Peterborough North

[rockershovel]

9 minutes ago, JeffP said:

Went once on a Friday in September...ONE chip restaurant open and only one takeaway.

 

Try holding the map the other way up. You were probably in Bangor. 

 

That said, I’ve worked on the East Coast before. Finding anything at all open before Easter, or after the schools go back in Sept can be pretty challenging. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by rockershovel

[JeffP]

Sept 98, running in a new car, needed 1000 miles on it, so excursions after work were undertaken.

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, great northern said:

But you won't look like one till you get webbed feet.

Ruddy well need them with the rain we have had this winter.

[great northern]

55 minutes ago, JeffP said:

Went once on a Friday in September...ONE chip restaurant open and only one takeaway.

Yes, but September is winter in Skeggy.

Edited December 28, 2019 by great northern
to correct spelling

[great northern]

42 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Ruddy well need them with the rain we have had this winter.

But you need to evolve, like your neighbours have, Clive. Just give it another few million years....

[Clive Mortimore]

5 minutes ago, great northern said:

But you need to evolve, like your neighbours have, Clive. Just give it another few million years....

Gilbert surely you mean DEVOLVE

 

 

[mullie]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

Try holding the map the other way up. You were probably in Bangor. 

 

That said, I’ve worked on the East Coast before. Finding anything at all open before Easter, or after the schools go back in Sept can be pretty challenging. 

Don't want to encourage the tourists to stay too long!

 

I went to Walton on the Naze during the evening once - it was shut!

[stewartingram]

2 hours ago, great northern said:

But you won't look like one till you get webbed feet.

Oi ! That's an insult to us proper Fen Tigers....we have those.

 

Stewart

[stewartingram]

I went to Clacton after Butlins moved out - only found geriatrics, otherwise dead (& mid Summer too).

(No insults intended)

 

Stewart 

[great northern]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Gilbert surely you mean DEVOLVE

 

 

I'm not quite sure what to say about that Clive.

[great northern]

2 hours ago, mullie said:

Don't want to encourage the tourists to stay too long!

 

I went to Walton on the Naze during the evening once - it was shut!

Well it would be. It was after all the residents' bedtimes.

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, stewartingram said:

I went to Clacton after Butlins moved out - only found geriatrics, otherwise dead (& mid Summer too).

(No insults intended)

 

Stewart 

Try Mablethorpe, there are so many people on those electric scooters it looks like the dodgems have escaped from the fun fair.

[mullie]

20 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Try Mablethorpe, there are so many people on those electric scooters it looks like the dodgems have escaped from the fun fair.

Our Tesco's can be like that!

[Clive Mortimore]

7 minutes ago, mullie said:

Our Tesco's can be like that!

Isn't that the local fun fair?

[great northern]

Having thoroughly upset the East Coast Tourist Board, I think we should have another picture. Woolwinder again, just a little further along its journey to Leeds.

 

 

[jazzer]

3 hours ago, great northern said:

Having thoroughly upset the East Coast Tourist Board, I think we should have another picture. Woolwinder again, just a little further along its journey to Leeds.

 

 

 

Well Woolwinder certainly seems to be getting about a bit . We saw it on the Up Flying Scotsman earlier in the week, now it’s on the White Rose. Not surprising though, as  it seems that it has just been fitted with a Kylchap double chimney and blastpipe which transformed the performance of the A3’s,  so much more so that even with inferior coal and inexperienced firemen they could match the Diagrams of the E.E. Type 4’s . KX shed were using them turn and turn about with the A4’s on all but the absolute crack trains which presumably means only the Elizabethan and Talisman.  The Top Shed shed-master Peter Townsend  tells a story of a Top Link driver whose regular A4 was going in the works and he came in complaining that he had only been given a Kylchap fitted  A3. Townsend persuaded him to use it for the day because that’s all there was. However , at the end of the day he liked the A3 so much he insisted on keeping it as his regular engine.

It makes one wonder how history might have changed if all the A3’s had been fitted with long travel valves and Kychap exhausts by the early 1930’s. We might well have found the ECML services were in the hands of a large fleet of advanced A3’s with no need for A1’s , A2’s E.E. Type fours and possibly no A4’ s until the Deltics came along . One of Railway history’s great “what ifs” !

Edited December 28, 2019 by jazzer

[great northern]

2 hours ago, jazzer said:

 

Well Woolwinder certainly seems to be getting about a bit . We saw it on the Up Flying Scotsman earlier in the week, now it’s on the White Rose. Not surprising though, as  it seems that it has just been fitted with a Kylchap double chimney and blastpipe which transformed the performance of the A3’s,  so much more so that even with inferior coal and inexperienced firemen they could match the Diagrams of the E.E. Type 4’s . KX shed were using them turn and turn about with the A4’s on all but the absolute crack trains which presumably means only the Elizabethan and Talisman.  The Top Shed shed-master Peter Townsend  tells a story of a Top Link driver whose regular A4 was going in the works and he came in complaining that he had only been given a Kylchap fitted  A3. Townsend persuaded him to use it for the day because that’s all there was. However , at the end of the day he liked the A3 so much he insisted on keeping it as his regular engine.

It makes one wonder how history might have changed if all the A3’s had been fitted with long travel valves and Kychap exhausts by the early 1930’s. We might well have found the ECML services were in the hands of a large fleet of advanced A3’s with no need for A1’s , A2’s E.E. Type fours and possibly no A4’ s until the Deltics came along . One of Railway history’s great “what ifs” !

There's no doubt that the double blast A3s became the equals of the A4s, and that Woolwinder, being the first rebuild, was the one that started the trend. The one in Townsend's tale though, as I recall, was Merry Hampton, and it was still single blast at the time.

[great northern]

Time for the 7.43 York to appear, and 50A as usual have turned out filthy 60515. Only seven on though, so it should be able to cope.

 

 

This breaks all the rules pf picture composition, but I don't think it looks too bad. The next angle is far more conventional.

 

 

Lovely lamps, don't you think? And a shackle.

[thegreenhowards]

Gilbert,

 

I’m intrigued by the Skeggy excursion as I know how you base your running pretty religiously on the 1958 timetable. Was this timetabled? If not, how does it fit into your carefully calculated sequence? Do you throw in some random extras each time you run through the day’s events?

 

Andy

[great northern]

6 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Gilbert,

 

I’m intrigued by the Skeggy excursion as I know how you base your running pretty religiously on the 1958 timetable. Was this timetabled? If not, how does it fit into your carefully calculated sequence? Do you throw in some random extras each time you run through the day’s events?

 

Andy

 I look for gaps in the sequence that would allow sensible time for an extra, basically.  I also seem to recall seeing a photo of an excursion advert for a train which ran at about this time of day. Other than that, I have three or four blank slides which allow me to run something a bit out of the ordinary, if I feel so inclined.

[great northern]

The White Rose having gone through, that B1 in the bay can now go off towards Grimsby.

 

 

 

And soon after that, another less than pristine Copley Hill A1 has the 7.50 from Leeds.

 

 

[jazzer]

11 hours ago, great northern said:

There's no doubt that the double blast A3s became the equals of the A4s, and that Woolwinder, being the first rebuild, was the one that started the trend. The one in Townsend's tale though, as I recall, was Merry Hampton, and it was still single blast at the time.

 

I have just dug out the interview with Townsend in Steam World but he doesn’t actually say whether it was Kylchap fitted or not. I just assumed it was from the context but you may well be right. However the account goes on to say that the driver and loco in question averaged 93 m.p.h between York and Darlington which is a cracking performance, and brilliant testimony to Gresleys basic design. It makes me wonder, with hindsight, whether the E.E. Type 4’s justified their investment, as they seemed to have no real advantage over the existing steam fleet, especially as they were eclipsed within four years by the Deltics and Class 47’s. 

[thegreenhowards]

2 hours ago, great northern said:

 I look for gaps in the sequence that would allow sensible time for an extra, basically.  I also seem to recall seeing a photo of an excursion advert for a train which ran at about this time of day. Other than that, I have three or four blank slides which allow me to run something a bit out of the ordinary, if I feel so inclined.

Sounds like an opportunity for discipline to give into much temptation!

[great northern]

16 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Sounds like an opportunity for discipline to give into much temptation!

We know there were specials and excursions though, Andy, and that they were fitted into the timetable somehow, so why shouldn't we incorporate that into our  little worlds?  The usual proviso, I suppose, don't overdo it, and don't get too far fetched.

 

One example, two recorded sightings in summer 58  on or near Welwyn viaduct. One was three eight car quad arts going South behind a 9F just after August Bank Holiday, and the other a train consisting of 20 something condemned brake vans. Would there have been specific paths for those? I doubt it. Obviously I don't advocate trying to run either, on the grounds of impracticality, unless we've come into a lot of money, which I haven't.

[Clive Mortimore]

3 hours ago, jazzer said:

 

I have just dug out the interview with Townsend in Steam World but he doesn’t actually say whether it was Kylchap fitted or not. I just assumed it was from the context but you may well be right. However the account goes on to say that the driver and loco in question averaged 93 m.p.h between York and Darlington which is a cracking performance, and brilliant testimony to Gresleys basic design. It makes me wonder, with hindsight, whether the E.E. Type 4’s justified their investment, as they seemed to have no real advantage over the existing steam fleet, especially as they were eclipsed within four years by the Deltics and Class 47’s. 

The 2000 performed well for most of their lives, most years having the second or third highest reliability. First was the Type 1s and second or third along with the Type 4s was the Type 3s, which I think is testimony to the sound engineering design by staff at English Electric. True they were on their upper limits performance wise on both the ECML and the WCML.

 

Many can look at the romance of steam locos with rose tinted glasses. Quite a few years ago I was chatting to a Carlisle driver who had experience of steam  locos, the various classes of diesels and electrics. He said on a nice summer day with a light Birmingham- Glasgow train it was lovely being on the footplate of a Princess Coronation but on a cold frosty morning with a heavy sleeper behind give him a class 87 topping Shap at 100.