Waverley Route new image links and discussion

[The Stationmaster]

I'm sure the cover pic of the September edition of 'BRILL' ('British Railways Illustrated' but then you knew that ) might gladden a few hearts among readers of this thread but don't be misled into thinking it hints of the contents, it doesn't. (The cover pic is a punt for a new Irwell Press colour publication appearing shortly in WHS shops).

 

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you it is a top notch colour pic of 60068 at Hawick B)

[Stuart]

Well, my hot off the press copy of Last Years of the Waverley Route by David Cross arrived yesterday, nice birthday pressie, a few photos we've seen before but a whole load of new ones (to me at least)including a blue class 37 on the 0658 Hawick-Edinburgh.

 

Stuart

[26power]

No idea about the reliability of the reviews, but doesn't sound promising:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0860936333/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

 

One even indicates you are short changed on the page count!

 

Published by OPC, but couldn't  find their website straight off.

 

Sounds like one to find at a big discount!

 

Cheers, 26power

 

 

 

 

Well, my hot off the press copy of Last Years of the Waverley Route by David Cross arrived yesterday, nice birthday pressie, a few photos we've seen before but a whole load of new ones (to me at least)including a blue class 37 on the 0658 Hawick-Edinburgh.

 

Stuart

['CHARD]

...including a blue class 37 on the 0658 Hawick-Edinburgh.

 

I need another coffee and a sit down.

Seemingly the legendary (but seldom photographed) 0658 would be the one to produce, truly the move of men-of-steel.

I'd long hoped that if we waited long enough there'd eventually be proof that a BFYE tractor worked the line. But I had no idea the grail would also prove their use on a passenger train.

 

 

['CHARD]

Whitrope as it's seldom seen:

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2183.jpg

 

Riccarton

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2208.jpg

 

Somewhere I don't think we've featured before: New Craighall

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2141.jpg

 

Stobs and Shankend with 61099

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2219.jpg

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2220.jpg

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_A220.jpg - nice Farina!

http://www.prorail.c.../AED_E_2221.jpg - chased it to Whitrope too

['CHARD]

And next the locos of LMS and BR origin:

 

Shankend it says?

http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_M_1673.jpg

 

Camera slipped and the BRCW on shed at Hawick is almost out of shot:

http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_B_2678.jpg

 

And who could resist a Clan at Kingmoor?

http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_B_2569.jpg

[62440]

Nice one As for not sharp enough, it's incredible to think how the press (as a microcosm of the fraternity) took the line for granted. And it conveys such atmosphere and speaks volumes about the latter days of the route, it's in my Top Ten shots of WR diesels without a doubt.

 

I'm not too worried about who she is, but glad we're on the same page where period is concerned - I must confess it was only fairly recently that I've started to identify the Makeweights from pictures, and it seems that the absence of the 4-wheel van (or fifth bogie vehicle - sometimes it's an LMS BG) is the visual marker.

 

http://www.railbrit....e2.php?id=29713

 

My notes on the back of the photo show that this was not a usual Edinburgh to Carlisle Waverley Route working, but was a diverted Edinburgh to Carstairs train meeting up with the Glasgow portion at Carlisle taken on Sunday 9 June 1968. ... and no, sorry, I didn't record the number!

 

I took a few of these photos of diverted trains, and even caught one at Hawick which stopped specially and went non-stop to Edinburgh. It left Hawick at 18.04.50 hrs and we stopped in Waverley at 19.02.35 hrs with D 168, 5 coaches and headboard 1S38. Just under 59 minutes Hawick to Edinburgh - makes you weep when in a 95 bus nowadays!

 

I've also updated a few of the captions on the railbrit site, numbers 26733 and 27728 and inserted colour photo for 247.

 

Bruce

['CHARD]

I was going to PM you with a heads up on those, funnily enough

 

It was a link posted in Culreoch I think, which I followed to its evident conclusion!

 

The level of diversionary traffic hinted at by Bruce is a new and alluring avenue. Once I've seen the BFYE Tractoring on the 0658 for myself, diverted Class 50 footage will replace it at number one in my most-wanted. A bit like The Beatles self-replacing at number one in '67, only it's one form of EE traction replacing another

 

All this talk of diversions and especially Hawick to Edinburgh behind a 46 in under an hour speaks volumes again about the abject folly of closure, as if I need repeat myself. That would have been an awesome trip with a Peak on load five - incredible! I have mental visions of that train at various points on its journey. We are so lucky that in the hubbub surrounding the end of steam there was still a hard core of WR chroniclers to record its twilight.

[62440]

The Waverley Route has fascinated me for sometime, and recently I decided to buy a DVD on the matter 'Britain's Lost MainLine' with Ron White. Really fascinating stuff, also bought the colour book 'On the Waverley Route' by Robert Robotham, so now have ordered couple more books on the matter.

 

Very interested with what I have seen on here of whats happening up at Whitrope, are there plans to connect with Riccarton Jn?

 

Little request, anybody got pics of A2s working on the route, particular on freight workings!

 

Cheers

 

Tom

 

see

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=24040

['CHARD]

A2s are fairly common in the standard books, I've asterisked the freight shots; Roger Siviter's definitive B&W collection which is probably the cream of the MNA's work looks like the one for the coffee table (just over a tenner on Amazon for example http://www.amazon.co...4N3KDGWY0M2TMSB ):

 

Robotham's 'The Postwar Years' on p49 (60535) p51 (60512)

Robotham's 'In Colour' on p44 (60519)* p46 (60534) p74 (60537) p76 (60532)

Caplan 'The Railway World' special p43 (60534)

Siviter 'Waverley - Portrait of a famous route' photo no. 5, 11 (60519), 23 (60534), 29 (60512), 30 (60532)*, 54, 59* (60528), 70 (60529), 96, 97 (60532), 122 (60528), 174 (60522), and last but not least plate 177 (60536) - I for one never tire of Trimbush

 

For pics of the gorgeous A2s on line, I know it's a lot to trawl through, but you'll find more than a handful linked in the previous 398 posts

['CHARD]

Last Years of the Waverley Route by David Cross

For those who have this to hand, here's a little sub-thread about this excellent book where I seek to clarify the odd discrepancies and points of extreme forensic interest. Feel free to chip-in, that's what the thread's about. Here are my first five:

 

To kick off, the photo of 60042 on p32 is taken from the same vantage point as one of 60041 on p28 of Robotham 2, the latter claims 'entering Gorebridge' which I buy over David's 'approaching Newtongrange,' as it's the completely wrong alignment and surroundings for N'grange, but the background fits with what I know of G'bridge from visits.

 

p34, the repeat photo of D260 (correctly captioned this time, not as D250!) on Borthwick Bank. This isn't actually that common a location in pictures - the buffer stop visible above the loco - is this for the exchange sidings at Esperton Quarry and the St Margaret's ash-tip, I wonder? We only saw this place from a passing train shot a few weeks ago, didn't we?

 

p36, 61396 'at Falahill' - I reckon this is taken from the verge of the rising A7 as it climbs to cross the line, over the now flattened and realigned intersect. Any thoughts? Suppose I could always go and search for a footing of the platelayer's hut in today's foliage!

 

p40, D294 'near Heriot' appears all wrong to me. I'll buy the loco i.d quite happily (saves on sleeping tablets), but if the photo's taken from the A7 anywhere near here the loco must be travelling north rather than south, by virtue of the railway being on the west side of Heriot Water, the turnpike on the east . If the bucket is indeed whistling southbound, then is the vantage point actually the A7 immediately north of Falahill cottages; that sheep looks familiar.

 

p46, 76041 'at Ravenswood Jct.' This is surely a big typo? Because following that bombshell the entire caption contradicts itself.

 

 

Back later, now over to Claire with the weather...

[62440]

Think he's also got Fountainhall and Stow a bit confused, too!

 

Bruce

[62440]

'Chard, enjoy this one! If you can enjoy the last weekend at Hawick.

 

(attachment=55618:sec820.jpg]

['CHARD]

'Chard, enjoy this one! If you can enjoy the last weekend at Hawick.

 

(attachment=55618:sec820.jpg]

 

What with the book arriving c/o Dave and now this image of legend, it should've been a birthday weekend! You know the genre of photograph that pushes my buttons, sir!

 

That picture packs so much in, again, made all the more poignant by when it was taken. The window-hanger enjoying early-livery GSYP Baby Sulzer haulage - in maroon stock at the bitter end - looks familiar - were the service trains particularly busy with enthusiasts and ghouls, I wonder?

 

Also, seeing that Type 2 means I shall have to revisit one of David's captions, I feel sure he misidentifies that loco in one picture. EDIT: no, it's D5069, sweet as. The Peak is almost certainly one of 11-15, possibly 12. She's not the Lady of Legend, 60, LYTHAM ST ANNES, for sure. There is always an outside chance it's a 46, of course. Closer inspection shows it to be a 46 after all. Which suits me for fleet purposes perfectly. Awesome!!!

 

What I still can't believe is that the magazines of the day never detailed the final workings particularly thoroughly. Compared with the last weekend of the S&D (admittedly under steam's by then tenuous reign) data is scant. There is talk of a couple of specials that ran on the Saturday, one double-headed with Type 2s, for which there is no information available, the other presumably that hauled by D1973. Another, captured at Riccarton behind a 64A BFYE 26, appears on an image hosting site with a request for information about the working!

['CHARD]

Looking for pictures of Bayardo for another thread (that's a steam loco, I hear you chorus) when I came across this beautiful context shot of a wintry Fountainhall that I must have missed previously:

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=28512

 

I defy anyone not to choose this picture for up there in their personal WR Top Ten; 70000 at Hawick

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=30509

 

I believe 64G to have been eminently modellable, and it would even fit a corner location

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=30337

 

And apropos of David Cross' new book, let's have another look at the EE Type 4 with the unusual-shaped yellow panel, D262 I reckon, note fairly close-to-the-bull headcode wound-up:

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=23801

 

and to answer what a little bird tweeted me, this is what a 7605 or 7607 looks like, it's another revisited image for which I make scant apology, I can't have enough pictures of Stow

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=23820

['CHARD]

Nice one Mr M, worth a bounce of the doughty ol' thread to bring you this:

 

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=30529

 

Is this in fact the first time we've seen a train at Scotch Dyke? Amazingly the platforms weren't fenced-off seeing the station was long closed and the Class 1s would be attempting to hit 50-plus MPH through here in the run up to Penton bank. Now, where did I put the keys to the T.A.R.D.I.S ???

[62440]

Nice one Mr M, worth a bounce of the doughty ol' thread to bring you this:

 

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=30529

 

Is this in fact the first time we've seen a train at Scotch Dyke? Amazingly the platforms weren't fenced-off seeing the station was long closed and the Class 1s would be attempting to hit 50-plus MPH through here in the run up to Penton bank. Now, where did I put the keys to the T.A.R.D.I.S ???

 

The next stop was Riddings Junction for the Langholm branch, so I'm afraid that 50 mph wasn't on the cards. After shunting at Langholm, it went back to Riddings, then to Penton, see http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=17983 and http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=24948 and also http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=18007 where I got a lift to the Holm and back to Penton where I'd left my trusty Velocette.

 

This in fact the trip featured on YouTube:

at Gilnockie Station.

 

The yellow sign says Border Railway Society.

 

The service was reprieved for a fortnight - I took another photo of an EE Type 1 at Langholm - then went home. If only I'd waited half-an-hour, the loco spread the track and was derailed and the crane from Kingmoor came to the rescue.

 

This (again) wasn't to be the last freight, but the service was reprieved for another week - sadly I never saw another train on the Langholm Branch.

 

The ex-signalman at Riddings told me that there had been hopes of a special enthusiasts' train in October 1967 to Langholm, but permission wasn't forth-coming.

['CHARD]

I just caught up with the thread of dreams, and the YouTube clip(s) have blown my mind. The nearby clip of 43000 working the branch is equally fantastic.

 

What a pity BR blocked a final special, what was their reasoning I wonder - there were plenty of equivalent closure workings; we can only fantasize about what traction Carlisle would have used, although I'd say 43106 would be an obvious choice

 

I'll wait for Dave to opine on this detail I think

['CHARD]

D20, 1S64, Leeds 29/8/67: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barkingbill/4973807649/in/set-72157603696416788/

 

D71, 1M10, Leeds 29/8/67 (loco change): http://www.flickr.com/photos/barkingbill/4928997233/in/set-72157603696416788/

eBSYP (no logos)

 

I love Peaks, me.

 

O/T as this is Eastfield shed, but I suspect a few of this thread's regulars might be interested in some of the sideshows here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barkingbill/2126895747/in/set-72157603696416788/lightbox/

[balders]

D20, 1S64, Leeds 29/8/67: http://www.flickr.co...57603696416788/

 

D71, 1M10, Leeds 29/8/67 (loco change): http://www.flickr.co...57603696416788/

eBSYP (no logos)

 

I love Peaks, me.

 

O/T as this is Eastfield shed, but I suspect a few of this thread's regulars might be interested in some of the sideshows here: http://www.flickr.co...16788/lightbox/

 

Last link is a cracker......off topic the Cambian bits are nice.........24 + maroon mk1 / blue+grey/ + Thompson composite. Lovely.........just 2 monthes after i was born

 

 

Great thread this. Love the last YT vid link

['CHARD]

This video has as much place on this thread as anywhere, Part 1 of 3, Doctor Richard Beeching verbalizes his Reshaping of the Railways report, accompanied by fantastic - and deeply affecting - B&W VT. Each of the three parts is over 7 minutes, but when you're ready it's well worth setting aside the time for. No locations seen are mentioned by name or captioned, so it's awesome when you spot Brackley Central, or somewhere that looks familiar - was it or wasn't it!? There's something for everyone here - Class 24s on Speedfreight containers - the predecessor to Freightliner, loads of Bedford artics including coal concentration depot stuff, inside sequences in giant freight depots, the Blue Pullman, a multitude of steam and diesel hauled trains. Can't believe I never watched this before. Rating: essential. 10/10 despite its aftermath

[balders]

This video has as much place on this thread as anywhere, Part 1 of 3, Doctor Richard Beeching verbalizes his Reshaping of the Railways report, accompanied by fantastic - and deeply affecting - B&W VT. Each of the three parts is over 7 minutes, but when you're ready it's well worth setting aside the time for. No locations seen are mentioned by name or captioned, so it's awesome when you spot Brackley Central, or somewhere that looks familiar - was it or wasn't it!? There's something for everyone here - Class 24s on Speedfreight containers - the predecessor to Freightliner, loads of Bedford artics including coal concentration depot stuff, inside sequences in giant freight depots, the Blue Pullman, a multitude of steam and diesel hauled trains. Can't believe I never watched this before. Rating: essential. 10/10 despite its aftermath

 

 

A very very interesting link, if quite sad. Economics, well that was the argument at the time, without the addition of foresight. Fair enough. But they did get it wrong (Great Central? Criminal that was)

 

And an AWESOME comb-over.

 

Nuff said, without being irreverant. I love railways as much as the next man (or lady)

[pH]

When discussing unusual motive power on the Waverley, have we had this or this yet? The first engine was shedded at Haymarket at the time, while the other was a long-time Kingmoor engine.

[Guest Max Stafford]

We've had the Clan before, Peter but not Swiftsure. That actually is a bit of a scoop and one of the best Jubilee names too!

 

Dave.

['CHARD]

That's a great freight consist too. Containers in both 3-plank (like the Bachmann specimen) and 5-plank wagons, and what's more, what looks like a Southern 12-tonner tarped over for some reason, immediately behind the loco.

 

The Clan looks gorgeous, ideal for the Class 2 too, I would've thought.