Peterborough North

[westerner]

Makes my fiddleyard look very, very, very small. 8  storage roads altogether.

 

Edited for the extra verys

Edited February 6, 2013 by westerner

[CUTLER2579]

It's those EU directives I'm more worried about Dave, like when I get my fish vans, how many fish will I be allowed to put in them? And what sort? Do you think they might impose a maximum locomotive quota tSimple

 

Simple,  Gilbert. Pretend your French and ignore what you don't like.

Did I really say that.

 

Sorry its late,but still more Computer issues.

[great northern]

There is only one photo today, but the loco concerned has considerable significance for me. Last year I decided that I would like to give Dave Shakespeare a sort of combined housewarming and layout warming present, so a Hornby B1 was acquired, and Tim was asked to convert it into a West Riding engine, and a very down at heel one at that, as Dave has always liked filth.   Dave received it just before Christmas, but of course cruel fate then intervened. He's asked me to have it back on loan, so that he can have the pleasure of seeing it at work, but he made it clear that should he pull through his illness he will want it back. It will be a very happy day for me if in due course I can  hand it back to him. For now though, it will be working New England duties, rather than the Wakefield ones for which it was intended.

 

 

This job required even more than Tim's usual skill, as the loco had been to say the least over lubricated before leaving the factory. Having finished the job, Tim got up one morning to find most of the engine covered in oil, which had seeped through joints in the body. He was on a very tight deadline, but managed to take the whole thing apart, clean it out and repair the damage in time for the day when I wanted to hand it over. Thanks again Tim - it turned out to be even more important than I thought.

[Andrew P]

Great weathering on a great loco, as you say it would be lovelly to hand it back quite soon.

 

Andy.

[JeffP]

Gilbert, you DO realise that in your first photo, if you put some ballast in place, disguised the two point motors and mocked up a shed building along the back, you have the south end of Doncaster Carr depot around 1959....

[Donington Road]

Excuse me for butting in Great Northern, but I wondered if this might be relevent to you.

The buildings (or what was left of them) at the left hand side of the Great Northern Hotel have now all been demolished.

If you require any photos of them as they were in 2009, then I suggest you go to Google street view and take some screen grabs before Google Maps get updated.

 

mick.

[New Haven Neil]

I don't think posting the B1 photo was very easy for you Gilbert, but I'm glad you did.....super model, super bloke, Tetleys.....

[Mallard60022]

B1 transfer to NE - just the job - someone has nicked the fall plate en route though
Of course it will go back to Wakefield in an even worse state..... what will be missing then?

Quack. 

P.S. happened to see one of my 'peers' thundering up Shap on Saturday afternoon - nice.

[great northern]

Excuse me for butting in Great Northern, but I wondered if this might be relevent to you.

The buildings (or what was left of them) at the left hand side of the Great Northern Hotel have now all been demolished.

If you require any photos of them as they were in 2009, then I suggest you go to Google street view and take some screen grabs before Google Maps get updated.

 

mick.

Thanks Mick, good of you to alert me. As it happens, I did take a trip down about three years ago and take some photos of that area, so I shall be OK. It's a shame that a bit more history has gone, but in all honesty they wouldn't have won any prizes for architectural merit. I suppose it means my effort becomes a bit of a historical record though.

Edited February 10, 2013 by great northern

[great northern]

As yesterday's promised snow very co-operatively decided to descend as rain instead, I was able to get to Doncaster, where I was reunited with two locomotives which I had reluctantly parted with a while ago.. The parting became much more bearable when I saw how Tim had transformed them. I had seen a photo of this one on Tim's weathering thread, so I had a good idea of what to expect.

 

 

Irfan view has managed to distort this a bit I'm afraid, but you can see what Tim has achieved. The choice of loco is pure nostalgia, as Champion Lodge was one of the first named locos I ever saw. She scrapes into my summer 1958(ish) time scale, having been withdrawn in July of that year. I have a colour photo of her taken not long before she received the final call, and even so close to withdrawal March had turned her out in fine condition, as shown here. Tim has succeeded in fabricating the fifth washout plug necessary for an engine with a Dia 100A boiler. I knew he would.

 

 

He also put on the correct smokebox door. I'm not being critical of Hornby by the way, all three of the doors they use are correct for some locos at some time. The one on Thorpe Hall though was not right for Champion Lodge, and as it does change the face of the loco completely I'm delighted that Tim managed to make the necessary alteration.

 

 

And this one is included to show that B17's looked graceful from any angle.

 

I'm on pretty solid ground with 1643, as she would have been a regular visitor to Peterborough. OK , she was inconveniently withdrawn a few weeks before my main period, but what's a month between friends? I cannot alas make the same claim regarding the next one.

 

 

There were no D11's allocated anywhere but Sheffield Darnall by 1958, and I very much doubt whether any of them visited Peterborough. The last one which might have done left Immingham in 1956. Again though, D11's are part of my earliest train spotting memories at Lincoln, and part of my earliest "proper" railway modelling too, as the first kit build I ever did back in 1974 was a Bec (anyone remember them) body kit, which sat on a Triang Hornby L1 chassis. A little later I went all finescale , when a better chassis was offered in kit form, though I can't remember who made it. Anyway, pure nostalgia dictates that I have one, or two, so it will be on loan to Boston shed, though it bears a Lincoln shed plate. There was actually one shedded there for a while in the early '50's, so I have a tenuous connection at least.

 

 

[great northern]

At this point I hit "add post" instead of "preview post". Never mind, we shall continue. I had first seen the D11/1 in Bachmann's showcase, and it looked pretty good. That view was reinforced when I saw a production one, but what did strike me was the very shiny plain black livery which to me at least shouted "model". I've no intention of being dogmatic, but personally I like things to look as they really did. The Directors were cossetted and well cared for in their pomp, but by the '50's most of them certainly weren't. Again Tim worked from late '50's photos, and this one really made me jump when I saw it yesterday for the first time. It's a very subtle weathering job, but to me it immediately transforms a rather obviously plastic model into something very like the real thing. OK, someone will no doubt note the slight mismatch of the cabside numbers, so i'll save them the trouble of pointing it out, but real numbers weren't always perfectly applied anyway, and that small problem for me at least does not detract from a very fine job. This is a D11 in its last days, and it is just as I remember them, first at Lincoln, and then at Retford from 1958 to 1960. They looked a lot worse than this when Darnall disinterred them after a winter of open storage I can assure you.

 

 

[davidw]

Gilbert,I thought tht D11's had  occassional runs done the ECML post 58 am I incorrect?

[Theakerr]

Did any "Day Tripper" holiday specials ever go through Peterborough?  Many of the D11s I saw were at Cleethorpes on Day Tripper specials when they hauled out anything they could get their hands on.  So it could possibly be on a special

[great northern]

Gilbert,I thought tht D11's had  occassional runs done the ECML post 58 am I incorrect?

I can only find reference to one, David. Railway Observer records that on 19th July 1958 62660 worked three bogies ECS Retford to Newark, then 0732 Newark to Honington, connecting there with the 0523 Edwinstowe- Yarmouth Vauxhall, then back ECS to Retford. It does show that there were some fascinating specials about, but it didn't get as far as Peterborough, and I suspect that three coaches is about as heavy a load as one would have been allowed to tackle on the main line by that time, as their condition was not very good.

 

That Edwinstowe - Yarmouth working must have been a real marathon for the passengers. It isn't that far from Edwinstowe to Honington, yet it must have taken well over two hours to get there! The route would be along the LD &EC to Dukeries Junction, then down the main line to Barkston and off to the left to Honington. If 62660 left Newark at 0732 it wouldn't get to Honington much before 0800 at the earliest. And how much longer would it then have taken to get to Yarmouth? Certainly not a day trip I would have thought.

 

I think one or two Directors from Lincoln and Immingham got to Kings Cross in the early'50's on special workings. Could that be what you were thinking about?

[New Haven Neil]

How can I say this.  Ahem.

 

 

I don't actually like B17's, I think they look odd, all hunched up.....sorry.

 

 

However, I love the D11, and I really like that one, with all the grot of a loco near withdrawal, ekeing out her last days.  Great atmoshere.

 

#runs to hide#

[davidw]

I can only find reference to one, David. Railway Observer records that on 19th July 1958 62660 worked three bogies ECS Retford to Newark, then 0732 Newark to Honington, connecting there with the 0523 Edwinstowe- Yarmouth Vauxhall, then back ECS to Retford. It does show that there were some fascinating specials about, but it didn't get as far as Peterborough, and I suspect that three coaches is about as heavy a load as one would have been allowed to tackle on the main line by that time, as their condition was not very good.

 

That Edwinstowe - Yarmouth working must have been a real marathon for the passengers. It isn't that far from Edwinstowe to Honington, yet it must have taken well over two hours to get there! The route would be along the LD &EC to Dukeries Junction, then down the main line to Barkston and off to the left to Honington. If 62660 left Newark at 0732 it wouldn't get to Honington much before 0800 at the earliest. And how much longer would it then have taken to get to Yarmouth? Certainly not a day trip I would have thought.

 

I think one or two Directors from Lincoln and Immingham got to Kings Cross in the early'50's on special workings. Could that be what you were thinking about?

 

It could have been. I've recollection there was a caption in a Keith Pirt book describing a working in I think 59.  The caption could be wrong. TBH I was looking for an excuse for one that just crept into my 1959 -61 period. 

 

Looks like I'll be saving the money for that to go toward an O2. 

Edited February 12, 2013 by davidw

[great northern]

Did any "Day Tripper" holiday specials ever go through Peterborough?  Many of the D11s I saw were at Cleethorpes on Day Tripper specials when they hauled out anything they could get their hands on.  So it could possibly be on a special

I must say I'm very appreciative of these efforts to help me justify a D11.   I used to see them on summer Saturdays at Retford on those Cleethorpes workings, sometimes nearly the whole class. There were plenty of holiday trains round Peterborough, but trains from there seem to have gone mainly to Hunstanton. The trip to Yarmouth via the M&GN took four hours, so I doubt many used that for a day trip. They were all Sheffield based by 1958, and Yorkshire folk did tend to go to Cleethorpes rather than even Skegness or Mablethorpe, so visits to peterborough would be very unlikely.

[Coldgunner]

I was a little bit choked a few weeks ago to see how much of the old Peterborough East will soon disappear. Years ago (90's) its was a wide open space and the remaining platform edge quite visible. Its screaming out to be modelled!

 

What sort of loco's would have been typical for the old Peterborough-Northampton line, Black 5's perhaps?

[Richard E]

Apologies for picking up on the Peterborough East story. Apparently as the Muddle & Go Nowhere replaced its own engines from the mid 1930's the line saw newer engines such as the K2 2-6-0s and B12 4-6-0s becoming common. The ex-GER "Claud Hamilton" 4-4-0s also helped provide the locomotive backbone of this later period.

 

From the 1950s, Ivatt 4MTs became the dominant motive power on the system, which achieved a higher degree of standardisation than any other part of British Railways — more than 50 of these "mucky ducks" were allocated to the route. The line also saw Ivatt 2MTs and occasional Standard 4MT types.

 

Apparently British Railways' Eastern Region was an early adopter of diesel motive power and the M&GN lines were used by Brush Type 2 locomotives and several early DMU types including Class 101 and Class 105s. A fleet of the latter was commissioned in the mid-1950s to take over all the long-distance locomotive-hauled passenger services, but the line's closure in 1959 saw them re-allocated (especially to the Great Northern suburban commuter workings out of King's Cross).

 

Additionally the line to the west was built as the Northampton and Peterborough Railway. The engineer was Robert Stephenson. The line was relatively easy to build, following the valley of the River Nene to Peterborough, with only a small tunnel to the west of Wansford. Stations were be provided wherever the line crossed a turnpike where there would be level crossings. Most of the line was raised on embankments because of the likelihood of flooding. In spite of this it occurred from time to time. In 1852 for instance several bridges were swept away and the line was closed for a week.

 

The line opened from Blisworth to Northampton in May, 1845 and then throughout in June, the 47 miles having taken only a year to build. The station at Blisworth was rebuilt next to the junction, and Northampton people at last had their train service to London. In 1846 the line, along with the London and Birmingham, became part of the London and North Western Railway.

 

Although the infrastructure of the line had been built for double track, only a single track was laid from Northampton to Peterborough, with a passing loop at Thrapston. This single line working was facilitated by the installation of electric telegraph. However it became clear that the traffic would be such that doubling would be required very quickly and this was completed by September 1846. Two stations were unusual to say the least. One, Ringstead and Addington was approached on foot from one direction by means of stepping stones. Another, Ditchford was said to be the location of famous treacle mines.

 

There were five trains each way on weekdays and Saturdays, with two on Sunday, and extra services between Northampton and Blisworth. Initially the goods was traffic was cattle and coal but later iron ore became important.

 

Now we come to the M&GN connections. In 1857 the Midland Railway built a line from Wigston to meet the GNR at Hitchin via Wellingborough. It built a spur to the LNWR station for goods. In 1861 the LNWR began running trains from Wichnor near Burton on Trent and the Midland then began running trains between Wellingborough and Northampton. The Midland built a small station in 1866 near the LNWR's (the latter becoming Northampton Bridge Street in 1876). This little station closed in 1872 when the Midland built its main line from Bedford and opened a new station at St John Street.

 

In 1881, the LNWR opened the Northampton Loop Line which placed the town on a through service superseding Blisworth.

 

At grouping in 1923 it became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway. The use of level crossings had reduced the costs of building the line, but it greatly increased operating expenses and it became be a major reason for the line being closed to passengers by British Rail in 1964.

 

The Northampton and Peterborough Railway closed in 1964, followed 2 years later by the closure of Peterborough East station and the passenger services to Rugby however some passenger trains still ran from the boarding school at Oundle until 1972 when the line closed completely (the line between Rugby and Nassington remained open to facilitate this. The line was finally closed with much of the track remaining in situ, part of it was eventually reopened as the Nene Valley Railway heritage line).

[Richard E]

Just to add that the quarries at Nassington also generated traffic until they closed in 1972 being steam worked right to their closure.

[great northern]

I was a little bit choked a few weeks ago to see how much of the old Peterborough East will soon disappear. Years ago (90's) its was a wide open space and the remaining platform edge quite visible. Its screaming out to be modelled!

 

What sort of loco's would have been typical for the old Peterborough-Northampton line, Black 5's perhaps?

Some black 5's, but mainly towards the end. In BR days, some surprising engines for an ex LNWR line, as Spital Bridge shed was responsible for a lot of the passenger turns. B12's were used until about 1957, and after that D16's, plus 4F's ex LMS 2.6.4T's and the other types you would have expected to see on a secondary Midland Region line. Oh, and some of the last workings of the B17's were over this line as March took over the workings after Spital Bridge closed.

[Andy Y]

Thanks to Gilbert for the hospitality this afternoon. We did have a very brief visit to the layout room early this evening after sorting some bits out and I did sneak the chance to get one snap and have a play in between pancakes tonight!

 

[great northern]

How can I say this.  Ahem.

 

 

I don't actually like B17's, I think they look odd, all hunched up.....sorry.

 

 

However, I love the D11, and I really like that one, with all the grot of a loco near withdrawal, ekeing out her last days.  Great atmoshere.

 

#runs to hide#

We WILL find you. Wherever you run. There is no hiding place.

[ianwales]

Thanks to Gilbert for the hospitality this afternoon. We did have a very brief visit to the layout room early this evening after sorting some bits out and I did sneak the chance to get one snap and have a play in between pancakes tonight!

 

PN1s.jpg

 

 

These photos are getting TOO real now, that can't honestly be a model!!!

 

Ian

[The Stationmaster]

These photos are getting TOO real now, that can't honestly be a model!!!

 

Ian

Very true - AndyY seems to be very good at producing smoke, getting more realistic with every successive job I think.