35A

"HMS Wilton" has a railway connection itself, having been one of the class fitted with two of the marine variant of the Napier Deltic power unit. I would guess that there is probably not much in the engine room, these days, unless the redundant units have been left in situ, for ballast.

Of interest, in Saturday's batch (amongst many other things), is C865 - Brush 4 1628, at Heaton Norris Jn., in March 1972. This is the locomotive that, a couple of years later, was overturned at New England North Jn., one Sunday morning, when it took the crossover to the Midland lines from the ECML down main line, at speed. It was rebuilt, as the Class 56 power unit testbed, as 47 601, and subsequently, as the Class 58 power unit testbed, as 47 901. It's surprising to see that, as late as 1972, it still has the original three-part fixed radiator grilles, rather than the two-part Serck variant that became standard during the Class 47 build and which was retro-fitted to the earlier members of the fleet.

Unless I'm very mistaken, C194 appears to be what we used to call a "red circle" - in other words, one of the original batch of Brush 2s (Class 31/0s), built with electro-magnetic controls (and the infamous "toffee apple" controller) and given a red circle coupling code. It would be very unusual to see one of those north of Peterborough - in fact, they were fairly irregular visitors to Peterborough itself, unless they turned up on the afternoon Harwich Parkeston Quay turn on a Saturday (certainly from 1970 onwards). Most of their time was spent pottering around East Anglia on freight services or on Liverpool Street to King's Lynn/Harwich services, before they were upgraded to Type 3 (and, later, Type 4) power.

Most likely. 1985 was also a Gateshead loco, from new, but had been transferred out to Tinsley in March 1970, six months prior to David's image. Tinsley 47s only appeared on the ECML very rarely, IME (certainly by that time).

David - a bit late but C1729 (the class 25 BR/Sulzer Type 2s on 1M66) would be the summer Saturdays Great Yarmouth to Walsall, the return of the morning's 1E91, rather than a Norwich to Birmingham service. It's a train that I used to watch every week, where possible, although usually on the outward run, in the morning. There was a corresponding Derby to Great Yarmouth (and return) service, also worked by a pair of class 25s, which ran via Sleaford and the GN/GE Joint line. For some reason, it was customary for the ex-Walsall locos to work the Derby train back, in the afternoon, and vice-versa. In the last few seasons, before the trains were discontinued, the pairs of class 25s were replaced by a single class 47.

It's interesting how the use of headcodes evolved, through the Sixties and into the Seventies. I've recently been revisiting a lot of my archived notes (which I've held on Excel spreadsheets for the last 20 years, for convenience) and updating some of the headcode information. Some of them seem totally illogical. From what I remember, being an East Coast lad, in the Sixties they tended to be applied by line of route with odd numbers for up trains and evens for down trains. "The Flying Scotsman" (for example) being 1A16 down and 1A35 up. By 1969 this had been changed to a divisional system, in the familiar ascending sequence. Services up to London were xAxx, to King's Cross Division (generally) were xBxx, down to Doncaster Division were xDxx, Hull trains were xHxx, West Yorkshire were xLxx, Newcastle Division were xNxx etc., plus the nationally accepted inter-regional codes. Gradually, these changed further. Hull was absorbed into xLxx and later (1980s IIRC) all of the xLxx codes became xDxx. Inter-regional specials were xZxx and Eastern Region internals xGxx - on the WCML, of course, xGxx was West Midlands, so they seemed to use xTxx for their internal specials, as far as I can make out. Then you've got the Scottish Region using xOxx (the inter-regional code for the Southern Region) for E&G trains and xAxx for Aberdeens. All a bit of a minefield!!! E&OE 😁

Some fascinating stuff there, David. In my ignorance, I hadn't realised that the station at New Holland Pier was actually on the pier. It being about the only (active - to a degree) branch on the East Coast that I still haven't travelled on, I had assumed that the station was at the land end of the pier. The Crewe shots bring back many memories. My first visit was three months after that set were taken. A schoolfriend and I stayed at his aunt's (or gran's - I forget), in Wolverhampton, for a few days, and we spent a day in Manchester, a day in Crewe and a third day here and there. It's funny, I don't remember the class 50s looking as filthy as they appear in C490 (although all of the class 24s that we saw around Crewe and Stoke were absolutely black, it was difficult to tell whether they were blue or still green). One of the highlights of the day at Crewe, apart from the 27 Class 50s that we saw, was Class 74 electro-diesel E6105, humming southwards after a visit to the works.

Re: C3442 - from the archive, it appears that disc-fitted 20 044 worked from Nottingham to Skegness on 10th August, paired with headcode-panel fitted 20 134, on the 09:30 from Nottingham and the 19:00 back. Unfortunately, disc-fitted 20 072 worked 1E85, the 09:20 from Derby, and the 19:20 1M47 back, in the company of headcode-panel fitted 20 161. There's nothing to identify which locos were leading out to Skeg, annoyingly! The leading loco in C3442 looks as though it has (fairly recently) been outshopped from works, from the condition of the paintwork. Unfortunately (again!) my copies of "The Railway Observer" start from 1978, so not very helpful for looking for works dates, to try and pin it down, exactly. You may have a better idea of the ID, if you can remember your travel arrangements from a day, over 45 years ago! 😁

J1519 - that would be regular branch loco D5672, rather than D5872, David. The highest numbered Brush 2 was D5862. The 6 does look very like an 8, though!

J113 - so only one line at Horsted Keynes was equipped with third rail?

What a lovely set of pictures of Twenty Foot River. Despite all of my visits to March depot and the south end of Whitemoor Yard, I never got up to Twenty Foot - it was a bit too far to walk 😁. Fascinating to see what the other end of the yard looked like. I'm pretty sure that C1668 is 08 258 which, along with 08 092 to 08 097 and 08 257 were (IIRC) the radio-fitted shunters that were pretty captive to Whitemoor Yard and the depot, although they did, very occasionally, escape to outstations like Peterborough.

Really sorry to hear about your issues over the past few days, David. Very pleased to hear that you have had a positive outcome and I hope that you will soon be restored to full health. Having had more than my fair share of hospital stays, my experiences have always been much the same as yours - excellent attention and well looked after. Please take care of yourself, we appreciate the time that you devote to RMweb and your generosity in sharing both yours and your late father's images for our pleasure.

Just for fun, I thought that I'd have a go at narrowing down the 'Deltic' in J1216. It's clearly one of the Finsbury Park racehorses. Of the eight, only "ST. PADDY", "TULYAR" and "BALLYMOSS" were still green at the start of 1968. "ST. PADDY" (D9001) was in traffic until 25th February, when it went into Doncaster for attention; "TULYAR" (D9015) was in works for almost the entire month - it was released on 22nd but went back in on 27th with no 1 power unit and generator faults (it probably worked very little over those few days that it was out, if at all); "BALLYMOSS" (D9018) was only available on 1st to 4th February, going into works on 5th, where it remained for the rest of the month. Gen courtesy of Paul Bettany at www.napier-chronicles.co.uk. You might be able to reach a conclusion as to the ID, if you have a rough idea of the date of the image. Chances are, though, that it's D9001.

Again, re the second photo of 'D12' in J1319: during the refurbishment of D11 - D15 (the quintet with connecting doors, as per Class 44), during 1967/68, the split headcode panels were replaced by the standard central headcode panel, used on the later Class 46s, as part of the refurbishment, coupled with a repaint into blue livery. According to www.derbysulzers.com, D12 was still in green livery at the end of both 1968 and 1969, so J1319 can't be D12. I first agreed with brushman47544 that it looks more like D12x but, as detailed on the website, D108 - D137 were all fitted with central headcode panels, with a split between each pair of characters, from new. It's not really possible to get a magnification that makes identification of J1319 any clearer.

A little bit of research suggests that the Class 47 in C974 might well be 1988 (the 198 is clearly visible). D1986-89 were transferred to Gateshead for four months at the start of the summer timetable in 1972. All were still green - however, whilst the others retained 'D' prefixes and numbering in the original font, 1988 was numbered in the newer Rail Alphabet style font, without 'D' prefix. The closest Brush 4 in C0973 looks to be 1865.

Re: J2708 The Class 25s are showing a headcode of 1M80, rather than a 1Oxx code, which would be expected on a working of that period to the Southern Region. According to the May 1971 - May 1972 timetable, 1M80 was the 16:16 Manchester Piccadilly - St. Pancras on a Saturday and the 17:00 on a Sunday. I can't find reference to the weekday diagram - but, in the previous year's timetable, 1M80 was the 16:00 Sheffield Midland - St. Pancras on weekdays. Gen courtesy of RailGenArchive.

So, so good!!!

J840 - D1702 would still have been a class 48 at that time, David, rather than a 47. It was in Crewe Works for conversion between July 1968 and December 1969. Another fabulous set of replacements.

Correct. I was referring to Peaks, in general. Sorry if that wasn't clear. It was during Class 46 delivery that the single panel replaced the split central (as I'm sure you know!).

J1191 is a very good (and fairly rare) shot of D12 which may be useful for modellers. At the time, as built, it had split headcode boxes and connecting gangway doors - only D11 to D15 of the production Class 45s had those fitted (as per Class 44). From D16 onwards, the earlier-built examples continued to be fitted with split headcode boxes but with solid plated fronts, later giving way to central (but still split) headcode panels and, finally, a single headcode panel. When the Class 45s were refurbished by Derby Works, in the late 1960s, D11-D15 had the nose-ends refitted with the single, central headcode panel that had, by then, become standard. It's not often that we see images of this quintet in their original condition.

All the posted images appear here, also, in Firefox, running under Windows 10 on a desktop PC.

C1691 is 55 022 "ROYAL SCOTS GREY".

C5459 - 25 069's only appearance on the Leicester - Skegness in August 1981 was on 1st, together with 25 081. C5460 - 20 070 worked the same day (and for most of that week), along with 20 075. It did reappear towards the end of the month, paired with 20 087, but (as the index numbers of the pictures are adjacent) I suspect that they were taken the same morning.

By the turn of the 1970s, the only loco-hauled train on that axis would have been the 12:?? Harwich Parkeston Quay to Peterborough and the 16:48 return (1B13/1C15 - later in the decade they became 1B69/1C18). This was usually a six-coach formation. Monday to Fridays it would be a regular class 31/1 diagram. On a Saturday, in the early part of the decade, it varied between a class 31/0 and a class 37. Latterly it was a class 37 (sometimes a 47). Following the closure of the GN/GE Joint line, the 07:17 Harwich Parkeston Quay to Manchester Piccadilly (1M72) and its 15:15 return (1E87) also ran via Peterborough, which was a class 37 diagram with a longer rake (I forget how many vehicles, now!). By the 1980s, this had become "The European", running onward to/from Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley, via the West Coast main line, and was a Stratford class 47 diagram (47/0s, initially, later moving to 47/4s, once air-conditioned stock had been cascaded).

In all of the times, over the years, that I have looked at pictures of D9007 with the syphonic horns fitted, I have NEVER noticed that the ETH jumpers had been fitted at that time. Shocking - I must pay more attention! 🙄😁