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Diesel Hydraulics a colour retrospective


Not Jeremy
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On 04/11/2021 at 17:35, Not Jeremy said:

The books have arrived and are now being distributed to all businesses and people that have ordered them.

 

I am happy to say that Parksons (the printers) have done all Andrew's work full justice and we are both very pleased with the resulting book.

 

It will now take a few days to get all of the orders out to everybody, thank you all for your patience.

 

If you want to actually see a copy then Book Law should today have stocks and Bill Hudson books should get theirs tomorrow, James (Bill Hudson Books) is attending the Burton Railway Collectors Fair this weekend and will have the book with him. My wholesaler's copies went out today so many other booksellers will also have copies very shortly.

 

Simon


Please keep one aside for me still incarcerated in hospital. I’ll work out a way of getting it to me . I have fond memories of them and really could do with stimulating diversion. Too good to miss I think.

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4 hours ago, robertcwp said:

I'm still working my way through my copy. It's a very good book and my coaching stock group even receives a plug in the introduction.

 

I particularly like the Bristolian shot showing chocolate and cream Mark 1 stock with B4 bogies.

 

I noticed the B4s too, on the first 3 coaches - I had to check my copy of Parkin's tome regarding these running in 1961 (the condition of the loco confirms the date). It's not very specific about dates but does state that the Bristolian was one of two sets used for mileage accumulation so this is a very early photo of these bogies in operation.

On the following page I was also surprised at the sight of a shock absorbing open wagon in unfitted grey - a less than sensible combination I'd have thought! I think it's an SR design, but I'm no expert - perhaps @hmrspaul of this parish can shed some light on this oddity.......

But enough about the rolling stock! It's a fabulous book, with paper so thick I often had to make sure I wasn't turning over two pages at once and missing something good! Really liked the shortest-lived Class 22 D6347 shunting Falmouth, D6333 shunting Truro (I lived there and visited the station a lot during the year of remodelling, 1971, but never saw this one there myself) and D600 in blue at Penzance. And more photos of D1015 in golden ochre livery - anyone else remember the wait for a decent colour shot in the 1970s, only to be hugely disappointed when one turned up in OPC's 'Power of the Westerns' in some kind of ghostly haze?!

Thank you Andrew for proving me wrong in thinking there was nothing more to be said or shown about the diesel hydraulics. Proper job!! :good:

 

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On 22/11/2021 at 14:58, hmrspaul said:

 perhaps @hmrspaul of this parish can shed some light on this oddity.......

 

How, without seeing the photo?

 

Paul

 

OK, point taken - I know there are none on your website, which was the first thing I checked, but I was wondering whether you had ever come across any reference to grey/unfitted shock absorbing open wagons of any kind during your research, as it's new to me and David Larkin doesn't mention such a thing in his (now very old but still incredibly useful) Bradford Barton softback books.

The three vertical white stripes look, er, unfamiliar on a grey background........

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11 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

OK, point taken - I know there are none on your website, which was the first thing I checked, but I was wondering whether you had ever come across any reference to grey/unfitted shock absorbing open wagons of any kind during your research, as it's new to me and David Larkin doesn't mention such a thing in his (now very old but still incredibly useful) Bradford Barton softback books.

The three vertical white stripes look, er, unfamiliar on a grey background........

If you look at the table in our book 400 of the SR design built for BR had Double brake. They are in the BR booklet that lists wagons to be vacuum braked under the modernisation scheme. I am not looking up the SR books, have you?

 

Agree, I don't think I've ever seen a photo of one. Are they grey or unpainted woodwork - I would have expected the latter with grey steelwork. 

 

Paul

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Here is part of the image in question, 31st August 1962, Old Oak West Junction.

 

Enlarging the PDF I think the wagon in question has an "S" prefix.

 

One of Mr Bulleid's perhaps?

 

Simon

1-015.jpg

Edited by Not Jeremy
Bulleidadd
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Thank you to everyone for your comments, it is great to get feedback on something when it goes "out into the World" and all feedback and any information is always very welcome.

 

On which note Andrew has looked at that Warship shot and come to exactly the same conclusion as Mike (Stationmaster). Apparently the  slide mount was marked as being "near Slough" and Andrew is a bit cross with himself for taking it at face value and not checking it out himself!

 

I am providing him with counselling, I think he will be alright....:jester:

 

Simon

 

 

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3 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

Here is part of the image in question, 31st August 1962, Old Oak West Junction.

 

Enlarging the PDF I think the wagon in question has an "S" prefix.

 

One of Mr Bulleid's perhaps?

 

Simon

1-015.jpg

Wow, thanks for that. If it didn't have a Western in shot I would be doubting the date!

If it is an S wagon then it is very rare - my reading of SR wagons vol 4 is that there were only 6 built by them without Vacuum brake. And they, and their diag number, are listed for VBing by BR in December 1958. So, an interesting miss - as I doubt it would have been done later as hundreds of thousands of wagons were scrapped in the early 1960s. The table in our book shows 34 Shocks were unfitted in Sept. 1966, so perhaps it did survive for a while. It certainly looks to be in reasonable condition. 

 

Paul

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D1035 as pictured is I believe the first Crewe built Western to be released. It and subsequent releases would shortly begin work on Paddington-Birmingham-Wolverhampton turns,hastening the withdrawal of the Kings.One of a few originally in BR green. It makes an attractive image I must say. Though reliability was not good and the LMR whose province it became wanted them off their patch to be replaced by Brush Type 4. I can remember a journey from Snow Hill to Paddington on the Brush hauled 5:00 pm Inter City which came to a sudden and prolonged halt somewhere south of Banbury owing to the 4:00 pm off Snow Hill having failed. When my train eventually reached Paddington,I saw that the offending train was Western hauled which had been dragged to Paddington behind a Modified Hall. The indignity of it.

 

Edited by Ian Hargrave
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Just come across this - I MUST get one!  I can still remember the first time I saw a Western - a Gold coloured  apparition on the Ruabon - Wrexham line appearing under a bridge half a mile away.  Nobody knew what it was and after it had passed, we (about 4 of us), stood there in utter silence not knowing what to say - or think!

 

The next week it was a Maroon apparition, then a Green one.  They soon became common and the novelty faded..................:)

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8 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Wow, thanks for that. If it didn't have a Western in shot I would be doubting the date!

If it is an S wagon then it is very rare - my reading of SR wagons vol 4 is that there were only 6 built by them without Vacuum brake. And they, and their diag number, are listed for VBing by BR in December 1958. So, an interesting miss - as I doubt it would have been done later as hundreds of thousands of wagons were scrapped in the early 1960s. The table in our book shows 34 Shocks were unfitted in Sept. 1966, so perhaps it did survive for a while. It certainly looks to be in reasonable condition. 

 

Paul

 

Comparing the wagon in the photo to those in my BB books by Larkin, it was the length of the spring shield which made me think it's an SR wagon, but because these are the sum total of my books on wagons I am probably somewhat underinformed (Paul raises eyes to ceiling.........I know I know, I should have bought more books on wagons and fewer on locomotives!:mda:) Many thanks for looking into it, and to @Not Jeremy/Simon for posting the photo. And apologies to Andrew for diverting attention from the motive power, but sometimes backgrounds contain such interesting stuff.......!

 

6 hours ago, 5050 said:

Just come across this - I MUST get one!  I can still remember the first time I saw a Western - a Gold coloured  apparition on the Ruabon - Wrexham line appearing under a bridge half a mile away.  Nobody knew what it was and after it had passed, we (about 4 of us), stood there in utter silence not knowing what to say - or think!

 

The next week it was a Maroon apparition, then a Green one.  They soon became common and the novelty faded..................:)

 

Could that have been D1000, then D1001, then D1002........?;)

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A pleasure, Andrew and I looked at the original scan this evening but we couldn't see any more information.

 

What appears to be some route branding or a "return to" type script above the number on the left hand side is also intriguing.

 

I'm a sucker for wagons myself, looking at my "Southern Wagons in Colour" book by Mike King, the wagon under discussion here does appear to have the row of small triangular stengthening pieces under the door bottom edge of the Southern type. Mike King also states (in the caption) that most of the Southern type were allocated to specific yards and duties which would support the route branding, maybe?

 

Simon

Edited by Not Jeremy
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6 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

Comparing the wagon in the photo to those in my BB books by Larkin, it was the length of the spring shield which made me think it's an SR wagon, but because these are the sum total of my books on wagons I am probably somewhat underinformed (Paul raises eyes to ceiling.........I know I know, I should have bought more books on wagons and fewer on locomotives!:mda:) Many thanks for looking into it, and to @Not Jeremy/Simon for posting the photo. And apologies to Andrew for diverting attention from the motive power, but sometimes backgrounds contain such interesting stuff.......!

 

 

Could that have been D1000, then D1001, then D1002........?;)

The gold one was D1015 . D1000 was officially Desert Sand

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20 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

D1035 as pictured is I believe the first Crewe built Western to be released. It and subsequent releases would shortly begin work on Paddington-Birmingham-Wolverhampton turns,hastening the withdrawal of the Kings.One of a few originally in BR green. It makes an attractive image I must say. Though reliability was not good and the LMR whose province it became wanted them off their patch to be replaced by Brush Type 4. I can remember a journey from Snow Hill to Paddington on the Brush hauled 5:00 pm Inter City which came to a sudden and prolonged halt somewhere south of Banbury owing to the 4:00 pm off Snow Hill having failed. When my train eventually reached Paddington,I saw that the offending train was Western hauled which had been dragged to Paddington behind a Modified Hall. The indignity of it.

 

Ian, at that stage in their life on the WR you were quite lucky that the Brush 4 didn't fail too.  The automatic slack adjusters on the. brake rigging had a nasty habit of 'adjusting' when none was needed leading to the appearance of various firework like scenes, and that's before we even mention their engine troubles.

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35 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Ian, at that stage in their life on the WR you were quite lucky that the Brush 4 didn't fail too.  The automatic slack adjusters on the. brake rigging had a nasty habit of 'adjusting' when none was needed leading to the appearance of various firework like scenes, and that's before we even mention their engine troubles.

 Yes Mike and I’ve often speculated on how things would have progressed had theWRkept the line under its control. I mean…..and you are in a position to know…..were  the Westerns such lost cause ?  They were to my eyes a handsome  beast 

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12 hours ago, Halvarras said:

Could that have been D1000, then D1001, then D1002........?;)

Probably.  Desert Sand appeared 'Gold' to us lads.  We'd never seen Gold or Desert Sand back then to be able to tell the difference:scratchhead:

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1 minute ago, 5050 said:

Probably.  Desert Sand appeared 'Gold' to us lads.  We'd never seen Gold or Desert Sand back then to be able to tell the difference:scratchhead:


It seems that neither livery wore well or lasted long but Enterprise certainly looked the goods when ex works 

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46 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:


It seems that neither livery wore well or lasted long but Enterprise certainly looked the goods when ex works 

The desert sand wore particularly badly although the golden ochre didn't seem to me to be much worse wearing that the dreadfully dreary maroon colour.

 

As for comparisons between the two designs it id s perga haps telling that when the BRB M&EE carried a comparative costing and reliability study of the Brush Type against the D10XX it somehow failed to examine the situation and statistics at the only depot on BR which had both types on its maintenance allocation.   It was suggested to me by a WR Divisional Locomotive Engineer (who had been an arrival from outside industry in the early years of dieselisation - from a company which built diesel electric locos) that reason Canton was not chosen for the study was because the D10XX were achieving far better availability and reliabillity figures than the Brush Type 4 and that its maintenance costs per loco were lower for the diesel hydraulic.

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Loved the photos, but also found the captions informative as well. In particular the way that freight traffic into Devon and Cornwall declined so sharply in the 1960's which accelerated the demise of the early hydraulic machines. This decline was of course reflected elsewhere , hence why all those modernisation plan marshalling yards at Carlisle , Tees , Perth et al, were such costly white elephants.

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I order a copy of this book, so I have some bed time reading as it arrived today. It looks like a very good book. On  plus note great deliver by Strathwood books.

 

A happy customer.

 

Terry.

Edited by Trainshed Terry
Spelling mistake.
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On 06/12/2021 at 22:05, Trainshed Terry said:

I order a copy of this book, so I have some bed time reading as it arrived today. It looks like a very good book. On  plus note great deliver by Strathwood books.

 

A happy customer.

 

Terry.

Thanks Terry very kind of you to mention our service on here.

 

Kevin

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On 20/11/2021 at 21:02, Ian Hargrave said:


Please keep one aside for me still incarcerated in hospital. I’ll work out a way of getting it to me . I have fond memories of them and really could do with stimulating diversion. Too good to miss I think.


And now released from hospital. Book duly ordered.

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