45125

Paddington to Hull/Leeds with the return Leeds/Hull to Brighton. Some of these type services were in the VXC plans but the SRA halted those sort of plans along with services VXC services from Middlesborough.

Hi, I am trying to update the interior of an Ian Kirk Gresley buffet and need a view of the interior which shows the serving area and the saloon. This is in for the later period of their lives. There are some great interior views on Flickr etc, but these are all of vehicles that have been restored to the original serving area and with tubular framed chairs etc. Thanks Al Taylor

And a steam heat pipe..........

The Peco Parkside kit for the BR 21T is only good for the earlier welded bodies, as the later 21Ts did not have the hopper supports, they instead had three sections of angle iron at each end to support the hopper. Both of the Peco Parkside kits could do with a good update, as the LNER riveted 21T is only good for a small batch and the BR one could do with the bits to make both styles of hopper support , the support are almost identical to those on the rebodied 21Ts.

Lamp oil was usually in 45 gallon drums. Depot heating was normally gas oil, some depots did use waste oil. Kerosene/paraffin was used for cleaning components at some depots, but once again usually came in 45 gallon drums. Larger steam depots did have tanks of paraffin which was used in conjunction with other mediums for cleaning purposes. It was unusual to see a tank or tanks arrive with the wrong Hazchem board on them, we had this happen at NL when several tank had been emptied in to the depot storage tanks only to find that it was Lub oil, some very smoky HSTs that night.

As a Technical Trainer on these when they were new they did have a few issues when new, which were resolved by Brush and the various depots, they settled down quickly after this to be reliable. With any faults quickly resolved at local level, as Covkid has mentioned. Most of the freight depots could solve most issues, with only some of the major issues requiring trips back to home depot. With EWS closing/reducing the outbases, it quickly could be seen that certain types of faults would require locos working back to the centralised depots for repair, some of which were very minor faults which could have been fixed locally had a depot remained open or by a a man in a van. I know of one instance of a senior EWS manager visiting a depot and asking what the 350 shunters were doing in the shed, the local supervisor told they were on Exam. Several weeks later the same manager visited again he saw the 350s and he was told they were still on exam due other worked load. He had them withdrawn there and then. The depot was on minimum staff level at the time so other work load took precedent. EWS at the time just seemed not to be able to grasp the actual day to day running of the railway.

Not very long, at the depot I first worked we had a delivery of one tanker a fortnight. This was usually off loaded in to the depots storage tank. Any that was left in a tank would be left until that amount could be off loaded. With fuel once the storage tanks reached a certain level unloading would stop and those rail tanks would wait till the level dropped so they could be off loaded, it was unusual to see full tanks stood for a couple of days awaiting to be off loaded. A check was always kept on stocks off oil and fuel so when running low due to extra demand extra would be order via the system.

Mainly fuel oil, with the odd one of lubricating oil, depending on the period class A and B would be used for the same commodities.

The speed limit is set by the assisting locos speed, with a 91 it will be one 110mph as the brake is only applied from the leading end. 125mph is only allowed with a brake that can be applied from both ends. The fitting of buffers, TDM and other mods was done to facilitate the testing of the 91s and no MK4 was available and was not going to be for almost a year, so the power cars were modified like 43013 and 43123 which had been used for trials on the WCML, and along with a small number of TGS that needed modifications. Nothing to do with reliability.

The panel over the silencer does have ribs on, they aren't very noticeable on some photographs the real thing.

The photo of 31413 is a bit later than 1980 as it has been HGRed, so 85 or 86. plus the the mixture of mk1s and 2 would also put in the 85-86 time Fram when BG had maintenance of both types.

No, those "bumps" are the holes where the rivets that secure the ferosbestos rubbing plate to the gangway faceplate. The holes at top are for the Flexor units that hold the top of the gangway in the correct position , the inner end is fixed to the coach body the outer on the faceplate. MK I,2 &3 gangways have no physical method of alignment, they just rub together and the hight is controlled by ride height or on mk3 by the coupler height.

The 12LDA has a step up gear to connect the twin crankshaft to the output shaft 1 to 1.44, this allows a smaller generator to be used.

The Shirebrook crane was a Dairycoates for a while in this period, I would suspect it had become the Eastern spare crane as it spent some time at other depots in and around this time frame.

Quite a few in this batch from Derby had the two vertical handrails, some just had the vertical one on the drivers side bonnet door with a horizontal one on the opposite side door but two vertical ones on the radiator, most 350s had the lower handrail on the bonnet door horizontal.The radiator handrail was added after the removal of the ladder on quite a few of the 350s but not all. On a lot of photos it often hard to spot the ones on bonnet doors if not picked out in white. Al Taylor