19 and 10/1965. I saw it dead in Banbury shed on 1965/09/09. It had failed there, and shed staff told us they didn’t think it was going to be repaired and returned to service. I would say it couldn’t have been on the S&D any later than the first week in September 1965.

 

It was withdrawn on September 19th - however it could well of been seen after that as it was moved to Hellifield Shed in early November 1965.

 

25 minutes ago, toboldlygo said:

 

It was withdrawn on September 19th - however it could well of been seen after that as it was moved to Hellifield Shed in early November 1965.

 

 

It could have been seen somewhere else between when I saw it in Banbury shed on September 9 and when it was moved to Hellifield in November. However, I doubt if it could have been repaired after September9 (especially since we were told on that day that it was not going to be repaired), returned to the Southern Region, used on the S&D, then withdrawn on September 19.

Edited November 1, 2020 by pH

15 hours ago, pH said:

 

It could have been seen somewhere else between when I saw it in Banbury shed on September 9 and when it was moved to Hellifield in November. However, I doubt if it could have been repaired after September9 (especially since we were told on that day that it was not going to be repaired), returned to the Southern Region, used on the S&D, then withdrawn on September 19.

 

I've emailed a client of mine, who spent his youth going to Nine Elms and clambering all over Bulleid's at that particular time-frame (his father was an engineer at Nine Elms, before transferring to Derby). He might be able to shed some light on Winston Churchill's whereabouts. And yes I'm doing a load of Bulleids for him  

When I get around to it my S&D unrebuilt will be 34043. Fated to be one of the first to be withdrawn in 1963, Bournemouth shed seemed to send it up the S&D when ever it could.  Something to do with a modification done in the early 50s that impaired its steaming (!). It got the first cut down tender at the same time. I think it even features in the opening sequence of the Titfield Thunderbolt (!). I've been trying to find out when it got AWS fitted, and struck gold when the front cover of the recently published book of S&D photos by Derek Cross it appears in soot livery (in contrast to the coaches behind). I won't be able to bring myself to weather it like that. (the photo shows it AWS fitted and is dated in the summer of 1961). I have something of a strange affection for this unfortunate loco ....

 

(So to make a point - if you are trying to model around a particular date there are four main changes to take into account: rebuilding (big change), for those left unrebuilt the tender type and when it got one with sides cut down, livery change from lion & wheel to totem with lining changes to cab side and tender, and finally AWS fitting, all happening at different times)

 

Postscript: I thought of two the things that are visually obvious: 1. The cab windows that were small and 'flat' on the original cabs, but they were changed very early on to the 'sloped' or angled variety 2. In a top view of the unrebuilds, originally the boiler had a cluster of three safety valves forward of the dome. Later, during the rebuilding period they were changed for two safety valves rear of the dome. There is a great top view of 34043 in Ivo Peter's 'The Somerset and Dorset in the 1950s - Volume 2 1955-59' photo 29 taken in July 1955 where the triple safety valve cluster really stands out, as well as the cut down tender, small lion & wheel centred on the tender side and the number on the same level - lower than the  unrebuilts with high tender sides. Unfortunately the lining can't be seen!

 

PS my rebuilt will be 34028 Eddystone, having seen it and photographed it so many times on the Swanange Railway ...

Edited November 5, 2020 by pbkloss

On 04/11/2020 at 12:11, pbkloss said:

 

 

Postscript: I thought of two the things that are visually obvious: 1. The cab windows that were small and 'flat' on the original cabs, but they were changed very early on to the 'sloped' or angled variety 2. In a top view of the unrebuilds, originally the boiler had a cluster of three safety valves forward of the dome. Later, during the rebuilding period they were changed for two safety valves rear of the dome. There is a great top view of 34043 in Ivo Peter's 'The Somerset and Dorset in the 1950s - Volume 2 1955-59' photo 29 taken in July 1955 where the triple safety valve cluster really stands out, as well as the cut down tender, small lion & wheel centred on the tender side and the number on the same level - lower than the  unrebuilts with high tender sides. Unfortunately the lining can't be seen!

 

PS my rebuilt will be 34028 Eddystone, having seen it and photographed it so many times on the Swanange Railway ...

 

I guess you're talking about variations over time within a specific loco's history, but also maybe worth mentioning the difference in cab widths between the earlier and later batches, another pitfall. Blandford Forum had the wider cab so any renumbering has to fit in with that as well.

Oh and for the number list I'm sure I've seen a photo with 34105 Swanage (now on the MHR) on the S&D ... it was shedded at Bournemouth and ran on the S&D according to https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/34105-swanage/ 

On 02/11/2020 at 13:11, toboldlygo said:

 

I've emailed a client of mine, who spent his youth going to Nine Elms and clambering all over Bulleid's at that particular time-frame (his father was an engineer at Nine Elms, before transferring to Derby). He might be able to shed some light on Winston Churchill's whereabouts. And yes I'm doing a load of Bulleids for him  

 

So after consulting with my client, the only other time he saw Winston Churchill after withdrawal was in 1980.

Winston Churchill is in Locomotion, Shildon. They used it as a backdrop to a Remembrance Day  facebook & Twitter tribute to the fallen from the railway industry.

In case anyone's still reading this, I'd be interested in thoughts on Dorchester in rebuilt condition. It was one of the batch built with 8 foot 6 inch cabs, which I presume meant it got a narrow tender. Photos of it in rebuilt condition, though, look like it has the 9 foot cut down tender. The only way I can tell the two apart, other than the slight difference in width relative to the cab and the tender, is that the narrower ones are slab-sided whereas the wider ones have a gentle curve. Hornby have modelled both types with two of mine being the wider type.