luckymucklebackit

One I forgot to mention was they were regular performers on car/light truck trains to and from Bathgate, one working around 11am every morning going towards Glasgow through Coatdyke was one highlight of the day. Only photographed the working once, by which time 40s and 47s were the mainstay. Jim

If you can get your hands on a copy of the Bradford and Barton book "Diesels on the Scottish Region" by S. Rickard there is an amazing photograph of an extremely dirty Peak D116(?) on page 44. It is heading a short transfer freight consisting of a van, two tanks, two 16T mineral wagons and a brake van at Balornock Junction, and appears to be coming off the "switchback" line from Rutherglen. It is also in this book that one of the Buchannan Street photos appears, with the peak just leaving the tunnel at what the locals called the "stinky ocean". This was a particularly nasty area where all sorts of chemical wast was dumped from Tennants Chemical Works. Despite a concrete cap being put in place in the 1970s the area still tends to have a unique odour! Jim

Not forgetting Balloch Pier! Jim

According to Derbysulzers.com they did make it as far as Perth around 1966, I have seen two photographs of peaks working out of Buchanan Street. "Peaks continued to work out of Glasgow Buchanan Street, the 12.00 Dundee - Glasgow, 18.00 return and the 16.25 to Inverness (to Perth) were favourites with D89 noted on Feb 5th & 9th on the former two and D46 on the latter on 26th. Despite their presence in the Glasgow area the EE Type 4s were rare performers on the Dundee turns, Peak failures were normally covered by Class 5s, with the 20.00 hours from Dundee being a favourite for steam substitution. Another working to bring Peaks into the area was the 14.20 Waverley - Stirling, this was normally covered by a Gateshead Peak. A stranger on the daily Auchlochan colliery turn (formerly the Coalburn branch) was D40 on March 8th" https://www.derbysulzers.com/66.html Jim

The data on the maps is somewhat inaccurate, if you scroll to the comment at the bottom you will see that I have tried to put them right. The exact location of Langloan dump is here. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.05536540039183&lat=55.84643&lon=-4.01346&layers=170&right=ESRIWorld Jim

Merry Xmas Martyn - dont give up the good work, you are an inspiration to many. As the song says "Things can only get Better" Jim

47155 at CEGB West Thurrock Power Station, in use as a stationary generator set, having been adapted to excite a turbo alternator following a serious fault on an auxiliary generator at the power station Jim

Brilliant modelling, The Baltic is obviously a Free House, and as a minor addition I would add a transfer above the door indicating this. For the benefit of the young/non-Scottish, most pubs in Scotland would have been owned by the brewery (so called tied houses) and the two main brewers in Scotland around this era would have been Tennant Caledonian (who made Tennants Lager) and Scotish and Newcastle (who made McEwans Export), so you would not have seen both of these signs ouside the one pub if it was a tied house. There were a relatively small number of free houses and these were fiercely independant and proudly advertised their status outside the "shop" as they sold whatever beer they chose. They were very popular with loyal patrons as they were percieved to serve good quality beer as slightly lower prices than the tied houses. Jim

I am assuming that they are working through these on a first come first served basis, I ordered my BR weathered black 57565 on 9th September and have not had any indication from Rails when my order will be processed. Jim

Congratulations on your retirement, I am 16 weeks and counting until mine, hen the next Generation Gateside and Northbridge, should finally be built. Jim

SInce we seem to have drifted into a more general rail borne container discussion how about these! These are containers built to order in China for fitting out as power generating equipment at Aggreko. More normally seen as ones and twos on regular services, because of a ship hold up this special dedicated train was run to clear a backlog. Jim

The rationalisation in 1986 removed the last bit of the old Waverley route through the yard and all traffic arrived and departed from one of the four loops that still exist today. Any Speedlink traffic using the Bilston Glen branch after 1986 would most likely have been wagons being shunted into the small C&W depot at the south end of the yard. By this date according to Rhodes book there were 12 Trunk Speedlink and 14 feeder trip freights from local yards. There were also a number of block freight trains that used the yard to exchage crews. Jim

I was thinking of this line while reading a new article regarding a huge new housing development on the southern outskirts of Ayr. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-59293681 despite the proximity of the Ayr General Hospital and the fact that the line skirts the whole north eastern flank of the development there is nothing to suggest a new station could be built, indeed none of the news articles even mention that the railway is there and there nobody is advocating that a station should be built. Edit - found the planning document which states that there is some thought on this, but nothing concrete: (16) Safeguarding land related to Rail Halt No development shall take place on the site until a scheme for safeguarding the land within the site which is reasonably required for vehicular and pedestrian access to a rail halt (and related ancillary buildings) capable of serving the wider South East Ayr strategic growth area has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Planning Authority. The safeguarding of the required land shall be undertaken in accordance with the approved scheme. The scheme shall include: a) Provisions for such other agreements (if any) as may be necessary for the safeguarding of the necessary land on the site; b) The indicative location of a rail halt that could serve the South East Ayr strategic growth area; c) The location and extent of the land to be safeguarded; d) The arrangements for the safeguarding of the safeguarded land in perpetuity; e) The arrangements for transfer of the land to facilitate the use of the safeguarded land as a rail halt including for access, parking, turning of vehicles; and f) Provisions to allow the erection of any buildings or structures necessary to serve a rail halt. JIm

Just to add to the above, the parapets of the old bridge are still in place JIm

The side by side maps shows the line better https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16&lat=55.33572&lon=-4.80127&layers=170&right=ESRIWorld The campsite was built on the formation of the old line and what appears as the old formation is actually the old road alignment, I used to have a caravan at another site that was further down the coast which was also on the track of the old line. Gunnie was one of my old stamping grounds, this used to be Gartsherrie Iron Works and had a really extensive railway system, https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17&lat=55.87327&lon=-4.03468&layers=170&right=ESRIWorld As you can see from the present day Bing Map there is nothing left. I have a photograph of the works shunter somewhere. Jim