East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line

[Nearholmer]

The line used to operate much more smoothly, although presumably at huge cost in wages, when the crossings were manually operated - the crossing keeps had it all down to a fine art, although one or two places might not have been operated entirely consistently with the rules, I suspect!

[Rugd1022]

17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The line used to operate much more smoothly, although presumably at huge cost in wages, when the crossings were manually operated - the crossing keeps had it all down to a fine art, although one or two places might not have been operated entirely consistently with the rules, I suspect!

 

Despite what I said yesterday about generally smooth running in semaphore days, there were occasions when you'd have to whistle up at the distants to gee up the Bobbies into closing the crossings to road traffic, Ridgemont and Millbrook particularly so!

 

Thinking much further back, I recall vividly a trip across the branch in a two car Cravens unit in the early '70s, we'd set out from Rugby on a family visit to relatives in London, we got on a 310 to Euston but there was a serious problem south of Bletchley, we alighted there and boarded the tickty-bump to Bedford and caught a Peak hauled express from there to St.Pancras instead - I remember the rows and rows of chimneys at the brickworks along the line and leaning out of the drop window to look at the semaphore signals, it seemed to take an age to get to Bedford with all the stops and the level crossings being opened and closed.

[The Stationmaster]

42 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

The signaling isn't life-expired and presumably has been assessed to provide enough capacity for the expected service, and with even the faster trains planned to stop at least once the time saving from upgrading to 90-100mph would only be a handful of minutes.  The balance might shift if the route was to be electrified, or when the signaling is due for replacement.  

The last resignalling and crossing modernisation was initially intended to raise the line speed to 75mph but there were so many problems with signal spacing in relation to the position of the level crossings and braking distances the design had to be altered and this meant that the line speed had to be restricted to 60mph.

[Rugd1022]

14 hours ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

I suppose they let the Passenger out in front because you had to Shunt at Forders Siding? Hopefully it would have been a bit different if you were a through Freight such as the Peak Forest CEMEX?

 

I recall  my late father telling me some of the Brick Trains having a Banker engine. This was in the days of LNWR Super 'D's"with loose coupled Freights.

 

Whether waiting to come out of Forders or following a unit from one end of the line to the other it's pretty much the same David. With two units shuffling up and down all day we're always behind one of them in either direction and often as not at each end we'll have to sit at the last signal on the double track section waiting for the unit to go into Bedford or Bletchley then come out again before getting the road. If they raised the line speed to 90mph we'd still be up the unit's tail amp no matter what we do because of all the station stops!

 

I wish I'd taken more photos when the semaphores were still in use....

[Pannier Tank]

2 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

Whether waiting to come out of Forders or following a unit from one end of the line to the other it's pretty much the same David. With two units shuffling up and down all day we're always behind one of them in either direction and often as not at each end we'll have to sit at the last signal on the double track section waiting for the unit to go into Bedford or Bletchley then come out again before getting the road. If they raised the line speed to 90mph we'd still be up the unit's tail amp no matter what we do because of all the station stops!

 

I wish I'd taken more photos when the semaphores were still in use....

 

Talking of which, I see that the 6H10 Bletchley to Peak Forest has just lost 16 Minutes between Fenny Stratford and Woburn Sands, so I guess he was held on the double track section by the Cambridge Sidings! I see as I'm typing, he's made up 4 Mins by Ridgmont!

 

Ok on wishing you'd taken more photographs; we took for granted that things would stay the same forever. 

 

I used to travel to work on the Cravens Units; although the motor unit rattled like no other, they were fairly reliable.

[Rugd1022]

I've been doing some rummaging around in the naughty cupboard and found some of my work photos taken between Bletchley and Bedford, some dating back over ten years, it's startling how many changes there have been even since then......

 

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Rugd1022

[big jim]

Did the shunter in your pics above used to live in Tamworth? 
 

he looks like one of the guys I met back in 2008ish at the model railway layout in the attic at rugby station 

[Trog]

28 minutes ago, big jim said:

Did the shunter in your pics above used to live in Tamworth? 
 

he looks like one of the guys I met back in 2008ish at the model railway layout in the attic at rugby station 

 

Griff?

 

Was he not the shunter at Rugby at one time

[Rugd1022]

Yes it's Griff from Rugby (not Tamworth, he doesn't speak the lingo!). He's still knocking around, retired now too.

[big jim]

it may be who I’m thinking of, at the time (2008)  he looked older than your pic, in his late 50s/early 60s, slicked back black hair, donkey jacket, I remember him mentioning “tam-uth” 

[rodent279]

14 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

I've been doing some rummaging around in the naughty cupboard and found some of my work photos taken between Bletchley and Bedford, some dating back over ten years, it's startling how many changes there have been even since then......

 

 

I still can't believe the chimneys are gone. I know it must be a decade since they went, but it's still a shock not seeing them.

[Rugd1022]

There are just four left at Stewartby now, I wonder how much longer they'll last.

 

 

[Trog]

16 hours ago, big jim said:

it may be who I’m thinking of, at the time (2008)  he looked older than your pic, in his late 50s/early 60s, slicked back black hair, donkey jacket, I remember him mentioning “tam-uth” 

 

The photo presumably was taken immediately before he had to work with Rugd1022.  

[mike morley]

On 10/03/2020 at 10:52, Rugd1022 said:

 

in semaphore days, there were occasions when you'd have to whistle up at the distants to gee up the Bobbies into closing the crossings to road traffic, Ridgemont and Millbrook particularly so!

 

Not long before the first scheduled replacement of the semaphores  (there were several stays of execution and they ended up lasting several more years) I inflicted my company on the signalman at Ridgmont for most of one dismal winter afternoon.  He told me with some pride that on the entire railway system, the down starter was the only remaining signal with a timber post and that the up starter had the longest pull (I'm assuming that, being LNWR originally, Bletchley would have been at the up end).  With the block instruments in the bay window of the station house, the levers out in the rain on the platform ramp and the level crossing gates operated by shanks's pony, there was something distinctly Colonel Stephens about the whole place that still influences my modelling to this day.

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, mike morley said:

 

Not long before the first scheduled replacement of the semaphores  (there were several stays of execution and they ended up lasting several more years) I inflicted my company on the signalman at Ridgmont for most of one dismal winter afternoon.  He told me with some pride that on the entire railway system, the down starter was the only remaining signal with a timber post and that the up starter had the longest pull (I'm assuming that, being LNWR originally, Bletchley would have been at the up end).  With the block instruments in the bay window of the station house, the levers out in the rain on the platform ramp and the level crossing gates operated by shanks's pony, there was something distinctly Colonel Stephens about the whole place that still influences my modelling to this day.

 

The fact that once onto the 'branch' it often felt like our own private railway was one of the joys of working along it at the time, for the most part the Forders trips would be subject to 20mph slacks in several places for months at a time which added to the plodding nature of the job.

 

Some nice images of times past on the branch...

 

 

[Trog]

The BBM was certainly a bit of a time warp back in those days. I used to think that all BR needed was a few steam engines and they could give the Severn Valley Railway etc a run for their money.

[rodent279]

Wow, just look at that forest of chimneys!

Edited March 11, 2020 by rodent279

[Nearholmer]

Yes, when I first encountered the line as recently as the early ‘80s, I thought it was wonderfully stuck in the past. The station at Bedford was a completely tumbledown wreck!

[mike morley]

When I first moved to Milton Keynes in the very late eighties I worked for a few months at Newton Longville brickworks, right by the line as it comes out of Bletchley.  Every day the gung-ho USAF pilots (from Upper Heyford?)  used to entertain themselves by threading their F15's between the chimneys as fast as they dared, with the plane usually standing on a wingtip.  I once saw a Hercules do it . . .

Edited March 11, 2020 by mike morley

[Pannier Tank]

1 hour ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

Some nice images of times past on the branch...

 

 

GWR Lower Quadrant Signals on the Bedford Branch !

[Rugd1022]

2 minutes ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

GWR Lower Quadrant Signals on the Bedford Branch !

 

Oops wrong pic! Serves me right for just looking at the thumbnail pic when I posted it. Strangely, the track formation mirrors that just east of Kempston Hardwick almost perfectly....

[Pannier Tank]

Just now, Rugd1022 said:

 

Oops wrong pic! Serves me right for just looking at the thumbnail pic when I posted it. Strangely, the track formation mirrors that just east of Kempston Hardwick almost perfectly....

 

I thought Kempston Hardwick when I saw the photograph.

 

Love the Rats & Craven shots, very nostalgic. 

[Rugd1022]

39 minutes ago, mike morley said:

When I first moved to Milton Keynes in the very late eighties I worked for a few months at Newton Longville brickworks, right by the line as it comes out of Bletchley.  Every day the gung-ho USAF pilots (from Upper Heyford?)  used to entertain themselves by threading their F15's between the chimneys as fast as they dared, with the plane usually standing on a wingtip.  I once saw a Hercules do it . . .

 

Not as exciting as seeing F15s but on the Forders trips sometimes I'd slow down at Millbrook to see if there were any exotic cars being put through their paces on the adjacent Proving Ground test track...! It made no difference to the running time though as we always had the distant against us approaching Stewartby.

[Pannier Tank]

39 minutes ago, mike morley said:

When I first moved to Milton Keynes in the very late eighties I worked for a few months at Newton Longville brickworks, right by the line as it comes out of Bletchley.  

 

I was born and bred just down the road from Newton Longville Signal Box which controlled the Sidings that served the Brickworks. I recall the afternoon Brick Train (and travelled on it on a couple of occasions) that ran from Bletchley (running wrong line "up" the Down Fast) to Lambs Siding and then onto Newton Longville (via the Chord Line) and finished up at Swanbourne Sidings.

[1E BoY]

1 hour ago, Trog said:

The BBM was certainly a bit of a time warp back in those days. I used to think that all BR needed was a few steam engines and they could give the Severn Valley Railway etc a run for their money.

 

The Severn Valley did indeed come to the line in December 1996 as part of the 150th celebrations for the Bletchley to Bedford line. The shot of the locomotive being inspected was taken at Bletchley TMD the day before. At the time 1E BoY was employed by North London Railways.

 

A number of trains using the 80xxx ran on the Saturday which started well behind schedule and ran late all day. 1E BoY was on call, was summoned early morning and spent all day along with a colleague at Bedford Midland trying to get the service back on track.