Mol_PMB

There's a photoshopped picture of the KWVR 101 in white and blue on Flickr - it kept cropping up in my searches. I didn't come across any photos of real examples of this livery in preservation, but they may exist.

Yes, that's also what I found looking at the photos. The secondman's side always had a double arrow. If they didn't have a PTE logo on the driver's side, they sometimes had a double arrow, and sometimes had nothing. From Graeme Phillips again, here's one without a logo on the driver's side: My previous post I think covered all the PTEs in existence at the time except Merseyside. Here's one by Martyn Hilbert at Birkenhead North, which you might expect to have a Merseyside logo if they were carried, but it doesn't: Also Greater Glasgow later became Strathclyde, possibly within the lifespan of this livery but maybe they were repainted before the name change.

I wonder how many different PTE logos were carried on this livery? Here are a selection from Flickr: From Tony Watson, just plain double arrows: From Derek Hoskins, 'Greater Glasgow': From Brian McDevitt, West Midlands: From the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester, GMPTE: From Graeme Phillips, is this South Yorkshire PTE? Also from Graeme Phillips, West Yorkshire PTE: Also from Graeme Phillips, is this Tyne & Wear?

Nice to see one of the 308s with the motor luggage van for the Tilbury dock traffic.

Aha, many thanks. This will be the view of interest then? https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/view/UniversalViewer/44ABE_INST/12152445940005941

A few more shots in the Mersey and Ship Canal from my trip on the Danny at the weekend. 'Stena Edda', 'Bore Song', 'Nordic Breeze' and tugs: Plough dredger 'Norma II' - basically a floating bulldozer: A spotless tanker at Tranmere - 'Halti': 'Golden Oak' in the ditch at Stanlow:

I was just having a look too. Failed to find any at Boston using the search facility, but a search for train produced a lot of interesting results including a traction-engine type locomotive at work. Does this link function? https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/view/UniversalViewer/44ABE_INST/12154619430005941 This one includes a wagon marked GN but I suspect there may also be an S just out of shot: https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/view/UniversalViewer/44ABE_INST/12154939420005941

On the canal the bridges are protected by 'air draught gauges': wires stretched across the canal on the approach to the bridges, set at a height slightly below the bridge height. The steel towers just visible on each side of this photo from Warburton Bridge form one of these gauges. In recent years some have had the wire replaced by a laser beam or similar. Also seen here at Barton Locks: If the ship snags the wire (or breaks the beam), it has to stop before it reaches the bridge, and lower its air draught, usually by pumping more water into ballast tanks. Even smaller ships can be quite tall if the aerials aren't folded down: The air draught on the canal and the height of the bridges was limited by the height of the railway bridge at Runcorn which pre-dated the canal.

An update on the log loads which are now complete for the two different wagons. Both seen here on the new bit of the layout where tracklaying is progressing slowly but nearly ready for ballasting. A job to be tackled soon is the overhead line masts to replace those galvanised coach bolts. The metre gauge bogie flat: The standard gauge open wagon on transporter: And them both posed in a train with some appropriate motive power: While I have several drawbars for the transporter wagons, I couldn't actually find one for the photo. They must be in a 'safe place'. Here's a train of empties at about the same location in reality, from polier.ch and the Tram Club Basel archive:

I imagine this is the updated version of the diagram book: https://www.gnrsociety.com/home-page/shop/w-diag-great-northern-railway-diagrams-of-g-n-r-and-ex-g-n-r-wagon-stock/ This is what my old copies look like: 20-odd years ago when I lived in Breadsall, Derby, I built some O gauge GNR models, as well as some MR ones. As usual I never came close to finishing any project based on them. I still have some wagons and at least one teak carriage in store somewhere.

The copies I have of all 3 books listed are all GNRSA publications. I only have one volume of the Wagon Pictorial series, but if the others are similar then I'd recommend those too. They do not carry an ISBN, or any formal publishing details other than 'GNRSA' on the covers. The first page of the 'Illustrations of Wagon Stock' is by Terry Henderson and Horace Twell, dated February 1998. The first page of the diagrams book mentions 'members responsible for this publication' Dick Tarpey and Horace Twell. Other than the first introductory pages and perhaps the contents lists, the greater part of those books appear to be copies of original GNR / LNER material. The Wagon Pictorial Part 3 copy that I have is similarly informal in publishing details, again the introductory page mentions Dick Tarpey and Horace Twell and states Rev 5/2001. It's quite possible that the GNRSA / GNRS has updated some of these documents in the last 20+ years; I've had these for a long time...

It's been a couple of years since I've had a need to use GEOGIS data, but I believe it is still live. For those who don't know, GEOGIS is a huge database that records information about the track on the entire network. Organised by ELR, TID and mileage, it has details such as the rail, sleeper and fastening type, renewal date, linespeed, track category, and very many other parameters!

On ELRs, this is a very useful reference which can be searched or indexed in various ways and has useful links between adjacent ELRs: http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/elrs/elr0.shtm Here's an example for the East Lincolnshire Railway ELR: http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/elrs/_mileages/e/elr.shtm Any location on the railway can in theory be uniquely described by a combination of ELR, Track ID (TID) and mileage. TID is usually 1100 for up main and 2100 for down main, 1200 for up slow and 2200 for down slow. Bidirectional lines are in the 3000s and loops in the 4000s. Crossovers are usually numbered in the 3700s and sidings 3900s, with the last two digits incrementing upwards to identify individual sidings etc. The last two digits can also be used to indicate platform numbers at stations. This incident gives an idea of the dangers of confusion over which ELR you're on. Protection was arranged for a worksite at the correct mileage from Dundee but in the wrong direction: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safety-digest-112018-dundee/near-miss-with-track-workers-at-dundee-10-july-2018 Network Rail staff now have an phone/tablet app which converts GPS position to ELR / TID / mileage location to minimise such issues.

Having now had a chance to look at my bookshelves and the GNR books I haven't studied for a decade or more, I have the following: 'Diagrams of GNR and ex GNR Wagon Stock' - This is what we would expect from a diagram book, good on dimensions but no information on livery details. - It does not list the wagon numbers assigned to each diagram, but in some cases an 'example wagon number' is given. - Each diagram has a cross-reference to a page in the following book: 'Great Northern Railway Illustrations of Wagon Stock' - This has about 150 official photos each being a wagon portrait. - Key dimensions are also given under each photo. - Reproduction quality is sometimes pretty good and elsewhere rather muddy. - In most cases there is just one photo of each wagon diagram, but for some specialist vehicles there are multiple views (e.g. interior and exterior). - Liveries shown include large GN, small GNR, and G NORTHERN R. 'Great Northern Railway Wagons Pictorial Part 3' - This brings together diagrams, photos and other details for each wagon type. - In most cases, multiple photos of each type are included. - Photo reproduction is consistently good. - The photos aren't just new officials, but show wagons later in life including in LNER livery and in a few cases BR livery. - Quantities of each type are given at the time of the December 1922 wagon census, and for some wagon types at other dates too. So, back to the original question about the size of the large GN: - On low-sided wagons (1 plank / 2 plank / 3 plank) the G N letters are almost the full height of the sides (excluding kerb rail) with maybe a half-inch gap top and bottom. - On the kerb rail below the G is the load capacity, and below the N is the wagon number. - On high-sided wagons (4 plank and above) the G N letters appear to be consistently 30" high as noted in a previous post on this thread. - The load capacity and number are typically on the kerb rail on 4-plank wagons, but for higher-sided wagons they may be on the bottom plank. - The 30" G N lettering is normally positioned about half-way up the wagon side so that the gap between the top of the wagon side and the top of the G N lettering is about equal to the gap between the top of the load capacity lettering and the bottom of the G N lettering. - For wagons without sides, different arrangements are needed but these vary with wagon type. - Vans generally follow the same principles as opens with 30" lettering, but some vehicles with external body framing require smaller G N in a non-standard position to fit. - Tank wagons use 30" G N lettering on the tank barrel. Hope that helps! Mol

In an attempt to change the subject slightly, may I offer the Knutsford Road swingbridge? As seen here in the centre of this view: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/EPW021587 This is a road swingbridge over the Manchester Ship Canal. The MSC railway ran along the canal bank, and at this location it ran under the tail end of the swingbridge. The bridge clearance above the rails was only a couple of feet so the bridge had to be swung for trains as well as for ships. The location was particularly unpopular with the lengthman responsible for maintaining the track on this section as it could only be properly inspected when a ship was passing. It gave an unusual opportunity of a train having a major 'bridge bash' although I don't believe this ever happened here. The canal and the swingbridge are still in use but the MSC railway is long gone. However, the curvaceous route of the railway crossing on the skew bridge in the middle distance is pencilled in for the 'Northern Powerhouse Rail' high speed line. Will it ever happen? That's a discussion for another thread too...