Peterborough North

[FarrMan]

On 31/07/2019 at 11:50, jazzer said:

I think the backscene fulfils it’s purpose really well.

 

The question is what really do you want it to do? I would say it’s to be there not to be noticed. In other words it’s to unobtrusively fill an empty space that would otherwise stand out like a sore thumb, but without particularly standing out itself. In the pictures posted above I honestly didn’t notice the backscene until you mentioned it but I am pretty sure I would have noticed the space it covers if it wasn’t there. By all means work to improve but don’t let it detract from the main scenes ( the locos). It looks good to me.

 

Did anyone actually ever travel on that Colchester- Glasgow ? It had taken over fours for “Framilingham” to get as far as Peterborough, and would take another 7hours+ to get to Edinburgh, and taking the best part of 13 hours for the whole journey with no sleeping accommodation and no buffet car ! 

I remember one summer, probably about 1962 or 1963, A group of us getting on at Peterborough North to go to a Boys Brigade camp in Largs. Took the train as far as Glasgow (probably Queen Street), then coach to Largs. It was supposed to wait about 10 minutes at Peterborough East, then just 2 minutes for station work at North. They probably expected us ruffians to take a while to board, so did not wait at east that night!

 

Apologies for late reply - just been away for a work week - certainly no holiday.

 

Lloyd

[Mallard60022]

9 hours ago, great northern said:

Simple conclusion then is that I fouled up there, good and proper. That should, but probably won't, get me to examine things more closely in future. I can't find the precise product description on E Bay now, but I'm sure it gave a recent R number.

Strangely the thing looks very 'new'. Possibly sat in someone's cupboard for years or lost in the back of a shop until it was rediscovered. 

It could be dealt with somehow to create some sort of Engineers' vehicle.

By the way G, loved the idea of that photoscene at the south end; you will be able to sort out something really grand for that.

P

[great northern]

You may have realised that one of today's visitors was the Mighty Duck, who seemed to be operating rather well, I'm pleased to say. He was accompanied by Steve(31A), who brought goodies, but the light had gone by the time I got to consider photography, so they won't be revealed yet. Big events occur tomorrow, so no trains will run for a couple more days.

 

Toight we have a Grantham A3 bringing in the last late evening local from its home town. An easy job, once again, just four vehicles.

 

 

 

 

[great northern]

As the last local from the North ran in, so did the last from the South, the 7.21 from KX.

 

 

 

It has a light load too, and we'll look at that later. First though, something in very short supply around PN.....

 

 

 

grass! Now I await a knock on the door to get things started.

[jazzer]

On 06/08/2019 at 12:02, FarrMan said:

I remember one summer, probably about 1962 or 1963, A group of us getting on at Peterborough North to go to a Boys Brigade camp in Largs. Took the train as far as Glasgow (probably Queen Street), then coach to Largs. It was supposed to wait about 10 minutes at Peterborough East, then just 2 minutes for station work at North. They probably expected us ruffians to take a while to board, so did not wait at east that night!

 

Apologies for late reply - just been away for a work week - certainly no holiday.

 

Lloyd

You now have me researching that damn train ! 

The best I can do, on 1960 timings it started from Colchester at 5.15pm and instead of going to Up to Marks Tey and across to Cambridge, it ran all stations, except Bentley Down to Ipswich where it had a rest for 15 minutes , before trundling up to Stowmarket, where it stopped for another 4 minutes,then back across country to Bury St Edmunds (10minute stop) and then to Ely. After a mere 8 minute pause it was onto March ( Another 10 minute stop) then onto Peterborough East where a 22 minute break was called for.

 

And so the snails pace continued, PN, 18 minutes, Doncaster 20 minutes, York 15 minutes, Newcastle 15 minutes,before it disappears.

 

Bizarre for a passenger train.. 

[31A]

42 minutes ago, jazzer said:

You now have me researching that damn train ! 

The best I can do, on 1960 timings it started from Colchester at 5.15pm and instead of going to Up to Marks Tey and across to Cambridge, it ran all stations, except Bentley Down to Ipswich where it had a rest for 15 minutes , before trundling up to Stowmarket, where it stopped for another 4 minutes,then back across country to Bury St Edmunds (10minute stop) and then to Ely. After a mere 8 minute pause it was onto March ( Another 10 minute stop) then onto Peterborough East where a 22 minute break was called for.

 

And so the snails pace continued, PN, 18 minutes, Doncaster 20 minutes, York 15 minutes, Newcastle 15 minutes,before it disappears.

 

Bizarre for a passenger train.. 

 

Don't forget large quantities of mail and parcels were carried by passenger trains in those days, especially cross country late night ones like that, the loading and unloading of which required extended station stops.  Also, I don't know where engines were changed on that train but it would probably have happened more than once during the journey so that would also account for extended station stops at some of the places.

[FarrMan]

1 hour ago, jazzer said:

You now have me researching that damn train ! 

The best I can do, on 1960 timings it started from Colchester at 5.15pm and instead of going to Up to Marks Tey and across to Cambridge, it ran all stations, except Bentley Down to Ipswich where it had a rest for 15 minutes , before trundling up to Stowmarket, where it stopped for another 4 minutes,then back across country to Bury St Edmunds (10minute stop) and then to Ely. After a mere 8 minute pause it was onto March ( Another 10 minute stop) then onto Peterborough East where a 22 minute break was called for.

 

And so the snails pace continued, PN, 18 minutes, Doncaster 20 minutes, York 15 minutes, Newcastle 15 minutes,before it disappears.

 

Bizarre for a passenger train.. 

From memory, it was about 9.18pm from Peterborough North, and eventually arrived in Glasgow about 6.00 to 7.00 am. It would have been on a Friday night/Saturday morning in August, 1962, 3 or 4. The camp was just by the Largs branch, south of the station. It was still operated by standard tanks.

 

Perhaps if there was no buffet (they were always too expensive for us - took our own food) then perhaps all the long station dwell times were to allow troops to refill at the station buffets!

 

Lloyd

[Clive Mortimore]

21 minutes ago, FarrMan said:

From memory, it was about 9.18pm from Peterborough North, and eventually arrived in Glasgow about 6.00 to 7.00 am. It would have been on a Friday night/Saturday morning in August, 1962, 3 or 4. The camp was just by the Largs branch, south of the station. It was still operated by standard tanks.

 

Perhaps if there was no buffet (they were always too expensive for us - took our own food) then perhaps all the long station dwell times were to allow troops to refill at the station buffets!

 

Lloyd

The station buffets that closed at 5 pm and opened again at 9 am.

 

The composition of the train indicates the long stop overs at stations was for the loading and unloading of mail and parcels.

[great northern]

I reckon there will have been several engine changes on that trip. Colchester- Cambridge, Cambridge-Peterbrough, then to Newcastle. Another change there as far as Edinburgh, and one more to get to Glasgow.  As Clive and Steve say though, it was a glorified parcels train, and that is why the stops were so long. Would any passenger have made the whole journey? I doubt it, and those who used it for part of the way would have had no illusions as to what was going to happen. They would have hoped to sleep through most of it too.

Edited August 7, 2019 by great northern
to correct spelling

[great northern]

I am sure there are many of you who have been on tenterhooks all day as you wondered what had been going on at PN. Well some of it can now be revealed.

 

As you know, photoshopping sometimes causes me some angst, and can take a long time. This was not helped by my very amateur pinning up of card to hide the b***** bookcases. Also, I grew tired of doing my hunchback of Notre Dame impression when accessing the far end, so I decided to ask my friendly joiner if we could do something about it. He  came up with the idea of roller blinds to cover the accessible bookcases, and said that he could take down the one on the window wall, and board over the bits that have until now been unreachable.

 

I admit that the thought of him balancing on a plank above the layout trying to get loads of stuff down, and then taking down that back bookcase woried me more than somewhat, as the consequences of a slip would be horrendous. Anyway, Nigel turned up this morning with plan B, which he said would take half the day to set up, but should be much safer. This was the result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and it worked spectacularly well. Within twenty minutes, all the stuff in that side case was easily removed. What's more, I found files containing stuff relating to car loans and other things which I thought I had binned, and which will give a big boost to my hopeful PPI claim, plus family photographs and other lovely memorabilia, including a photo of me at the age of one and a bit, which you are not going to see. I also have access again to lots of books I thought I would never be able to get at until the layout came down. All in all, a wonderful result.

 

Nigel then had a go at that bookcase, and by close of play, we have this.

 

 

 

 

Access to that far end will still be tight, but much easier, and  I should be able to do more with backscenes down there. Tomorrow, the blinds get installed, the temporary bridge comes down, and I shall be an even happier bunny than I am now.

 

Nigel said afterwards that he didn't think he could have done the job safely without going to these lengths, so all credit to him for coming up with this solution. Sometimes life does actually deal out a really good hand.

[trw1089]

Wow, that is a dedicated tradesman who actually understands what is needed to do the job.  Not many of them around anymore!

 

cheers

Tony

[great northern]

We shall have another look at Victor Wild.

 

 

 

and after that something completely different. Barrels.

 

 

 

In a corner, and with some worrying signs of subsidence, gleefully picked up and of course enhanced by the camera. I am still a very happy bunny.

[jazzer]

6 hours ago, 31A said:

 

Don't forget large quantities of mail and parcels were carried by passenger trains in those days, especially cross country late night ones like that, the loading and unloading of which required extended station stops.  Also, I don't know where engines were changed on that train but it would probably have happened more than once during the journey so that would also account for extended station stops at some of the places.

 I had pondered on all that. I doubt it was due to engine changes.  Wherever you look, be it Reading, Salisbury, Peterborough , Carlisle , Doncaster, Newcastle etc, most engine  changes were only allowed 6 minutes , not 20. 

It is tempting to say parcels, and possibly it was but in my small collection of timetables for the 1959/60 period no other passenger train seems to have such long stops on such a long journey. Red Star Parcels wasn't introduced until 1963 so any parcels would presumably be Royal Mail , which into be delivered to main sorting centres, not one long stop at Peterborough East and another at North, and mail when in large amounts tended to have its own train, with vans being detached here and there . Such a pity that hardly anyone took much interest in Parcels trains when we had them but now they have been gone these last (oh my goodness) nearly 30 years we start getting interested.

Still interesting stuff (well it is to me anyway) , thanks for the comments.

 

P.S. Victor Wild has just come up on my screen. another absolute cracker !

[Oldddudders]

Red Star Parcels was a late initiative to encourage traffic, but parcels had been carried by train for many, many years, entirely separate from the GPO traffic, and the vast majority were still not Red Star even after its introduction as a product. For a start, Red Star was only available if there were no changes of train, and Red Star parcels were not delivered, but must be collected by the consignee. So trains carried loads of parcels. Peterborough was a particularly important centre for parcels despatch, due to the local presence of several mail-order concerns, and hundreds of parcels would be consigned daily from there. 

[manna]

56 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Red Star Parcels was a late initiative to encourage traffic, but parcels had been carried by train for many, many years, entirely separate from the GPO traffic, and the vast majority were still not Red Star even after its introduction as a product. For a start, Red Star was only available if there were no changes of train, and Red Star parcels were not delivered, but must be collected by the consignee. So trains carried loads of parcels. Peterborough was a particularly important centre for parcels despatch, due to the local presence of several mail-order concerns, and hundreds of parcels would be consigned daily from there. 

 

G'Day Folks

 

Used to work one of the parcels trains out of the Parcels/Mail center, about 11 pm, arriving Kings Cross Goods yard about 1 am, usually a class 40.

 

manna

[great northern]

Rest of the job to be completed today, so more pictures later. In the meantime, another angle on Victor Wild.

 

 

 

A very heavy crop worked quite well here, but I did it because of the impossible to edit clutter which was otherwise in shot. It isn't any more though.

 

Then we have the stock behind the V2 on the KX local.

 

 

 

Now I need to work out how to dispose of an awful lot of stuff with my name and address details on which came down from above yesterday. I don't fancy shredding that lot individually.

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, great northern said:

Rest of the job to be completed today, so more pictures later. In the meantime, another angle on Victor Wild.

 

 

 

 

A very heavy crop worked quite well here, but I did it because of the impossible to edit clutter which was otherwise in shot. It isn't any more though.

 

Then we have the stock behind the V2 on the KX local.

 

 

 

Now I need to work out how to dispose of an awful lot of stuff with my name and address details on which came down from above yesterday. I don't fancy shredding that lot individually.

Hi Gilbert

 

The two Second Opens in this photo have different number of roof ventilators and the dynamo are not opposite ends of the chassis, are they different diagrams? Or which one do I copy to get my model right?

 

Edit.....paper......bonfire.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Clive Mortimore

[great northern]

9 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Gilbert

 

The two Second Opens in this photo have different number of roof ventilators and the dynamo are not opposite ends of the chassis, are they different diagrams? Or which one do I copy to get my model right?

 

Edit.....paper......bonfire.

Bonfire started Clive, and most of the stuff has already gone up in smoke. As to the seconds, I will need to examine them, but I can't do that at the moment as the joiner's erection is in the way.

[Oldddudders]

6 minutes ago, great northern said:

the joiner's erection is in the way.

TMI.

[Fat Controller]

11 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Red Star Parcels was a late initiative to encourage traffic, but parcels had been carried by train for many, many years, entirely separate from the GPO traffic, and the vast majority were still not Red Star even after its introduction as a product. For a start, Red Star was only available if there were no changes of train, and Red Star parcels were not delivered, but must be collected by the consignee. So trains carried loads of parcels. Peterborough was a particularly important centre for parcels despatch, due to the local presence of several mail-order concerns, and hundreds of parcels would be consigned daily from there. 

Red Star was a very good service when I used it on a regular basis in the 1970s; the despatch clerk would note the train a parcel would be on, so you could arrange for it to be collected. Later, it changed so that changes of train could be made, though this was limited to one, IIRC. At one time, they would take pets, suitably caged and sedated; one of our cats came from Northallerton to Ashford with them.

General parcels traffic was a real mixture; everything from day-old chicks and flasks of bull to Christmas presents. There was a service called 'Passenger's Luggage in Advance', which saved you being encumbered with baggage when going on holiday, or away to study; the lorry would come to pick your stuff up the day before you travelled, so it would be waiting for you when you arrived.

[great northern]

Job done chaps, and no signals buildings track or rolling stock were harmed while in progress. Books have been relocated too. Now you see them.....

 

 

and now you don't.

 

 

 

That of itself would be a great result, but I get this bonus too.

 

 

 

This is without a back board, and a huge improvement, which I was not expecting.  I tried my across the station view,

 

 

 

and that is much better too, even though I forgot to close the door.  Across from the Midland side?

 

 

 

Just one rogue dark patch, and I can get rid of that by bringing the blind further down. And finally, a trip up to the north end, without having to contort everything, and I can even get the camera where I can take a ground level view from the other side of the bridge.

 

 

 

This really could not have gone better, and, if possible, I am a happier bunny than I was yesterday. Why is there no happy bunny emoji?

[Mallard60022]

That last shot is from an excellent position and I look forward to many more from there G. What a splendid job your fellow has done. I know who to ask when I need some storage units as was done for your 'Loco Sheds'.

Duck.

[great northern]

10 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Gilbert

 

The two Second Opens in this photo have different number of roof ventilators and the dynamo are not opposite ends of the chassis, are they different diagrams? Or which one do I copy to get my model right?

 

Edit.....paper......bonfire.

I've had a look now Clive. They are both numbered as Dia186 carriages. The crimson and cream one was built by Ian Willets, and he is very careful with his research. The other one is a conversion of a Hornby carriage, and the ventilators appear to be the right ones for a corridor carriage. I can't remember when or how I acquired that one, but it looks like someone has just put etched Dia 186 sides on an otherwise unaltered Hornby all door third. As usual, I have failed to notice. I'm as sure as I can be that the Willets one is correct.

[great northern]

4 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

That last shot is from an excellent position and I look forward to many more from there G. What a splendid job your fellow has done. I know who to ask when I need some storage units as was done for your 'Loco Sheds'.

Duck.

 

Well Phil, he will come very highly recommended, and I'll gladly give you his details when you come to the time to need them.

[great northern]

Just to finish off the benefits of the work that has been done, the blinds can extend right down to track level if I wish to do that. Obviously, I won't, but I can take them far enough that the shadows caused by the overhang of the bookcases isn't a problem any more. The removal of the one on the window wall has not only helped tremendously with access, its absence has allowed far more light to get down that end. Of course I'm now thinking about what I could do beyond Spital Bridge as has been done at the Crescent Bridge end. We shall see.

 

I have far more still life photos than locomotive ones at present, so tonight we'll have two of them, the common theme being railings, and views through them.