tingleytim

I was really hoping you would be able to come to see TL at Bristol Chris after all your help with signalling information. Thanks once again.

Getting “Templecombe Lower” ready for the Bristol exhibition at Thornbury Leisure Centre over the bank holiday weekend 3 to 5 May. I hope some of the contributors to this and other Somerset and Dorset Railway Group discussions will be able to come and see the layout in operation. We’ll be replicating sequences that happened during mornings in the late 50s/early 60s either side of Junctions 2 and 3. Quite challenging for the operators - as it probably was for the signalmen in that period!

Presumably Combe Martin will be in touch with Blandford Forum Railway Club whose model of Bailey Gate must be well advanced by now. Their website used to have many pictures recording progress but their Bailey Gate page seems to omit them at the moment.

The piloted trains have a loco at the front and a loco at the rear operated separately. If there is an easy way of both locos being operated together in a consist (or other method?) then I would be interested to know how. I tried hard some time back using NCE’s consist instructions to pair locos but without success and need a minimum of seven pairings for the operating sequence. Perhaps it’s time to have another go, maybe searching RMWeb.

On my “Templecombe Lower” (00) I’m looking for something better than hands of god to uncouple pilot locos (a pannier tank and an Ivatt tank - both Bachmann). The pannier has a Zimo sound chip (145 036). The Ivatt has a Zimo no-sound chip (145 037). I wish my piloted trains could stop on straight track but they have to stop on a curve of about 3 foot radius. Might Preci uncouplers work if the curve has this largish radius? Is the problem reduced if the cotton is pulling towards the outside of the bend? It’s very difficult to stop piloted trains at a precise position; this precludes some other uncoupling methods and makes the Preci system seem very attractive. One other problem; separating the rear coaches of two trains that leave joined together and then are separated (in full view!) to go their opposite ways. Equip one of the coaches with a decoder? Any advice very welcome on Preci or other systems. West Hill Wagon Works have an uncoupler coming “this year” for their Hunt magnetic couplings; a possible alternative? Many thanks for any responses.

A superb massive collection of colour photos in two hefty volumes. Many new angles. Well done to the authors. After a quick whiz through the pictures I’m now starting to absorb the captions though it will need many sittings to take in all the info! Picking up on Geoffers’ Bailey Gate comments I can add info about the big picture on page 284. 73049 would have been on the up mail, the 3.40 from Bournemouth. Milk wagons used to be added here by the loco on the afternoon up freight from Poole. I took a very similar B&W shot (attached) six days later when 73054 was on the up mail and 75071 was on the freight. The latter can be seen in the distance just the same as in the page 284 picture. The Cole pictures in volume 2 reminded me of two occasions when I took pictures from very similar positions, sadly with much inferior equipment. The 16.13 from Evercreech (started there) used to pass the 16.05 from Templecombe at Cole, separated by just one minute in the timetable. I suspect these were the trains on the title page. Was it a guess to say that the Down train was a “Bath to Templecombe service”? Same trains in the page 204 pictures also? On page 203 75072 is seen heading tender first on a passenger train - but without explanation. This would have been the 10.20 from Templecombe which terminated at Evercreech (not Bath) where the loco shunted its coaches into the middle siding’s north end and used the turntable before returning to Templecombe either light or with a freight working. Many enjoyable hours coming up on the rest of these two volumes, but nothing compared to the thousands of hours the authors would have devoted in assembling them!

The loco for the late SO train came south on the 16.13 from Evercreech. Monday to Friday that loco returned to Bath on the 8.10 freight from Poole. On Saturdays that freight did not run. But the late SO train only went to Templecombe after which the Templecombe crew were booked to take the loco to Evercreech for turning before going back on shed. (Can't think why.) Did the loco make it back to Bath the next morning as a light engine?

Very pleased to see some four minutes footage of Templecombe Lower, after about 5 and a half minutes:

Some rapidly taken photos of Templecombe Lower's trip to the Doncaster Festival of British Railway Modelling this last weekend. Some will recognise the above picture as the 9.05am double departure from platform 3 heading toward No. 2 Junction where the coupled together trains will be separated to go their opposite ways. 76056 is on the 6am from Bristol. In the distance is 73050 on the 9.05 to Bath. Below: Evening Star on the 9.03 from Bristol is being piloted back to No. 2 Junction by pannier tank 4691before continuing its southbound journey.

Your comment about Templecombe Lower very much appreciated. Thanks. Tim Chapman.

I photographed the 11.40 at Bournemouth West on 8/4/1964 and also on 28/7/1965 just before West closed. On both occasions it left from one of the shorter platforms that S&D trains usually went from. On neither date were the coaches taken from a train from Waterloo. I have a Carriage Working Notice for summer 1960 on which the 11.40’s coaches came from Berth/Branksome Loop, and its van next to the loco came off the 2.40am from Bath. A table on page 36 of “District Controller’s View No. 4” shows the 11.40’s coaches came to Bournemouth on the 15.35 from Bristol and that seems to be the case from a few of my photos in the latter years. The 1957 carriage workings table on page 8 of the District Controller’s View Bath to Bristol book corroborates this. I am yet to be convinced that there were through coaches from Waterloo to Portishead via the S&D but would be fascinated to learn otherwise.

I recall an internet discussion about some coaches off the 8.35 Waterloo becoming the 11.40 Bournemouth to Bristol. My SR summer 64 timetable shows this train arriving at Bournemouth West at 11.33 just 7 minutes before the S&D train was due to leave so that couldn’t have happened in that timetable period. I caught the 11.40 on a number of occasions from Bournemouth West and am sure the coaches were in the platform well before the departure time and not hurredly taken from an arrival from London. Isn’t it more likely that the coaches came off the 8.35 at Bournemouth Central when S&D trains departed from there from August 65 when West was shut?

This discussion has prompted me to dig out the notebooks. I recorded the 15.35 Bristol (16.20 from Bath) at or south of Templecombe on 4 occasions. I was at Templecombe on 31/8/63 and recorded 3 extra coaches being added. Pity I didn’t add any more detail. On the other 3 occasions this train had the extra coach set every time. On 2/1/65 there was a van between the two coach sets; 76014 was banked from Poole to Branksome by 80146. This seems to confirm the answer to Chris’s question. Slightly off topic but I’ve never worked out how the loco for the late SO train got to Bournemouth.

I posted the following in reply to Chris’s Facebook post with the same picture and query: I think the shadows show the sun coming from the north-west so this would seem to be an evening event. Most unlikely that the train would have passengers. The early morning train from Bournemouth was reversed in the manner shown in the photo (when it was backed onto the 6am from Bristol in platform 3), but passengers weren’t allowed on board during this manoeuvre – though I did manage to stowaway on it once! My guess is the coaches are being put in platform 3 to form the 8.50 pm to Bath, though not of course hauled by a tender first Collett 0-6-0. Perhaps the coaches had been in one of the Upper yard sidings that didn’t have direct access to the western end of platform 3. Was the 8.50 part of a Bath or Templecombe duty? Looking at the picture again later, the shadows might be too short for evening. And my guess at the 8.50 departure was wrong because this was the same train as the 6.48 pm from Bournemouth which would most likely have had a 76XXX loco at the front and would have been piloted back into platform 3. (Timetables showed some trains either side of Templecombe on different columns disguising that they were through services.) Another idea: on Saturdays, if I recall correctly, 3 extra coaches used to be added at Templecombe to the 4.20 from Bath to provide stock for the late Saturdays Only service from Bournemouth back to Templecombe. I’d go with that unless anyone can think of anything better. Time: 5.40pm.

I posted the following in reply to Chris’s Facebook post with the same picture and query: I think the shadows show the sun coming from the north-west so this would seem to be an evening event. Most unlikely that the train would have passengers. The early morning train from Bournemouth was reversed in the manner shown in the photo (when it was backed onto the 6am from Bristol in platform 3), but passengers weren’t allowed on board during this manoeuvre – though I did manage to stowaway on it once! My guess is the coaches are being put in platform 3 to form the 8.50 pm to Bath, though not of course hauled by a tender first Collett 0-6-0. Perhaps the coaches had been in one of the Upper yard sidings that didn’t have direct access to the western end of platform 3. Was the 8.50 part of a Bath or Templecombe duty? Looking at the picture again later, the shadows might be too short for evening. And my guess at the 8.50 departure was wrong because this was the same train as the 6.48 pm from Bournemouth which would most likely have had a 76XXX loco at the front and would have been piloted back into platform 3. (Timetables showed some trains either side of Templecombe on different columns disguising that they were through services.) Another idea: on Saturdays, if I recall correctly, 3 extra coaches used to be added at Templecombe to the 4.20 from Bath to provide stock for the late Saturdays Only service from Bournemouth back to Templecombe. I’d go with that unless anyone can think of anything better. Time: 5.40pm.