Grantham - the Streamliner years

[Bogie]

I have been to Goslar.  Way back in 1997.

 

There was a restaurant called the Didgeridoo and it purported to be an Australian restaurant.

 

I walked through the front door and said "Gidday, table for two" and this poor German girl looked at me as if I was from another planet!  I was a bit annoyed because they had meals named after all the major cities in Australia except Brisbane (even Newcastle was listed).  Food definitely did not taste like anything I recognised.

 

Turns out the owner had backpacked around Australia and that was basically the only connection apart from Fosters beer being served.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Bogie
RDP

[LNER4479]

4 hours ago, 45568 said:

Who was this coach named after then?

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

The proprietor of said charabanc company was one Thomas Assmann - or in more germanic terms - Aßmann. Now you've pointed it out, the open mid-body side door is obscuring the second 'N' (there's a whole area of the web dedicated to such pictures)

[LNER4479]

To celebrate (belatedly) RMWeb being back up and running in its new and better form ...

 

The week it was down, I was away - again - taking a merry band of fellow newbie GRJ TMs for a quick jaunt around on some European railways, for the benefit of those with limited train travel experience. Not a comprehensive summary, just what I was able to snatch in the odd moment.

 

Here we are during a break at Spiez, overlooking the lake, looking towards Interlaken and the Bernese Oberland (where many GRJs go)

 

We however headed for a different destination. Turns out that even TMs can get quite excited by the view out of a train.

 

And with views like this who can blame them? We are - of course - at Zermatt, heading up to the Gornergrat summit.

 

High up into the snow & ski zone

 

Summit in sight ...

 

10,000ft up in the Alps

 

Not a bad little spot for beer and goulash soup.

 

Quite pleased with this one captured on the way down. We were dead lucky with the weather, appreciated by all.

 

Meanwhile, in other news...

 

Have submitted my words for proposed layout article in June BRM, on back of Donny appearance😉

Edited April 9, 2022 by LNER4479

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

Here we are during a break at Spiez

Lovely place, Spiez - or at least it was 40 years ago when I was there on an IMechE Railway Division Summer Technical Visit.

[Woodcock29]

Great views of the Matterhorn Graham.

It was all a white out when we were there in 2018.

 

Andrew

[5BarVT]

Do I spy three phase overheads like the Jungfrau?

Paul.

[LNER4479]

I never like to be seen anywhere near one's own trumpet, letting along blowing it, but for any who weren't already aware, the latest edition of British Railway Modelling (June 2022) might be of interest for followers of this thread and all things in general LNER / ECML.

 

Mr Wealleans is available for signing front covers, if you can get anywhere near the hordes surrounding him, frantically waving their newly purchased copies ...

[Worsdell forever]

2 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

I never like to be seen anywhere near one's own trumpet, letting along blowing it, but for any who weren't already aware, the latest edition of British Railway Modelling (June 2022) might be of interest for followers of this thread and all things in general LNER / ECML.

 

Mr Wealleans is available for signing front covers, if you can get anywhere near the hordes surrounding him, frantically waving their newly purchased copies ...

 

Surely not demanding a refund... 🤣

 

Mrs WF did say that when she got off the bus going to work the other day, she did see a large crowd of rucksacks outside Mr Wealleans local newsagents...

[jwealleans]

i expect they were camping out waiting for me to return from our European Tour.

[Jesse Sim]

15 hours ago, jwealleans said:

i expect they were camping out waiting for me to return from our European Tour.

Would you sign my bare chest and I’ll get it tattooed. Very Rock N Roll. 

[jwealleans]

I'll have to speak to my agent, I don't know the fee for that off the top of my head.

[Barry O]

On 16/05/2022 at 11:29, LNER4479 said:

I never like to be seen anywhere near one's own trumpet, letting along blowing it, but for any who weren't already aware, the latest edition of British Railway Modelling (June 2022) might be of interest for followers of this thread and all things in general LNER / ECML.

 

Mr Wealleans is available for signing front covers, if you can get anywhere near the hordes surrounding him, frantically waving their newly purchased copies ...

Thanks for the mention Red Leader..

 

The ballastmeister

[LNER4479]

Second part of layout article (the trains and the operating schedule) are in the July issue of BRM. Paper copies available for sale as from tomorrow.

 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/out-now-brm-july-2022/

 

Jonathan should be careful not to get too excited. (scroll down a little bit on the above link)

[Jesse Sim]

15 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Second part of layout article (the trains and the operating schedule) are in the July issue of BRM. Paper copies available for sale as from tomorrow.

 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/out-now-brm-july-2022/

 

Jonathan should be careful not to get too excited. (scroll down a little bit on the above link)

I scrolled down and got too excited 

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Second part of layout article (the trains and the operating schedule) are in the July issue of BRM. Paper copies available for sale as from tomorrow.

 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/out-now-brm-july-2022/

 

Jonathan should be careful not to get too excited. (scroll down a little bit on the above link)

 

5 hours ago, Jesse Sim said:

I scrolled down and got too excited 

I scrolled down and didn't.

 

Oh, you meant the bus on the bridge...

[Jesse Sim]

27 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

 

I scrolled down and didn't.

 

Oh, you meant the bus on the bridge...

Don’t be silly, look at the GNR goodness 😍

[LMS29]

On 15/06/2022 at 21:44, LNER4479 said:

Second part of layout article (the trains and the operating schedule) are in the July issue of BRM. Paper copies available for sale as from tomorrow.

 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/out-now-brm-july-2022/

 

 

 

RL,

 

Two excellent articles and I would recommend them as a very informative read for anyone who is thinking of purchasing a copy of BRM.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by LMS29

[LNER4479]

Travelogue alert. I've bin away.

 

Quite a long way away. This may take a while ...

 

Our journey starts at what was once Vancouver's grand rail terminal. Now just used for local and Metro services, at least it is still in railway use.

 

Nearby is this curiosity. A steam-powered clock. The 'engine' winds the balance weights up which then provide the force for the clock mechanism in the conventional manner. Meanwhile the steam is used to merrily toot the quarter hours and the hour chimes (note the whistles on top). Most original!

 

Leaving the coast, we headed through the 'outback' of British Columbia on Highway 99

 

Next item of railway interest is the busy (but not particularly attractive) town of Kamloops, where the Canadian trans-conn. railway joined us for the next few days. Note the helper loco in the middle of an East-bound container stack as we partake of breakfast on the road.

 

A little further on, and of much more interest, is the 'Last spike' location (the Canadian equivalent of the US 'golden spike' location that we visited in 2019). Only this one has trains running past it to this day!

 

Another 40 clicks and you're in Revelstoke, very interesting railway town.

 

The wait at the crossings can be quite long! The train above was actually involved in a spot of shunting, possibly forming up a west-bound consist. We were stuck here for 17 minutes whilst it shuffled back and forward, under the watchful eye of a 'shunting person' (not quite sure what the North American term is for such an employee).

North America is another country; they do things differently over there.

 

Anyhow, we weren't to be beaten as the other side of the tracks played host to the Revelstoke museum, telling of the history of the place and its significance in the history of the trans-conn. railway.

 

[more to follow]

 

 

[LNER4479]

See, they even had a model or two (trying desparately to keep us on point)

 

 

(Is there some sort of problem with uploading files at the moment? I've been away, you know ...)

[5BarVT]

26 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Quite a long way away. This may take a while ...

 

Our journey starts at what was once Vancouver's grand rail terminal. Now just used for local and Metro services, at least it is still in railway use.

 

Nearby is this curiosity. A steam-powered clock. The 'engine' winds the balance weights up which then provide the force for the clock mechanism in the conventional manner. Meanwhile the steam is used to merrily toot the quarter hours and the hour chimes (note the whistles on top). Most original!

Gastown Steam Clock - doesn’t appear to have changed in 41 years.

Is the terminal the old CN building?  I don’t think it was used at all in ‘81, just a freight yard.  ‘Everything’ (which wasn’t much) used the CP station.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

'shunting person' (not quite sure what the North American term is for such an employee)

Hostler?

[LNER4479]

12 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Gastown Steam Clock - doesn’t appear to have changed in 41 years.

Is the terminal the old CN building?  I don’t think it was used at all in ‘81, just a freight yard.  ‘Everything’ (which wasn’t much) used the CP station.

Paul.

It's the CP terminal Paul - if you look hard enough, you can just make out the legend (centre) above the pillars. There was some interesting history info boards inside telling of its former 'glory days'.

 

This was the view from the walkway to the ferry, looking back (ish) towards the station. Behind the freight trains you can see the double deck local trains that were running in and out - the Metro ran from separate, underground platforms.

[LNER4479]

Moving on, further east we're now at the border with Alberta (45562!)

Just had to call in at the famous spiral tunnels of the Kicking Horse pass, where the original (crazy!) 4.5% grade was rebuilt on a 2.2% grade (so that's all right then), involving two reverses. Meat and drink to the Swiss (whose technology was the inspiration for it), over in NA these sort of things are always 'awesome' so it's bigged up accordingly.

 

After 20mins or so waiting patiently, we heard a roaring noise getting louder which clearly wasn't road traffic ... and spent at least the next 20mins or so witnessing an eastbound consist literally inching its way up. I thought it was checked by signals but no - they really do go that slow. It actually stalled for a couple of minutes then ever so agnonisingly slowly got going again. Turned out to be a huge train, with a helper in the middle and at the end, so we got our money's worth.

You'll have to take my word for it but in this pic the upper (longer) part - almost dead centre - had exited the lower spiral tunnel, whilst the lower (shorter) section is entering the tunnel. Not readily apparent, but bottom right can just be glimpsed through the trees the next length of track that the train will shortly be heading over. For several minutes, we could observe the train simultaneously crawling along all three sections. 

 

To give a further idea, here's another eastbound at Field, where the gradient starts.

 

Two locos at the head (look the same type to my untrained, North American eye)...

 

... followed by a lorra, lorra containers, many double stacked.

 

Ah - here comes the helper, mid-train.

 

Yet more containers.

 

With a further helper (guess we would call it a 'banker') bringing up the rear.

 

[LNER4479]

There must have been well north of 100 cars in that train. By the time the rear helper went past it was already down to walking pace. I have to admit, that was fairly 'awesome'.

[Bloodnok]

10 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Two locos at the head (look the same type to my untrained, North American eye)...

Interestingly, no.

Front loco is a GE AC4400CWM. 4400HP V16 driving AC traction motors.
Second loco is a GE ES44AC. Also 4400HP, but from a V12 this time. Also driving AC traction motors.
 

10 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Ah - here comes the helper, mid-train.

 

That's an AC4400CW -- 4400HP V16, but driving earlier AC traction motors, and with an earlier cab setup.
 

10 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

With a further helper (guess we would call it a 'banker') bringing up the rear.

And ... another AC4400CWM like the one at the front.