great central

Mentioned elsewhere that until the chord at Loughborough was built freight used to come via Weekday Cross (early 70s?). Just seen the rteply above. I well remember standing on Midland Station, quite possibly in 1969 when waiting for my O level results and a pair of class 20s roared across the bridge heading for East Leake. At full throttle they were doing quite some speed, showing up the Midland freight as painfully slow. Regarding it being a dingy place, I recall seeing something on television around this time (possibly a few years either side) when Midalnd Station was compared unfavourably to a Victorian Gents toilet. It may be listed but as the saying goes you can't polish a t**d!

Very timely I'll have to look properly when I'm home, can't get the photos on my phone very well. Half a century ago this weekend it was all over!

Also happened a lot down the road at Colwick. Many pictures show locos with coal piled above cab roof height, even 2-8-0s on relatively short distance workings seemed to be the same.

There is actually a Notts Forest cricket club. I recall reading somewhere about train crews watching the match while stopped on the bridge over the Trent which is now the Lady Bay road bridge. I can't post a link from my phone but googling it will show that they're still active and a very keen group of sportsmen!

Nooooooo!!! Thanks for nothing, got that awful song going round in my head now! Remember being taken to see the film by my dad, hated it then hate it even more now!

Regarding Lord President on the GC, I remember as a very young train spotter no more than 5 years old, being thrilled at seeing 60503 on a passenger service arriving at Nottingham Victoria from the south. That is one of my abiding memories along with 92091 my first sight of a 9F around the same time.

We still use 'ovoids' in our multi-fuel stove. I recall reading that either Colwick or Annesley men called them eggs while not being very complimentary about their use in loco fireboxes. From my experience with them I could readily see them not being suited to loco use. Given a decent draught they will burn hot and quite quickly but as they burn while apparently keeping their shape, if disturbed with a poker just collapse into a heap of little more than ash. As locos do tend to shake around a bit I could see the 'eggs' disintegrating fairly quickly and becoming a solid mass of ash in the bottom of the firebox with little acual heat generating ability.

I don't think it's just model mags either, there is one 'prototype' mag that has taken on the same kind of colours. I'm know that the real railway doesn't look like that, I work on it every day. Not sure if they're from the same publishing company, if so perhaps trying to show some odd kind of 'house style's?

If it is a parcels service I wonder if it's the return empty newspaper vans from the previous night? I remember using that service to get home from a free Hyde Park gig around 1969-70, either Canned Heat or Eric Burdon and War I recall. The 'papers' used to be one of the crack services on the GC before closure despite running in the middle of the night. When the GC closed it was routed from Euston to Northampton then onwards to Leicester. I recall it made good time to Northampton then trundled across to Leicester although I think the line speed was fairly low on that stretch, quite a bit of dwell time to unload the mornings news as well.

The same thing happened to one of our 'less popular' guards managers (now retired) some years ago

Kimberley station building is still there, the trackbed is a car park. Further along is a 'nature trail' including (or certainly did some years ago) a miniature buffer stop with a plaque pointing out that in past years a large number of trains passed there every 24 hours (it does say how many but I can't rermember!). There was a farce over the footbridge which was dismantled to be refurbished and replaced over the car park but 'by mistake' some or all of it got cut up for scrap . The former goods yard occupied at the time of the picture by a timber merchant is now under housing. Worksop East signal box is still there, albeit unused for many years, the land opposite being the site of an aborted Tesco store.

Crikey! Another repaint for 189. Not so long ago it was in pseudo LT livery, 3 years if I recall correctly I saw it at Butterly when I had my 60th birthday footplate experience. Then it was in Balfour Beatty livery, now it's in plain blue. The paint must help with adhesion Thing is I never cease to be amazed that it's still with us. Many years ago it was paired with 20056 on a Nottingham-Skegness 'Jolly Fisherman'. All the way there and back it did very little work but succeeded in filling the first few coaches with thick smoke, just spluttering along at slightly above idle. Fortunately 56 was in fine order and coped very well. 189 was withdrawn soon after and joined a good number of others in the trek to M C Metals. It can't have been that bad though as it became their yard shunter as seen here: https://www.britishrailways.tv/train-videos/2013-11/scrap-locomotives-at-mc-metals-scrapyard-in-august-1992/ Eventually being rescued and restored

May be totally irrelevant but a good many years ago I helped to re-do the roof on my mother in law's caravan. They were originally traveling showmen (fairground operators). The van, known as a wagon, had a clerestory roof which they knew as a 'mollycroft'. Anyway the material used was canvas stuck down with copious amounts of gloss white paint. Then given several further coats until the canvas was thoroughly covered.

J1553, I wonder if it's D85. Many moons ago I modified a Mainline Peak into that one, coincidentally with the same headcode for our Deepcar layout. I'd seen a photo in Railway Magazine taken at Deepcar when Manchester services were diverted over Woodhead in 1969. I'd also found another photo showing the opposite end which had a split centre headcode box. Edit: just seen Rob's post above, in my defence I'm looking at these pics on my phone and between composing my reply and sending it using the patchy signal on the ECML, he'd confirmed it as a 46.

Pure guesswork but somewhere in the Norfolk or Suffolk area? Waiting entry to a scrap yard perhaps? Are they LNER quad-arts? Difficult to be sure on my phone.

Sorry it's a bit of a pet peeve having been heavily involved with three different OHLE layouts, one of which is now resident in my garage but that may make another show appearance next year

Yeah but isn't that an electric loco? If so why are the pans down?????

When I worked on the refreshment trollies on some services we always used to say that passengers bought two bags of crisps at a time, one to eat and one to throw on the floor and grind into the carpet! I work on train and have ceased to be amazed by pretty much anything, at this time of year three bin bags full of rubbish from a two car train after a two hour journey isn't unusual, and that's just what can be easily picked up on turn round. As for weekends when there's almost any kind of sporting fixture or stag/hen do's about

Regarding Q6 and 7 visiting Grantham. There's a photo on the Annesley Fireman website showing a Q6 at Annesley in 1946. I've also seen in a book somewhere (don't ask me which one) a photo of what I recall was a Q7 at Daybrook on the GN back line so would have got at least as far as Colwick.

Kirkby in Ashfield was known as Kirkby Bentinck station, I'm just reading the book South from Chesterfield Central by Ken Grainger, there's a good few pictures of the station in happier days. I keep saying I'll take a walk around the area and try to visualise where stations and junctions were. Edit, this should have been attached to the post above but the Cloud threw me off!

Ah Nottingham Midland! Sat there at the moment 04.00 standby, to my mind it's not much changed and definitely not improved over the years. The tram bridge gives a flavour of previous years when there'd be regular freights hammering over, while everything below crawled about. The comparison between a proper main line and a branch line from Trent! I remember, probably in summer 1969 waiting for my O level results, standing on the station when a pair of 20s heading out to Ruddington and East Leake fairly roared over the bridge. Perhaps an ex GC driver showing the Midland the way to do it!

Hope Valley near Hope itself, ES would be Earles Sidings box

J1789, remarkably enough the timber waiting shelter survives to this day and in use. The building on the opposite platform also still exists but may be vacant.

J1658, last day of service, as in this section of line shuts the next day (for a few years anyway), but look at the condition of the permanent way, better than a lot you'll see nowadays