Class 33 Photos

[Nearholmer]

The passenger train that almost always seemed 33 hauled through the 70s was one that left Reading c1630-1700 and got to Tonbridge about two and a half hours later. It used to run right across the London-end throat at Tonbridge, and terminate in the down-side bay, so that the vast amounts of mail that it carried could be handled easily to PO vans waiting in the forecourt. I think it sometimes conveyed "parcels vans", but the basic consist was: TSO; BSK; SK, I think. There was an Up TPO postal (from Dover?) at about the same time, and that was somehow routed via the down platform at Tonbridge for the same reason.

 

I think the 33 then worked back from Tonbridge, because I vaguely remember catching it as far as Edenbridge.

[guzzler17]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The passenger train that almost always seemed 33 hauled through the 70s was one that left Reading c1630-1700 and got to Tonbridge about two and a half hours later. It used to run right across the London-end throat at Tonbridge, and terminate in the down-side bay, so that the vast amounts of mail that it carried could be handled easily to PO vans waiting in the forecourt. I think it sometimes conveyed "parcels vans", but the basic consist was: TSO; BSK; SK, I think. There was an Up TPO postal (from Dover?) at about the same time, and that was somehow routed via the down platform at Tonbridge for the same reason.

 

I think the 33 then worked back from Tonbridge, because I vaguely remember catching it as far as Edenbridge.

 

The 33 hauled service actually terminated in platform 2 at Tonbridge and the loco then ran round.  When convenient it then ran towards London, 33 leading, until it cleared all of the pointwork.  Then it was a propelling movement into platform 4, the down bay.  When departure time came it went across the whole layout in order to gain the Redhill line.

 

I was at Tonbridge one evening when a fellow spotter asked the driver if he could cab the 33 from platform 2 to 4.  The driver said yes and about half a dozen of us, including me, piled in as well.

 

Any loco hauled trains terminating at platform 4 would need a turnover loco or a propelling movement into the west yard in order to run round.  I never saw either take place.

[Nearholmer]

I bow to superior memory, although I would swear on a stack of bibles that I have seen it come direct across into the Down Bay, which did indeed trap the loco. How that was sorted-out I don’t remember. Maybe it was running late and desperation set in.

[ruggedpeak]

11 hours ago, Halvarras said:

In the 1970s I was a semi-regular traveller on the Reading - Redhill line as far as Blackwater. Of course the 3R 'Tadpole' units were the usual fare but some services were worked by Class 33s on short Mark1 formations and I was fortunate to get such haulage from time to time.

Here are what appear to be the only three photos I took of Class 33s on this line, all in March/April 1977, probably because I never put much effort into figuring out when they'd turn up so it was a game of chance!

 

33049 approaching North Camp with a parcels train on 5/3/77.....

(I didn't usually venture in this direction but I visited a model shop here on this day and purchased a blue Wrenn Class 08 shunter - 30 years ago I detailed this up but used a new unpainted body I'd picked up for a quid. I still have it. By pure coincidence the original body has just been awoken from its 3-decade slumber and is sitting within reach on my work bench in the process of resurrection on a decent Lima chassis, as the wasp stripes I applied in 1977 are too good to pass up!)

 

33021 passing Earley on 1/4/77 (no joking, it really is 33021....) heading for Reading (I'm a poet and I don't know it!)

 

And 33025 passing under the A30 and about to call at Blackwater station, Reading-bound on 19/4/77 (hey, that was my birthday.......nope, not sayin'!)....

 

And while I'm here, I found this view of 33043 at Reading on a rather dull 22/1/77 (that's my excuse, although I think this image still needs a tidy-up) , I believe it was a special but the inclusion of Mark 1 Pullman E314E was eye-catching - I think it was the only time I ever saw such a thing.....

 

Great pics Went to school on that line from Crowthorne to Reading on the 119(?) DMU's in the 80's, really interesting to see that there was a local hauled service at one point further down the line. Also the tank wagon at the old oil depot at Earley. Occasionally saw them shunting into the depot.

[Rugd1022]

11 hours ago, Halvarras said:

In the 1970s I was a semi-regular traveller on the Reading - Redhill line as far as Blackwater. Of course the 3R 'Tadpole' units were the usual fare but some services were worked by Class 33s on short Mark1 formations and I was fortunate to get such haulage from time to time.

Here are what appear to be the only three photos I took of Class 33s on this line, all in March/April 1977, probably because I never put much effort into figuring out when they'd turn up so it was a game of chance!

 

33049 approaching North Camp with a parcels train on 5/3/77.....

(I didn't usually venture in this direction but I visited a model shop here on this day and purchased a blue Wrenn Class 08 shunter - 30 years ago I detailed this up but used a new unpainted body I'd picked up for a quid. I still have it. By pure coincidence the original body has just been awoken from its 3-decade slumber and is sitting within reach on my work bench in the process of resurrection on a decent Lima chassis, as the wasp stripes I applied in 1977 are too good to pass up!)

 

33021 passing Earley on 1/4/77 (no joking, it really is 33021....) heading for Reading (I'm a poet and I don't know it!)

 

And 33025 passing under the A30 and about to call at Blackwater station, Reading-bound on 19/4/77 (hey, that was my birthday.......nope, not sayin'!)....

 

And while I'm here, I found this view of 33043 at Reading on a rather dull 22/1/77 (that's my excuse, although I think this image still needs a tidy-up) , I believe it was a special but the inclusion of Mark 1 Pullman E314E was eye-catching - I think it was the only time I ever saw such a thing.....

 

 

I've had a quick go at fettling your lovely Reading shot....

 

 

[Halvarras]

6 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

I've had a quick go at fettling your lovely Reading shot....

 

 

 

Thank you - I made a mistake in taking prints and not slides, and even if the subject matter comes up OK in the negative scanner the skies often display some rather weird alien hues! 

Although I can't recall the exact circumstances now I'm sure I would have lined the camera up on the 33 when it appeared.......then noticed the Pullman and made a snap decision on which was the rarer! (I could have taken both but back then I still had to bear in mind film and developing costs and be a little choosy.)

Edited November 27, 2021 by Halvarras
Spelling 'error' (I typed it correctly, but......)

[Halvarras]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The passenger train that almost always seemed 33 hauled through the 70s was one that left Reading c1630-1700 and got to Tonbridge about two and a half hours later. It used to run right across the London-end throat at Tonbridge, and terminate in the down-side bay, so that the vast amounts of mail that it carried could be handled easily to PO vans waiting in the forecourt. I think it sometimes conveyed "parcels vans", but the basic consist was: TSO; BSK; SK, I think. There was an Up TPO postal (from Dover?) at about the same time, and that was somehow routed via the down platform at Tonbridge for the same reason.

 

I think the 33 then worked back from Tonbridge, because I vaguely remember catching it as far as Edenbridge.

 

Although I did have a 33 from Reading to Blackwater on the odd occasion it was usually in the opposite direction on a Saturday morning. I had the odd 'Slim Jim' on this line but don't recall any 'Bagpipes' - too useful elsewhere presumably.

[brushman47544]

Great to see photos of 33s on the Reading - Tonbridge line. As a child I lived in viewing distance (but not close enough to see numbers, so no idea which Wizzos I saw on stone trains :-( 

 

There’s a separate thread on Class 33s on hauled Reading-Redhill-Tonbridge trains, which I think includes the diagrams. Without checking which trains, there was an early morning Tonbridge to Reading train Mon-Sat (perhaps 06.50 off Tonbridge) booked for an HG loco, so occasionally a 33/2. This returned east soon after arrival in Reading on parcels. The 16.40 Redhill - Reading was an EH loco, which is probably the trains photographed at Earley in the previous post. I think this came back on a very late (or the last?) train from Reading. Plus the 17.00-ish from Reading (loco off a parcels) and some others twixt Tonbridge and Redhill. There were four rakes of 3xMk1s (TSO-BSK-TSO) for three diagrams.

[KeithHC]

21 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

Great to see photos of 33s on the Reading - Tonbridge line. As a child I lived in viewing distance (but not close enough to see numbers, so no idea which Wizzos I saw on stone trains :-( 

 

There’s a separate thread on Class 33s on hauled Reading-Redhill-Tonbridge trains, which I think includes the diagrams. Without checking which trains, there was an early morning Tonbridge to Reading train Mon-Sat (perhaps 06.50 off Tonbridge) booked for an HG loco, so occasionally a 33/2. This returned east soon after arrival in Reading on parcels. The 16.40 Redhill - Reading was an EH loco, which is probably the trains photographed at Earley in the previous post. I think this came back on a very late (or the last?) train from Reading. Plus the 17.00-ish from Reading (loco off a parcels) and some others twixt Tonbridge and Redhill. There were four rakes of 3xMk1s (TSO-BSK-TSO) for three diagrams.

I have also seen pictures of short working to South Godstone for school term time to and from Redhill.

 

Keith

[Halvarras]

A couple of others, from 1974 - the first must be a rarity, I lived near Swindon 1972-77 and in Swindon 1984-2019 and in all those years this was the only Class 33 I ever saw there. Not the best quality or lighting, its arrival caught me by surprise (and my camera at that time was a poor affair - yes I know, workman, tools - but it really was poor!) 

6501 pulls into Swindon on a parcels working on 2 February 1974 - my assumption is that this joined the GWML at Thingley Junction, but who knows.....

6501 would be renumbered 33002 later that month:

(Shortly before this, Hymek 7093 had passed by on another eastbound parcels, I photographed this waiting in the loop beside the Works and so did somebody else, whose photo appears in 'Heyday of the Hymeks' credited to Colour-Rail, so maybe that person also captured this unusual event? Also worth mentioning, another one-off sight for me occurred exactly one week later when 1200 'Falcon' was seen on Swindon stabling point).

 

One stop further east and several months later, 33009 and 31121 (which had started the year as 6509 and 5539) await developments in Didcot Yard on 19 October 1974. Unlike Swindon, Didcot regularly saw Class 33s:

(I felt a bit sorry for the WR, it went to such lengths to rid itself of headcode discs on diesels and had not long completed the task on its hydraulics - D6301 excepted of course - when along came disc-fitted 5528/35/39 off the ER! But hey, thread drift....!)

Edited December 2, 2021 by Halvarras
Remembered the WR didn't QUITE finish the task!

[Nearholmer]

Great contrast that bottom picture, the 33 being so much more refined a machine.

 

I was familiar with 33s from virtually the moment I took any interest in railways, including having a good number of unofficial cab rides well before starting with BR, and when I then first went into the cab of a 31 was gobsmacked by how crude and ancient it all seemed.

[Halvarras]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Great contrast that bottom picture, the 33 being so much more refined a machine.

 

I was familiar with 33s from virtually the moment I took any interest in railways, including having a good number of unofficial cab rides well before starting with BR, and when I then first went into the cab of a 31 was gobsmacked by how crude and ancient it all seemed.

 

I must agree that BRCW seemed to know what they were doing - at some point BR's designers must have looked at the neat cantrail grilles and near-flush end gangway doors on BRCW's D53xx, then at their own untidy result on the D50xx, scratched their heads and wondered if they should perhaps have put in a little more effort.....

[Nearholmer]

10 hours ago, Halvarras said:

scratched their heads and wondered if they should perhaps have put in a little more effort.....

A lot of the cab design is reputed to have been either by BR(S) designers, or closely specified by BR(S), in the light of operating experience acquired with EMUs and with other locos. I remember guys in the BR(S) DO boasting about it, but whether they were telling the whole story I don’t know. (They had a lot on their minds, what with all the cacti they grew, filling one another’s furled umbrellas with tiny pieces of torn-up paper, sewing up the sleeves of one another’s unattended cardigans, and everything else)

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Vanfit]

Sorry no date and not a well focused pic but hopefully brings back a few memories.

 

[Rugd1022]

Photo by John Goodale : 33 015 at Westbury in October 1985....

 

[Rugd1022]

Photos by Chris Weavers : D6582 at Ashford Depot in 1965 and D6538 at Eastleigh on 4th August 1967....

 

 

[eastwestdivide]

From a recently-discovered stash of prints, undated, un-annotated.

Two 33+4-TC formations, both with the loco pushing, taken from the Windsor line platforms at Clapham Junction.

And two 33s on the Bristol-Portsmouth axis at Sydney Gardens, Bath.

All possibly from 1988-89. I did pick some gloomy days to go photting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[griffgriff]

Presumably not the same bagpipe. 62 being an up stopper from Salisbury and the other the Kenny Belle.

 

Nice pics

 

Grff

[eastwestdivide]

41 minutes ago, griffgriff said:

Presumably not the same bagpipe. 62 being an up stopper from Salisbury and the other the Kenny Belle.

 

Nice pics

 

Grff

Wouldn't have thought so for at least two reasons: a/ the SR were pretty good with their headcodes and b/ not sure if a movement from the main line to the West London was even possible with the track layout at CJ.

[griffgriff]

You missed NOT…. lol

 

oh I see

 

Griff

Edited January 10, 2022 by griffgriff

[eastwestdivide]

Huh?

[Rugd1022]

Photo by John Atkinson : unidentified 33 at Ash with the 3V54 Rugby to Redhill parcels on 6th January 1979....

 

[Rugd1022]

I was convinced I'd already posted this one in here but I've just had a quick skim through the thread and can't find it - anyway, here's D6527 idling away at Clapham Junction on a dreary day in 1967, I love the colour palette in this picture (the lack of yellow panel on D6527 is striking by its absence) , it's begging to be replicated in model form....

 

 

When this photo was taken The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles and The Stones etc shared the hit parade with the likes of Val Doonican, Kenn Dodd and Engleburt Humperdink, the car factories were still churning out Morris Minors and Triumph Heralds and the first Lamborghini Miura arrived in the UK. Onwards people, onwards!

[Rugd1022]

Photographer unknown : D6571 a very long way from home at Doncaster Decoy Yard....

 

[eastwestdivide]

42 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

D6571 a very long way from home at Doncaster Decoy Yard

I've seen that 4A headcode on a lot of photos of the cement train from Cliffe-Uddingston which regularly had a 33 (as far north as York I believe?). Also a lot of photos with a brake van between loco and first cement wagon.