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As you know Phil I'm in London on business for 3 weeks, plus I've been travelling up at least twice a week for the past month. D821 is very often outside OOC, I'm quite taken on how tiny the Warship appears against the current diesel fleet. Power/weight ratio of hydraulics etc.

Like you I'm not especially interested in the modern scene, but like to "keep up". There's been another modern 800 class at North Pole a lot of the time in recent weeks, and the transformation of Reading is quite something, the old depot has been razed to the ground in the early part of this year. I must try and capture some photos of the old girls (class 253 for us 70s railFans) as they won't be around in a few years time. I say to my kids "I saw these being built" which always gains the comment "are you that old?"!

Neil

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Yes did look out for an 800 at North Pole but none to be seen. Was surprised at how much suburban traffic was sparky units though

 

Have fun doing your London stint. Sorry it clashes with fishing - will try again later in th eyear

 

Phil

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Here is something for hydraulic detectives to identify.

 

I'm not sure why I bothered bidding for this, but it was going cheap and so I thought I would give it a good home.

 

 

A maroon Western leaves Bath Spa in the 1960s. Is it remotely possible to identify the loco?

 

post-4474-0-56023600-1499679188_thumb.jpg

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About the only chance you've got is if you can enlarge the number plate and see if the top edges of the numbers are identifiable, then somehow cross reference to an unknown date in the 60's to see which ones were maroon. Can you tell what colour the coaches are?

 

Mike.

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About the only chance you've got is if you can enlarge the number plate and see if the top edges of the numbers are identifiable, then somehow cross reference to an unknown date in the 60's to see which ones were maroon. Can you tell what colour the coaches are?

 

Mike.

1064 ??

 

The third character appears to be a diagonal going up L - R and the fourth appears to be triangular - top of a "6" and a "4" ??

Edited by Southernman46
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About the only chance you've got is if you can enlarge the number plate and see if the top edges of the numbers are identifiable, then somehow cross reference to an unknown date in the 60's to see which ones were maroon. Can you tell what colour the coaches are?

 

Mike.

 

This is a blow up of the numberplate, but it is not too clear.

 

post-4474-0-93462500-1499762216_thumb.jpg

 

 

I think the coach next to the loco is maroon, but it looks to be a BG so may not have been highest in the queue for repainting.

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If we can pin down the date when Bath Spa lost its semaphores it could help narrow down the likely candidate. I have a feeling it might have been some time in '68, around the same time Swindon Panel was commissioned.

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Spot-on - the box closed 21 Jan 1968. So 42 Crewe built maroon-liveried Westerns in all, 22 of which were either BFYE or BSYP by the date of changeover. Of the remaining 20 locos in maroon, 3 had full yellow ends by Jan 1968, leaving 17 possible examples.

 

All from your livery info of course...

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Spotted this one on eBay yesterday, and won for the sum of £3.70. A real rarity I think, three Hymeks at (edit) Caldicot Although out of focus, I'm ever hopeful that future software will be able to correct this.

1O67 is a Cardiff-Pompey service that the Blue small yellow mek is working. Very rare to capture this, and a shame about the focus, but I had to add it to my collection.

Neilpost-6925-0-21266800-1501928371_thumb.png

Edited by Downendian
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Nice find Neil! The BSYP 'mek has headboard clips so could be (from memory... other opinions are also available!) 7036 / 7038 / 7040 / 7047 / 7048 / 7051 / 7052 / 7056 / 7064. Do you have a date for the slide...?

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That's a great shot, it's not Pilning it's the Welsh side, this is the other side of the Caldicot Road bridge looking up towards STJ, Caldicot Halt would be on the extreme left.

Edited by steve fay
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literally five seconds in Irfan View -you really should download it for free. Auto adjust colours, then two or three resharpens. If I bothered, could do it much better. Wrt sharpening, it depends what you want to do with the image, working from a low res, and finishing with a compressed jpeg does not give the best results.

 

 

post-18971-0-28847500-1501935971.jpg

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Gresley Buffett ??

 

W9135E was allocated to Canton and often used in Cardiff - Pompeys,  But of those locos none were common performers on that route which most often saw the lowest and highest numbers either by design or random allocation.  702x - 708x were much less common.

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I've seen many photos of BSYP Hymeks on the Cardiff-Pompey trains, and especially D7052 which was Canton allocated in 1969/70 which I think is the same time frame as the Caldicot photo. D7052 was in its later years in a bit of a shocking state of course, so if it is her, this would be pre-1971.

I wouldn't be surprised either if a Bath road engine operated this service, but more likely to be from Cardiff.

Allocations here in 1969/70

http://www.shelbrooke.co.uk/Hymek/Section3-1.htm

Neil

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Is it my imagination, or is the last coach in maroon livery?

The train of vans looks like one of the rakes that worked from either Severn Beach (fertiliser) or Avonmouth (animal feed) to various destinations in West Wales. In the late 1960s, these were a very mixed bunch of pre-Nationalisation and BR types, becoming BR Standard vans in the early 1970s, and eventually Vanwides.

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