The Night Mail

[Florence Locomotive Works]

45 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Be careful Dave. My sister (ex Air Traffic Control at Wittering) lives in Cottesmore.. she only liked Victors not Phantoms....

 

Baz

 

35 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

If she lives in Cottesmore though, Baz, she'll have been used to Tornados (even though they were GRs) so I could be OK.

 

I guess I ought to confess to Douglas that I'll be visiting Little Bytham as well and you can't get more Eastern Region than that.

 

Dave

 

17 minutes ago, Mike Bellamy said:

I have replied to Douglas in his layout topic suggesting that as his proposed line must have been fairly close to Wittering that you could be one of his passengers . . . . . . . . 

 
Unfortunately these days Wittering is now a giant concrete runway in the middle of a field, or at least the part of it that I saw. That view was from the office that my dad was working in at the time, it is very close to it.

 

EDIT: just googled it and it certainly is not what I remembered it looking like. I think I saw an access road for it then.

 

Douglas

Edited June 15, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[BR60103]

On the weekend I was dashing along the layout to get to the controller and was almost being outpaced by the train. I started to wonder how fast it was going.

Can I walk 4 mph? Take that and multiply by 40* and it's 160 mph.

Multiply by 76 and it becomes 304 smph.

Am I on the right track?

* close enough to O scale for mental math 

[jamie92208]

RAF Witterring.  I used to threaten to drop SWMBO there to act as station mascot.  I wondered why my ear hurt.

 

Jamie

[Dave Hunt]

Posted in error

Edited June 16, 2021 by Dave Hunt

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Unfortunately these days Wittering is now a giant concrete runway in the middle of a field, or at least the part of it that I saw. That view was from the office that my dad was working in at the time, it is very close to it.

Pretty quiet since the Harriers* were withdrawn.  Certainly wasn't quiet when they were flying.

 

*Harrier - the aircraft that flew by shouting at the Earth so loud that it got scared and moved away.

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

On the weekend I was dashing along the layout to get to the controller and was almost being outpaced by the train. I started to wonder how fast it was going.

Can I walk 4 mph? Take that and multiply by 40* and it's 160 mph.

Multiply by 76 and it becomes 304 smph.

Am I on the right track?

* close enough to O scale for mental math 

 

Seems right to me. I was once part of the team that exhibited Bob Essery's Dewsbury S7 layout and we did some timings of distance travelled to establish scale speeds. It was notable how slow most trains seemed to be when run at scale goods or ordinary passenger workings speeds and even expresses were only a fairly easy walking pace. Unsurprising I suppose as 2mph translates to 87 mph at 1:43.5. 

 

I had a heart stopping moment once when we were setting up and someone drove my newly built Compound pulling Ken Cottle's rake of clerestories at full tilt (which was well over 120 mph scale speed) out of the north fiddle yard before the south fiddle yard had been connected up and there was a yawning gap between it and the layout. I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life and just managed to push the two together before the train hurtled on to what had just been a short cut to the floor. Words were had!

 

Dave

Edited June 16, 2021 by Dave Hunt

[Barry O]

My late BiL was a Chief Tech (Engines) on Tornado at Cottesmote and Marham. He also worked on Harrier at Wittering .. including the sea trials on Ark Royal. He managed to work on Pemmies and a Devon at Wildenrath, Victors and Huntere at Wittering ..before that Hunters in Aden and thebodd Whirlibird or two.

 

Watching 3 Victors scramble out of Wittering was amazing.. but also very worrying!

Bax

[Happy Hippo]

Take a look at many of the Youtube videos of G1 locos running, and slow running at anything remotely like scale speed is a rarity.

 

I can sympathise with Dave over the 'mind the gap' issue.  A friend set his 1:13.7 scale Plymouth diesel (battery electric) to trundle very slowly around the unfinished circuit when we were setting up for an exhibition.

 

He got distracted and became very focused when there was an almighty crash as all 3lb of the loco dropped the four feet to the ground.

 

It then proceeded to trundle off across the floor towards the cafe area!

 

It appeared unscathed and quite unperturbed by the whole incident, although the floor did have a slight dent where the loco impacted.

[New Haven Neil]

Oh you've set me off on one, HH.  The speeds the G1 fraternity seem to need to run their trains at drives me nuts - no matter what the loco is or the train, it is run as fast as it can with the steam available, and that seems to be a point of honour.  A visit to a rather secretive and large indoor G1 layout very near home base here a couple of years ago was terrifying. The contents of his garden shed were interesting though.  IoM number 14.....and no, I'm not going to tell you where it is, the owner wishes it to be kept that way.

 

I then made a friendship through that and visited another local layout, and as it had no gauging restrictions took some of my NG stock and a loco.  Having passed the R/C to the host to try, as he hadn't tried it at that time, resulted in my VoR tank running so fast the rods were blurred.....luckily his tracklaying is good.  I don't take stuff now.  Some visitors to my (rough..) line also drive as if they're on an A4 after a new record, discrete mentions of scale speeds have to be made.  It'll all end in tears one day.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I had a heart stopping moment once when we were setting up and someone drove my newly built Compound pulling Ken Cottle's rake of clerestories at full tilt (which was well over 120 mph scale speed)

 

Not so very excessive since we know a Smith-Johnson compound can get into the nineties. Though yours, I think, is one of the second batch that already had the combined reverser, so possibly not. 

[Dave Hunt]

6 hours ago, Barry O said:

My late BiL was a Chief Tech (Engines) on....... He managed to work on Pemmies and a Devon at Wildenrath...

In that case I've flown in aircraft that he may have worked on - 60 Sqn Pembrokes and the Devon based at Wildenrath when I was on F4s at both Bruggen and Wildenrath 1970 - 74 and 1977 - 1980. Among other things they provided comms flight service and we used to be ferried around in them quite a bit.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Not so very excessive since we know a Smith-Johnson compound can get into the nineties. Though yours, I think, is one of the second batch that already had the combined reverser, so possibly not. 

 

Even a real Smith-Johnson Compound would not survive going off the edge of a 120 foot high cliff at 120 mph though....

 

Dave

 

PS - yes mine is 2633 with the combined reverser

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Even a real Smith-Johnson Compound would not survive going off the edge of a 120 foot high cliff at 120 mph though....

 

Dave

 

PS - yes mine is 2633 with the combined reverser

 

Yes, my point was: they go faster downhill...

[tetsudofan]

Back around 2003 I started on my garden railway (the EG&SNNR) which comprised of a loop and couple of passing loops at the end of the garden:

 

 

This did not last long and was soon extended down the side of the garden you can see in the above pic to end at the back of the house. Soon got bored having to "drive" trains from one end of the railway to the other so a year later it was decided to extend the railway around the outside of the garden so I could leave the trains to drive themselves round and round......

 

Once that was done it was time to start developing some spirals down the side of the garden:

 

 

and then it needed some mountains in the middle of the garden:

 

 

Whilst all the above developments were taking place the original lines down the sides of the garden fell into misuse. What to do lah (as they say in Singapore). What about a rack railway?

 

Having accumulated some rack locos over the years thought that was a good idea so last Autumn a start was made on converting the original trackbed to a rack railway:

 

 

My engineering skills are not that great having spent all my working years in overseas banking but somehow inclines were created:

 

 

and by the onset of winter I was happy with what had been created all still on the original trackbed:

 

 

Work continued this Spring and a couple of days ago stage one (down one side of the garden) including some more bridges was completed:

 

 

Work has now been paused and won't start again until the likes of Wickes have mortar mix on their shelves. Just got to cross the garden and then down the other side. Maybe I can run some trains during the interlude.......

 

Keith

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Doncaster Green]

All of the talk earlier of airbases in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire led to me recalling the plethora of establishments within a 10 mile radius of the town I grew up in just a few miles further north up the A1.   Many of them were closed and non-operational but still remarkably extant even into the late '60s:

 

Winthorpe, now the Newark and Notts Showground and home to Newark Air Museum.  I believe it has also hosted model railway exhibitions from time to time,

Balderton, now buried under housing and the A1,

Bottesford, now returned to agriculture but with runways still discernible and a couple of hangers still extant and in good repair as storage facilities.   I believe this was a Lancaster OCU when operational,

Fulbeck, where I did my early driving training (until my father deemed I was safe enough for the public road); maneuvering round the peri track and speed (or as much speed as was possible in a 1600 Super Minx!) down the main runway.  If I remember rightly a motorbike fanatic from Nottingham used to use Fulbeck for his record attempts with some weird and wonderful rebuilds of Nortons and Vincents.  I seem to recall that one such rebuild featured Vincent frame parts and a 4 cylinder car engine (BMC A Series?  Hillman Imp rings a bell but that may be too late)

 

Some were still open:

 

RAF Swinderby, in the 50's and 60's a flying training station using, IIRC, Vampires.  Later became a basic recruit training station, which is how it was when I was incarcerated as a civilian accountant at RAF Brampton.  Now gradually being obliterated by development and the plough, I wonder if the people living in the houses where the parade ground was ever hear the ghostly sound of boots bashing the square!

RAF Newton, its early life I'm not sure of but by my time at Brampton it was HQ Air Cadets and home to dog training.  Now, again gradually disappearing under development and the plough.

 

One has survived as an operational airfield, but only just:

 

RAF Syerston, by all accounts flew Manchesters, Wellingtons, Lancasters and Mosquitoes during the conflict.  I can vaguely remember (I was only 8 at the time) the aftermath of the Battle of Britain Airday there in 1958 when a prototype Vulcan crashed on the airfield during a low level pass.  For many years it was Care and Maintenance but I understand it is now HQ Central Gliding School.

 

And Brampton itself, now a housing estate.  I was present at the Great Fire of 1985 (I didn't start it, honest, but I know of several who would have - I'll mention no names!) and during the rebuilding, now all gone. Same as both the MoD establishments in Bath I worked at; both now housing estates, one of them with starting prices of £600K +.

 

Regards

 

John

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

Plenty of old airfields around this part of Shropshire.  Some extant, others returning to nature and others completely vanished.

 

A lot were grass airfields and were basically landing grounds for storing fighters that had been built at Castle Bromwich.

 

Others were proper airfields with various RAF FAA and USAAF squadrons based there.

 

Most now pass un-noticed but RAF Chetwynd, which is a grass landing ground for RAF Shawbury and is between the Hippodrome and Hunt Towers, made the national news some years back, when a C-130 taxied onto some soft ground and got bogged in.  It took a bit of digging out and had to fly back to Lyneham without retracting the undercarriage.  

 

They have not allowed C-130 to land there since!

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

@tetsudofan great to see your railway still developing, Keith!  Some nice oily steam locos would improve it though....LOL   I recall earlier threats about me cleaning all the track afterwards, puts me off a bit!

[Barry O]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

In that case I've flown in aircraft that he may have worked on - 60 Sqn Pembrokes and the Devon based at Wildenrath when I was on F4s at both Bruggen and Wildenrath 1970 - 74 and 1977 - 1980. Among other things they provided comms flight service and we used to be ferried around in them quite a bit.

 

Dave

Most definitely then.  He was supposed to work on the Harriers at Wildenrath but, being an old hand , managed to convince them they needed him on the Comms flight. Handy for him though.. no deployments ... and he found out how to "maintain" Whirlwinds and Wessex.. which set him up for3 years (double tour) in Northern Ireland on  a real cushy number.

 

The basement in the block of apartments they lived in had been turned into a bar. First place I ever drank to excess!

 

Baz

[Happy Hippo]

We went for a walk this morning in Comer Woods, just south of Bridgnorth.

 

Nothing really of note except I could hear some trains the other side of the river on the SVR.

 

This afternoon was spent in the garage or disconnecting various appliances around Sam's house prior to her move out tomorrow.

 

The loss of immediate cake is going to hit my waistline hard, so some apricot and vanilla scones were made this morning by Nyda as an emergency top up.

 

I want to try making some Blueberry scones, but getting it's easier getting dried unicorn dung than it is to get a packet of dried blueberries.

 

Once our blueberries come on line in the garden, I may make my own with the fruit drier.  It'll be a lot easier than apples!

Edited June 16, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[Mike Bellamy]

4 hours ago, Doncaster Green said:

Fulbeck, where I did my early driving training (until my father deemed I was safe enough for the public road); maneuvering round the peri track and speed (or as much speed as was possible in a 1600 Super Minx!) down the main runway.  If I remember rightly a motorbike fanatic from Nottingham used to use Fulbeck for his record attempts with some weird and wonderful rebuilds of Nortons and Vincents.  I seem to recall that one such rebuild featured Vincent frame parts and a 4 cylinder car engine (BMC A Series?  Hillman Imp rings a bell but that may be too late)

 

I too had some driver training on the Fulbeck perimeter. Still managed to crash my first car 8 days after passing my test on the A52 near Bottesford

 

The main runway was used regularly as a local rally stage, and the other parts of the old base were used for events such as Grass Track car and bike racing. We went there from Grantham with the Scouts to go Parascending - old ex military chute on your back and a long rope between you and a Land Rover - the driver set off and you let the chute take you up, then he stopped and you drifted back to the ground.

.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

I want to try making some Blueberry scones, but getting it's easier getting dried unicorn dung than it is to get a packet of dried blueberries.

 

Once our blueberries come on line in the garden, I may make my own with the fruit drier.  It'll be a lot easier than apples!

Dried unicorn dung scones? No thank you!

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Dried unicorn dung scones? No thank you!

But they make your eyes sparkle!

[Happy Hippo]

G1 LNWR Jumbo at a sensible speed!

 

https://www.facebook.com/100007732129275/videos/pcb.1933938516764499/2879738768960499?__cft__[0]=AZWcSwAGG2zqNOPzFdkLlAjLvvvOUovCufIA6IgelUrTVTsG1sNw1TZyPYTwizWzR0GarSlZUTyvm59XQnRdKFrn3uoO6U42Cl5IXFuZuyB3Kna_elKVZwApuEWu01RofGd1KMae0hdnVLkARkc2sljclTVK7JyAsOcnwmJbI6BzvNuIiUbWiGM3UkXOXtzKDXI&__tn__=*bH-R

 

From the public G1 Fb feed

[Doncaster Green]

1 hour ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

Still managed to crash my first car 8 days after passing my test on the A52 near Bottesford

.

 

 

You weren’t the first, and, most certainly, not the last.  I, too, had some moments along there, one near the Muston Gap pub when I still don’t know how I didn’t write off Father’s Singer Vogue.

 

when my parents lived in Long Bennington my brother and I used to enjoy a half pint (!) at the Muston Gap, a pub where last orders was called as the last bus from Grantham to Nottingham called outside.  I remember one night when there was an accident at Allington and the bus was at least an hour late!

 

 

John

 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

G1 LNWR Jumbo at a sensible speed!

 

Nice to see some 42 ft carriages.