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Happy birthday, Tony. Many happy returns! Not visiting RMwweb much these days, I'm very happy to have caught you on your birthday to pass on greetings. My house extension is almost complete and I'll soon be back to normality and proper modelling. Hope you ad Mo are both well. Clem

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Just a quick congrats to Mr W and a huge thanks also for his company and excellent tutorial. From confused to fused in one afternoon would sum up Seaton Junctionish yesterday.

Most enjoyable loft expedition as well as chat and perhaps getting just a little too excited about finding, in a photograph I hasten to say,  a Gresley passenger gangway coach, (end door CK?) of some Diagram as the second coach on an Exeter to Waterloo Express (at Salisbury) in 1962 . It might be some sort of Pantry/Diner but we need GCHQ to confirm that. What the hell was that doing as a strengthener on that train; fascinating and I shall replicate that very train within a year all being well.

I need to apologise for the pre birthday meal though; maybe a smarter hostelry with better views could have been chosen?

Phil 

For a minute, there's me thinking "if he's modelling Seaton Junction (LNWR, near Peterborough), he'll need a ruddy great low-relief model of Harringworth Viaduct in the background, tee-hee?". Then I spot the Southern connection, so of course he's modelling "the other Seaton Junction", the one with four tracks and all those concrete footbridges! Mention of the Gresley coach in the SR formation, by the 1960s a lot of photos show Gresley and Thompson stock used as strengtheners, often added to the outside of Mk1 rakes in various regions. I conclude it may have been laziness on the part of shunting staff (you can just slam the coaches together to couple, no need to fiddle with screw couplings, and no need to mess around with gangway adaptors and clips), or was it approved of on safety grounds (i.e. buckeye couplings throughout)?

 

Happy 70th birthday to Tony, you can switch off your soldering iron for 24hrs (Does it ever cool down?).

 

                                                                                                                 Cheers, Brian.

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Many thanks for all the kind wishes - believe me, I wasn't 'fishing'. 

 

It just crossed my mind as I sought to find a picture I commented on some years ago. It showed one of the last (if not the last) Precussors, SCIRROCO of name (is that the right spelling?) standing on Chester MR MPD in October '46. Behind, and just beyond the line to Manchester, was Chester's City Hospital. Where I was born! It might have been on the same day.  

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Happy Birthday Tony, and I hope you are having a happy day in good company. I also hope you and Mo are in the best of health.

Re little used bridges I also trundled over them on a Five or a Brit, nearly always in the dark! Tragedy the GC closed.

Regards Mick

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Happy 70th Tony, I had mine 4 years ago but didn't feel good about it on the day, 60 was fine but 70 has that "old age" sound to it even though I was perfectly fit and well [still am!]

 

Keep up the good work on RMWeb as well as your demos at various shows, your RMWeb topic is one of the best features of the site!

 

Edward

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Just a quick congrats to Mr W and a huge thanks also for his company and excellent tutorial. From confused to fused in one afternoon would sum up Seaton Junctionish yesterday.

Most enjoyable loft expedition as well as chat and perhaps getting just a little too excited about finding, in a photograph I hasten to say,  a Gresley passenger gangway coach, (end door CK?) of some Diagram as the second coach on an Exeter to Waterloo Express (at Salisbury) in 1962 . It might be some sort of Pantry/Diner but we need GCHQ to confirm that. What the hell was that doing as a strengthener on that train; fascinating and I shall replicate that very train within a year all being well.

I need to apologise for the pre birthday meal though; maybe a smarter hostelry with better views could have been chosen?

Phil 

Should anyone happen to have the Book 'Southern Steam in the South and West' (Mike Arlett and David Lockett) the said Gresley is shown twice on P 70. Any help with an ID would be really appreciated. I think it is an end door CK or TO and TW is fairly certain it is a 1938 build.

Also, does anyone have any details about the A2 Commemorative Railtour with Blue Peter* down SR to Exeter (*stalled near the top of Honiton Incline) and back up the WR to Westbury (*declared failure) on Sunday August 14th 1966? I'm trying to find out what happened for the loco to have been declared a failure as it looked in top nick on the 'outside'.

Thank you.

Phil

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There's the other GC bridge over the M1 just south of Junction 21 where the GC goes South west across the motorway before going alongside it to Lutterworth. I wonder how long it actually carried trains. I've never seen a picture of a train on it.  

 

Jamie

As already mentioned, the GC bridge over the M45, the M45 itself to the M1 at Jct.17, plus the M1 from Watford Jct.5 to Crick Jct.18, all opened around late 1959, so the GC M45 bridge (seen above) only carried passenger trains for 6 or 7 years. The tracks were quickly removed in late 1966/67. I remember seeing bulldozers removing/reclaiming the ballast at nearby Braunston GC to the south, a couple of years after that, followed by the demolition of the Willoughby Viaduct over the River Leam, and removal of the plate girder bridge over the Grand Union/Oxford Canal. The M1 was next extended from Crick to Misterton Jct.20, then again north to Kegworth in 1965, this included the GC bridge over the M1 near Cosby Curve, this bridge only carried passenger trains from 1964/5 to 1969. There are photos in some of Colin Walker's GC albums, showing this bridge under construction, with run-down Black 5s and Royal Scots passing carefully by. The M6 joined the M1 at Jct.19 in 1971, in later years the new section of A14 also joined here, but with an awkward road layout involving roundabouts, this has only recently been rectified.    BK

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Many congratulations Tony, and good wishes to Mo!

I hope to see you this coming weekend at Peterborough.

I should also soon be able to post pictures of my first completed kit built loco - built with your kind assistance as you taught me how it should be done - and of the second, built by me alone, to show that I was listening!

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

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Thanks once again for all the kind wishes. They are much appreciated. 

 

Another day, another pupil. Tomorrow we put the frames together for a J50. He wants to learn how to make chassis for himself; yet another self-reliant guy. 

 

Regards from an even older git!

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Speaking of making models, it's only through the work of chaps like you that it'll have any future interest for the likes of me. Speaking to a friend this afternoon (who'd just visited an exhibition) he told me it (the exhibition) was just like going to an RTR/RTP convention.  

Ah, he was at the same one as me then. I hugged the car when I got outside - I was so happy to see something metal... 

Edited by Daddyman
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