Rugd1022

A day late with this, but yesterday it was thirty seven years since 50 041 derailed with the Up sleeper at Paddington. I can remember it as if it were yesterday, seeing some of the coaches staggered about and 50 041 on its side, from the window of the first tube of the morning from Hammersmith as we came past.

North of the crossovers, there is just enough room to hold a train for turn around purposes between there and the signal on the up, and the footbridge you mention has not been raised or replaced. Edit : the signal is just north of Great Bowdon Road bridge.

Photo by Alex Lawson : D1723 at Saltley on 6th August 1971....

Photo by Julius Bannister : green liveried 40 101 at Haymarket in 1974....

Photo by Bryan Trent : the usual spotters at the south end of Crewe, 25th August 1972....

Photo by John Morris, 50 001 is the Saltley crew training loco at Earlswood Lakes on the North Warks line, July 1981....

Photo by Bryan Trent : Crewe on 25th August 1972....

Ah, memories of D7100, my first confirmed Hymek for haulage just before it was withdrawn .

A few weeks ago we were all given new company ipads at our depot, it's light years ahead of the previous one which, when I handed it over to the techy bloke I said to him ''there are nearly three months worth of late notices on there which I've been unable to open...''. Luckily I was able to rely on my fellow drivers and a switched on guvnor further up the food chain to help me out during that period. No amount of phone calls to the IT department solved the 'locked' issue on that old ipad! The new one is fantastic, it's much easier and quicker to open documents, it holds its charge

D1010, D1013, D1023 and D1048, all officially withdrawn after their last day's work on the 'Western Tribute' tour of Saturday, 26th February 1977. Despite which.... D1013 was seen and photographed shunting at Newton Abbot the following week.....!

No help at all this, but I passed round the Mitre this morning with 6O51 to Battersea and had completely forgotten about the dairy that stood there! (The line down through Mitre to Latchmere Junction is fascinating and any point along it would make for an excellent layout in any scale)

Well Old Oak was a law unto itself at the best of times! Both 1660 'City Of Truro' and 1661 'North Star' received their repaints from green to blue in the Factory in 1971, 1660 went in with Tops style numbers on green and came out with the old style serif numbers on blue, 1661 went in the same as 1660 and came out with Tops style numbers on blue, but without the BR double arrow logo (these weren't applied until at least 1975 by which time it had become 47 077)....

Huge numbers of locos were renumbered into Tops on depots rather than during works visits, often as not with a quick splash of blue daubed over the pre-Tops number before the new five digit one was applied. A few had this treatment and were left for a few days, or possibly weeks before the new vinyl numbers were actually applied, 31 416 (previously 5842) being a case in point at Old Oak in September '73. Green patches were also applied over the old numbers on some locos of course, here's 47 494 (D1936) at Old Oak in June '74, showing exactly that but with two attempts to cover up t

I agree Russ, but there are still some places where I do it regularly, keeping my wits about me obviously.

You'll be glad to know that Bill 'Waterloo Willie' Warriner is alive and well, he lives not far from me and I see him around town occasionally. I remember him telling me a few times about secondmanning the Warship hauled Exeter jobs out of W'loo