Peterborough North

[glo41f]

Firstly Happy Birthday Gilbert.

 

You continue to delight and inspire with your wonderful pictures and reminiscences. I get lost looking at the pictures and really transporting myself back to what seemed at the time happy days.(despite the immediate threat of nuclear annihilation!). The individual fruit pies were a staple of the daily diet at the station and I believe cast 6d. I preferred the apple ones myself. It was possible to nip over the footbridge to the station buffet and back to the trolley on which we sat when there was a ten minute lull in the procession of trains at Ipswich. 

 

My current build of a streamlined B17 is causing a bit of anguish. Bit early for me but then in Suffolk it was the  nearest we got to an A4!

 

Regards

 

Martin Long

[rockershovel]

Re #11476, "pacamac"?

[great northern]

Firstly Happy Birthday Gilbert.

 

You continue to delight and inspire with your wonderful pictures and reminiscences. I get lost looking at the pictures and really transporting myself back to what seemed at the time happy days.(despite the immediate threat of nuclear annihilation!). The individual fruit pies were a staple of the daily diet at the station and I believe cast 6d. I preferred the apple ones myself. It was possible to nip over the footbridge to the station buffet and back to the trolley on which we sat when there was a ten minute lull in the procession of trains at Ipswich. 

 

My current build of a streamlined B17 is causing a bit of anguish. Bit early for me but then in Suffolk it was the  nearest we got to an A4!

 

Regards

 

Martin Long

No A4s. but what a great place for anyone who has an affinity for B17s and all those lovely GE engines. Many of my previous layout dreams involved a purely GE 1950s layout, but I couldn't quite give up on the Pacifics, hence what is turning out to be a happy compromise. Good luck with the streamlined B17, I wouldn't be able to resist one in your circumstances either.

[great northern]

Re #11476, "pacamac"?

I've just Googled it, and found a 1953 advertisement for Pakamac, which looks pretty much as I remember. I hated the things, hardly a fashion statement for a teenager, but then my mother probably wouldn't have let me go if I didn't have one, in case I caught my death!

[Mallard60022]

Phil

[rockershovel]

I've just Googled it, and found a 1953 advertisement for Pakamac, which looks pretty much as I remember. I hated the things, hardly a fashion statement for a teenager, but then my mother probably wouldn't have let me go if I didn't have one, in case I caught my death!

I've found Pak-a-Mac, pac-a-mac and a couple more. I don't suppose there is any definitive spelling, like "cagoule" in all it's variants!

[rockershovel]

I've just Googled it, and found a 1953 advertisement for Pakamac, which looks pretty much as I remember. I hated the things, hardly a fashion statement for a teenager, but then my mother probably wouldn't have let me go if I didn't have one, in case I caught my death!

a propos 1950s fashions, would track staff or working men generally, still have been wearing army surplus odds and ends in 1958, or would the donkey jacket have been ubiquitous by then?

[great northern]

download (2).jpg

Phil

I dashed down to the shop, but couldn't find one anywhere.

[great northern]

Friday, no need to go out, heavy rain all day. Saturday, golf, no rain. Sunday, no need to go out, save for a quick bit of shopping, heavy rain all day so far. I'm getting a bit suspicious. I'm also taking more photos, so I can spare a few more from the image store. Here is the B1 on the Grimsby stopper. the bulled up hinge straps show that it used to be a shed pet, but it is well run down now.

[Mallard60022]

a propos 1950s fashions, would track staff or working men generally, still have been wearing army surplus odds and ends in 1958, or would the donkey jacket have been ubiquitous by then?

P

[Oldddudders]

No A4s. but what a great place for anyone who has an affinity for B17s and all those lovely GE engines. Many of my previous layout dreams involved a purely GE 1950s layout, but I couldn't quite give up on the Pacifics, hence what is turning out to be a happy compromise. Good luck with the streamlined B17, I wouldn't be able to resist one in your circumstances either.

"The old Great Eastern, winding slow

To some forgotten country town"

(Betjeman)

 

An idyll if ever there was one.

[great northern]

While running trains and looking for things to photograph, this scene caught my eye.

I'd just moved the C12 and stock a bit to make room for a previous photo, and it looked like a nice peaceful composition. At the moment, I can either have that signal off vertical, or the arm slightly off. The signalman has reported that it won't fully return to danger, and asked for someone to come and sort out the problem, so that's all right, isn't it? I don't know who knocked the lamp orf.

[barry.wilson]

download (2).jpg

Phil

 

Remember these?

[Mallard60022]

Remember these?

No but I remember Ice Poles.

I was 'researching' those pies again today and, as most people know, I remember Hales Individual Fruit Pies rather than Lyons. Seemingly the Hales ones were renowned for being available in Railway Buffets and on Buffet Cars and being stale! I remember that they were bl**dy lovely, but I also really liked school dinner cabbage! 

I can't find the stuff I once found before saying that Hales Pies existed but the firm was absorbed by Lyons in the 60s.

Apologies Gilbert but pies are important, historic items for spotters of my age.

Philth. 

[rockershovel]

So, old civilian clothes, an army surplus beret or two, and what might be the odd item of demob suit (I remember my late father wearing a chalk-stripe demob suit for gardening into the early 1960s) I suppose the great Army y Surplus clearances of the 1960s would not come until after Korea, Malaya and the end if National Service

 

I was surprised to find, on Google, that hi vis clothing was introduced as early as 1964 in SW Scotland and by 1970s on WCML.

 

I certainly remember being quite impressed with "the shape of the future" - orange, red or blue coveralls with reflective stripes, fleece pile under suits, rigger boots and zero hoods - in the N Sea in the later 1970s, although the much-prized aluminium McDonald helmets that were bought at your own cost in Aberdeen or Yarmouth were straight out of the 1930s. But I usually think of Hi vis PPE as a late-80s or early 90s thing, related to the 1992 Regs

Edited June 12, 2016 by rockershovel

[The Stationmaster]

Remember these?

 

Unfortunately - yes.

[glo41f]

Gosh the pie was 5d. I paid a penny more in the station buffet!  I woz robbed and in those times a penny was a days entertainment being the cost of a platform ticket.

 

Martin Long

[great northern]

I'm sure I had more images than this in store This is all I can find though, the Up Grimsby -KX behind a rather less shabby B1.

Now I'll try to find out where the rest have gone.

 

[rockershovel]

I do like the arcade wall framing the composition, very effective

[St Enodoc]

I am another suitcase user, and have also had a tiny failure rate in 10 years.

 

I recall a respected US modeller and prolific writer, apparently known to his friends not to be great at wiring, offering one useful piece of advice about soldering under the layout - never, ever, solder while wearing shorts.

Never, ever, solder while not wearing shorts.

[St Enodoc]

I think the key thing when it comes to suitcase connectors is environment. If they get shaken about, for example, I reckon they are much more likely to fail, so if I was considering a portable layout I'd avoid them, but for a permanent set up like mine they are ideal. It is worth investing in a dedicated crimping tool though to make sure that they get connected properly in the first place.

Although I don't use them, I understand from people that do that the two key success factors for using suitcase connectors are a) to use the correct size connector for the wire(s) concerned, and b) to use proper crimpers with a parallel action rather than any old pair of pliers.

[Mallard60022]

Also, for exhibition layouts I have heard you either have to have the wires & cases fixed very securely or you have to have beautifully soldered wires fixed securely. It is sometimes easier to see if  a solder joint has 'failed'.

When building a 'portable layout we all know it is always best to do the boards individually (granny, eggs etc.) and do all the necessary underboard soldering whilst the  board is still loose and for an exhibition layout this is essential anyway.

If I had not been a lazy ar$e and not had any boards already, I would have built the scenic sections of my in the loft, not going anywhere layout like this despite the faff of board joiners and associated rail joiners at the ends. The off scene areas can have surface mounted stuff as mine actually will have (one day).

So Rob, knowing your skill it will be easy for you to wear shorts when doing stuff as you will not be crawling around under some sort of snakes nest of wires.

I think Gilbert will confirm that his boards were built individually with the usual board end rail joiner methods?

Sincerely,

Phil 

[great northern]

Also, for exhibition layouts I have heard you either have to have the wires & cases fixed very securely or you have to have beautifully soldered wires fixed securely. It is sometimes easier to see if  a solder joint has 'failed'.

When building a 'portable layout we all know it is always best to do the boards individually (granny, eggs etc.) and do all the necessary underboard soldering whilst the  board is still loose and for an exhibition layout this is essential anyway.

If I had not been a lazy ar$e and not had any boards already, I would have built the scenic sections of my in the loft, not going anywhere layout like this despite the faff of board joiners and associated rail joiners at the ends. The off scene areas can have surface mounted stuff as mine actually will have (one day).

So Rob, knowing your skill it will be easy for you to wear shorts when doing stuff as you will not be crawling around under some sort of snakes nest of wires.

I think Gilbert will confirm that his boards were built individually with the usual board end rail joiner methods?

Sincerely,

Phil 

Brilliant Baseboards came with an ingenious fixing method Phil, so the whole lot were assembled in one day. The station and side boards then went off in pairs with Norman Saunders, and were fixed as they returned complete with track droppers and Tortoises. I would have liked to be able to turn over individual boards and wire them in a civilised and non back knackering manner, but in the end we left them intact, boarded over the fiddle yard, and all the wiring was done from underneath.

[great northern]

I have now found the rest of my photos, which the PC had decided to file in a totally different folder and under a different date. I thought these things were supposed to run in a totally logical way? Well, this one doesn't, it does things in completely random fashion. For instance, I will finish up with at least three versions of an image Raw and JPG to start with, and then resizes to get them on here. I'd have thought that they would appear in the order in which they were done, but no, they shift about so that I get that message telling me that they are too big to upload. I don't much like computers.

 

Here are the photos I was looking for last night.

61190 on the Grimsby is waiting time, and is about to be passed by 60007 on the Down Fair Maid. Apparently this train often ran without the headboard, as it does today, but in this case because I can't find it, or perhaps I didn't have one in the first place? There is a strange effect on this one in the area of the loco and first coach. I wonder if I hadn't quite turned the power off, and the loco was still moving slowly. If I'd jolted the camera, surely the whole thing would be blurred? Whatever the reason, it does give an impression of a moving train.

We must have a portrait of Sir Nigel whenever he appears.

[Joseph_Pestell]

No but I remember Ice Poles.

I was 'researching' those pies again today and, as most people know, I remember Hales Individual Fruit Pies rather than Lyons. Seemingly the Hales ones were renowned for being available in Railway Buffets and on Buffet Cars and being stale! I remember that they were bl**dy lovely, but I also really liked school dinner cabbage! 

I can't find the stuff I once found before saying that Hales Pies existed but the firm was absorbed by Lyons in the 60s.

Apologies Gilbert but pies are important, historic items for spotters of my age.

Philth. 

 

Definitely Lyons Pies included in BR packed lunches in the late 60s. And Kia-Ora had replaced those juice drinks which I have definitely never seen.

 

BR packed lunch very nostalgic to me as we got one on a school trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury which was my last BR steam experience.