Peterborough North

[bigwordsmith]

Excellent work again Gilbert - the close in shots where you focus on a specific loco, or even part are very atmospheric - all you need is bait more dirt!

[60027Merlin]

Two great sets of photos featuring the ECML magic Gilbert.

 

The new angles have worked a treat and have really captured the true railway station atmosphere of the ECML with all that variety of through and local  traffic.

 

Wonderful stuff! 

 

Eric

[coachmann]

The B17 is absolutely fabulous with the most realistic sheen and weathering of boiler and smokebox I have ever seen.....

 

[JeffP]

I love the one about the localised earthquake. The rumble seems to have shaken the old lady on the platform's pants round her ankles........

[landscapes]

Hi Gilbert

 

Great photos as usual.

 

I think the Bachmann prototype Deltic DP1 is a fantastic looking model when they resurrected the model in pristine and weathered conditions a few years ago I just had to buy one, if I may just make one comment You must do something with the front end to hide to removal of the coupling and cover the front coupling pocket.

 

Also your B17 looks stunning, if I could find any evidence oF one ever reaching The Edinburgh area or Haymarket MPD I would buy one tomorrow.

 

Please keep the photos coming.

 

Regards

 

David

Edited May 5, 2014 by landscapes

[great northern]

 

 

Anyway, the B17 having cleared the junction, everything begins to vibrate, and a dull roar fills the air. Is it a localised earthquake? No, Just Deltic on its usual duty.

deltic 1.jpg

 

More likely the noise from that Leyland engine in the bus, we locals were more used to the gentle purr from a Gardner!

 

Stewart (with apologies for dragging it up again...  )

 

Once again a lovely set of views, so atmospheric, from a past time that I would love to re-visit. Maybe your railway room is actually a Tardis?

 

At the moment the alternative would be a Lincolnshire Road Car Stewart, surely even more inappropriate?  I will do something about it eventually, unless I am first visited by the no buses on bridges brigade. I wish the room was a Tardis. I could then revisit some of the other things I really enjoyed doing when I was young!

[great northern]

Excellent work again Gilbert - the close in shots where you focus on a specific loco, or even part are very atmospheric - all you need is bait more dirt!

Plenty of dirty locos around, but it so happens that March and Kings Cross kept theirs very clean. There will be some local ones along shortly.

[great northern]

I love the one about the localised earthquake. The rumble seems to have shaken the old lady on the platform's pants round her ankles........

I hastily sent a member of staff, (female of course) to investigate, Jeff, and happily all is well, and there has been no wardrobe malfunction. She just stood in something. It looks remarkably like blu-tac, but of course it can't be, as it hasn't been invented yet. Either that, or she pulled them back up very quickly.

[great northern]

There being nothing I want to watch on any of the several billion TV channels now available, I've been running trains, and resisting the temptation to fetch the camera. I've just timed a coal train round one circuit of the layout, driving at as near a scale 20mph as I can judge. It took six minutes. Is there any wonder the complete sequence takes so long? Must rush, the White Rose is due.

[New Haven Neil]

The first two shots of that series really made me sit up, Gilbert.  Shocking I know, given my views of B17's, but they are super shots that do actually make me think they aren't so bad after all!

 

I do think you shouldn't be so hard on yourself about the photos sometimes - the light glinting off the Deltic bonnet is real life.  The sun did shine, even in Peterborough.   'Deltic' does look super, I have such powerful memories of them powering up under the roof at Newcastle Central (my 'dream layout' - apres lottery win), oh the SOUND!  That from a steam man too...!!!

 

I agree with Larry about the sheen on the boiler, I'm building up courage to have a go with Klear.

[stewartingram]

At the moment the alternative would be a Lincolnshire Road Car Stewart, surely even more inappropriate?  I will do something about it eventually, unless I am first visited by the no buses on bridges brigade. I wish the room was a Tardis. I could then revisit some of the other things I really enjoyed doing when I was young!

Actually, Lincolnshire Roadcar did get to Peterborough. I'm not sure of the route in, but think it was over the bridge!

When I get chance I'll send you the conversion article I have to make you the proper Eastern Counties one.

 

Stewart

[islandbridgejct]

I particularly like the shot of the B1 with its whole train in shot under Crescent Bridge. Nice composition and a reminder that, away from the ECML, it wasn't all 11/12 coach expresses.

 

Using a zoom lens distorts the relationship between near and far items. If it's allowed, so is photoshopping. Carry on.

 

Alan

[LNER4479]

Wow   For me, the views round the station itself have dramatically improved by the white platform edges. Such a simple addition - such a visual transformation.

[great northern]

Wow   For me, the views round the station itself have dramatically improved by the white platform edges. Such a simple addition - such a visual transformation.

Peter and I said exactly the same thing. Visual improvement out of all proportion to the amount of time and effort involved. Just the excursion platform left to do now, and hopefully that will be done on the 18th.

[great northern]

I'm currently considering adding a Saturdays only sequence just to give a bit more variety. It would mean a lot more very boring repetitive work though in order to get it all translated from the WTT's and then onto the laptop, so Ihaven't made my mind up yet. Can anyone assist please with a very basic question?  My Summer 1956 Goods WTT shows a lot of trains which are specified as SX or SO. OK, I understand what that means. However a lot of trains also bear the words "Suspended" or "Suspended SO". Presumably they didn't run? But if that is so, why are they in the WTT at all?  Can anyone resolve that for me please?

[jwealleans]

That seems to be quite a common feature of WTTs - someone else asked a similar question about a prewar one not so long ago.

 

Hopefully someone who knows will answer, but if I can speculate: the path is reserved for a seasonal or otherwise irregular traffic, stays in the WTT to ensure it isn't given to another train and thus is open for Q traffic if required?

Edited May 11, 2014 by jwealleans

[The Stationmaster]

I'm currently considering adding a Saturdays only sequence just to give a bit more variety. It would mean a lot more very boring repetitive work though in order to get it all translated from the WTT's and then onto the laptop, so Ihaven't made my mind up yet. Can anyone assist please with a very basic question?  My Summer 1956 Goods WTT shows a lot of trains which are specified as SX or SO. OK, I understand what that means. However a lot of trains also bear the words "Suspended" or "Suspended SO". Presumably they didn't run? But if that is so, why are they in the WTT at all?  Can anyone resolve that for me please?

Excellent question (honest).  The main reason seems to have been to 'protect' the path on the basis that the train would likely resume at some future date (hopefully not too far away).  Take the path out of the book and somebody would be bound to time through it and that would be that - no chance of getting it back.  A fairly common reason for suspension was a customer working on a seasonal basis or changing production/supply so in later years it wasn't uncommon, for example, to find oil train paths suspended.

 

If the path was suspended it also meant that the train concerned was no resourced for engine and men (which saved money of course) but it also gave the advantage, sometimes, of making part(s) of that path available for specials.  

 

And of course s*ds First Law of trainplanning says that once you have suspended a path you might well find yourself running the suspended train regularly by notice in later years.  In the 1980s/'90s I used to get rather shirty with 'freight business people' (i.e the sectors) for doing things like that so adopted a practice on the WR of telling 'em that if they suspended a train for an extended length of time I would take it out of the WTT and it would be their hard luck if they couldn't get it back.  However by then we were running a lot more 'Y" paths so the thing was resourced and therefore not technically suspended even if it wasn't used for a year or more.  I don't think there would have been many 'Y' paths in the period you are modelling and they might not be shown as such where they did exist but in simple terms it means either the first or last part of a path is common but the other end is timetabled to go several different ways or come from - potentially - several different places; these are usually shown by using different days run on each of the multiple legs (even if that leg is not actually used on that day!).

 

Hope that helps a bit.

[BMacdermott]

Hello Gilbert (and Stationmaster)

 

I can't specifically give you an answer but, in 1956 (and most steam days), WTTs, PTTs, STNs etc were almost always printed by the letterpress printing process, working from metal type. Naturally, typesetting was an expense so, to keep costs down, printers would 'keep the type standing' ready for the next season or whenever. Another expression was 'a standing forme' (note the 'e' on the end).

 

Many of my S&D WTTs have blank columns. It was easier to take out redundant text and leave the rest 'standing' rather than undertake all-new 'page make-up'.

 

Just a note of interest: metal type was just under an inch high (to be precise, 0.918"). If your WTT is 10" x 8" and (say) 100pp, to store it all you would need a footprint area of 10" x 8" and a clear vertical space of 100" (if all the pages were stacked on top of each, which they wouldn't actually be in practice). Think how much we now get on a disc!

 

Standing formes were 'locked up in a chase' (a metal frame) to be put on a printing press. Standard composing practice (abridged here for clarity) was to:

1. Gently 'lock up' (with quoins)

2. Plane the type (in other words, make sure all the type was on the same base level by gently hitting it with a piece of wood and hammer)

3. Gently lift the chase and lightly push on the type to see if any was likely to drop out. 

4. Tighten more fully. Go to press.

 

There were many occasions where even the most experienced 'old hands' forgot to lock up sufficiently, and type would spill across the floor to howls of laughter from 'the comps'!

 

Brian (who studied such things at the London College of Printing in the 60s and subsequently worked in the printing industry)

[The Stationmaster]

Picking up on Brian's comment about printers one reason for WTT amendments was problems with proofs/corrections where stuff got carried over from old books.  The standard way of working for WTTs and train notices was to use 'cuttings' from a previous issue and amend them up (by hand of course) then send them to the printer who produced a proof which was duly checked and altered/amended for the final printed version.  

 

It occasionally happened in WTTs that something which should have been taken out was carried forwards due to being missed in the proof checking although such errors tended to occur more often in train notices that were typed in house rather than the printed stuff.  And of course all that happened when computers came along was the 'cuttings' process continued but electronically while the amending became a lot easier as you simply overtyped or whatever - which made it much easier to make mistakes until folk got used to it.  

 

Fascinating period of change on the railway and one that history usually ignores as in some cases the more advanced of us (nothing like modesty ) moved completely away from outside printed WTTs and produced them ourselves internally.  Since then (the early 1990s) of course many things have changed even more but oddly printed WTTs still exist today.

[BMacdermott]

Hello Mike

 

Back in the 60s, the greater majority of the printers involved with WTTs etc had a proof-reading department, or at least one or two proof-readers. They were known in the trade as 'the readers'.

 

If you look at the very small printer's imprint line (generally at the very front or very back of any WTT etc) you will regularly find names such as: Bemrose (Derby); McCorquodales (London etc) - known in the trade as McCorks; Love & Malcomson; Waterlow; Knapp Drewett etc. They were all 'big league' back then (and some still are).

 

Many of the printers had a very close working relationship with the relevant BR departments over the years. For example, the name of Dawson & Goodall (Bath) can be found on many Somerset & Dorset publications. I have in my records (somewhere!) a long letter from an ex-S&D man (RR Perkins) who described to me how he worked with that company in the 50s.

 

Brian

[great northern]

Excellent question (honest).  The main reason seems to have been to 'protect' the path on the basis that the train would likely resume at some future date (hopefully not too far away).  Take the path out of the book and somebody would be bound to time through it and that would be that - no chance of getting it back.  A fairly common reason for suspension was a customer working on a seasonal basis or changing production/supply so in later years it wasn't uncommon, for example, to find oil train paths suspended.

 

If the path was suspended it also meant that the train concerned was no resourced for engine and men (which saved money of course) but it also gave the advantage, sometimes, of making part(s) of that path available for specials.  

 

And of course s*ds First Law of trainplanning says that once you have suspended a path you might well find yourself running the suspended train regularly by notice in later years.  In the 1980s/'90s I used to get rather shirty with 'freight business people' (i.e the sectors) for doing things like that so adopted a practice on the WR of telling 'em that if they suspended a train for an extended length of time I would take it out of the WTT and it would be their hard luck if they couldn't get it back.  However by then we were running a lot more 'Y" paths so the thing was resourced and therefore not technically suspended even if it wasn't used for a year or more.  I don't think there would have been many 'Y' paths in the period you are modelling and they might not be shown as such where they did exist but in simple terms it means either the first or last part of a path is common but the other end is timetabled to go several different ways or come from - potentially - several different places; these are usually shown by using different days run on each of the multiple legs (even if that leg is not actually used on that day!).

 

Hope that helps a bit.

It does indeed thank you Mike, and it prompted me to look a bit more closely at the passenger WTT.  In the summer of 1958 the weekday WTT shows the following Class A passenger trains running through PN between approximately 0800 and 2000.

 

 Leeds/Bradford/Ripon/Harrogate       10 each way

 Tyneside/Tees side                              8  Down, 7 Up.

 Scotland                                              6 each way

 Doncaster/York/Hull                             3 Down, 5 Up.

 

                                              Total     27 Down 28 Up.

 

On Summer Saturdays the same period saw the following on the Down line alone.

 

Leeds area                                    18 trains

Tyneside                                        13 trains

Scotland                                          8 trains

York/Hull                                          4 trains

 

                                                Total 43

 

On Saturdays there were also 4 or more trains to Skegness, plus three instead of the usual two to Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and the usual seven to Peterborough or Grantham. That makes about 57 trains in 12 hours. Add in the suburban services at the South end and a few Class C and D goods, and even the four track sections must have been at capacity, while the effects of bottlenecks such as Welwyn viaduct and Arlesey, and other two track areas, apart from Peterborough itself can only be imagined. Little chance then of running most of the usual weekday goods trains I would think - it was difficult enough to get them through any where near on time during the week, so on Saturdays they would have got nowhere.

 

Presumably though this will have applied every summer until the penny dropped and British holidaymakers realised that Spain is a slightly more desirable destination than Skeggy, and more of them had cars to get about in anyway. Having experienced family holidays on the Lincolnshire coast as a child I can say that it was indeed bracing  that is when it was not both wet and bracing. This prompts me to wonder though why these suspended services, most of which were coal or returning empties, were in the WTT at all, as the same difficulties would occur year after year. It also makes me wonder if I am completely losing touch with sanity to even contemplate doing this sequence. We shall see.

[The Stationmaster]

Hello Mike

 

Back in the 60s, the greater majority of the printers involved with WTTs etc had a proof-reading department, or at least one or two proof-readers. They were known in the trade as 'the readers'.

 

If you look at the very small printer's imprint line (generally at the very front or very back of any WTT etc) you will regularly find names such as: Bemrose (Derby); McCorquodales (London etc) - known in the trade as McCorks; Love & Malcomson; Waterlow; Knapp Drewett etc. They were all 'big league' back then (and some still are).

 

Many of the printers had a very close working relationship with the relevant BR departments over the years. For example, the name of Dawson & Goodall (Bath) can be found on many Somerset & Dorset publications. I have in my records (somewhere!) a long letter from an ex-S&D man (RR Perkins) who described to me how he worked with that company in the 50s.

 

Brian

On the Western I think just about everything came back as proofs for checking although when a rush was on it wasn't at all unknown for someone to go the printers to do the proofing.  Weekly notices always came back as galley proofs for checking and they were often subject to alteration (not correction) before they went back to teh printer.

 

The Western used Hobbs of Southampton for a lot of its printing work - known informally, and maybe a bit unfairly, by some staff in WR HQ as 'Hibbs The Pronters'.

 

The GWR used Wymans for many years - I have a 1901 London Section Service TT (=WTT) printed by them and a 1938 local area public book while my 1866 London Section Service TT was printed by McCorquodale.  My 1850 public book interestingly simple states 'Printed and published at 138 Aldersgate Street' and was clearly not a GWR official publication although it was the only timetable 'approved by the Company for sale at its stations'.  My June 1891 Service TT seems to be an exception to the more usual printers and came from Judd & Co.

 

All fascinating stuff, and sorry to wander Gilbert.

Edited May 12, 2014 by The Stationmaster

[great northern]

Time for a few more photos, today's theme being "nothing's happening". Just some static scenes for a change. First up, from a slightly elevated viewpoint, pending arrival of new tripod, here are some locos doing nothing at the North end. The C12 in platform 4 though will do something when it gets the road.

Next a similar view from  rail level, still nothing doing.

Meanwhile down the other end, Gayton Hall is doing nothing while waiting for the Birmingham- Ely, which it will take over.

Now to the station forecourt, where again very little is happening, which gives us plenty of time to admire Peter Leyland's wonderful buildings.

Something must be done down the far end to prevent the sky hitting the floor. That's all for now.

[Mallard60022]

Mr Leyland - genius.

P

[Andy Y]

forecourt 4.jpg

Something must be done down the far end to prevent the sky hitting the floor. That's all for now.

Bring the sky up a little so the sky horizon matches the model horizon, lighten it a little and white-out the join on the sky layer a little and the join then has a bit less dissonance.

 

Lovely snaps though which sum up the layout's feel so well.