Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

My extensive loft layout is all Peco 100 with insulfrog points. I took great care laying it (all in foam underlay) to avoid kinks, levelness etc and I am generally pleased with running. A couple of locos / stock that give constant trouble (and only a small number) is banned running awaiting "repairs" - usually caused by moved back to backs, sticky wheels etc.usually quick simple fixes.

 

When I laid my double slips into my through terminus I thoroughly tested the throat pointwork by reversing a 12 coach rake of Lima Mk 1's several times - even at high speed doing a "double waggle" (!!) no derailments at all. Great, though later reversing a train of mixed Hornby / Bachmann stock - derailments guaranteed !! I have read since that the Lima wheels have very good factory back to back, and the over large flanges helped. My Bachmann Thompsons were re-wheeled with metal wheels and no further problems. 

 

Don't get me on about my Hornby Pullmans, cant reverse a rake of those with their flimsy couplings on silly swivels !! The wheels on those are OK - you just can't win !!

 

I run most trains at a slow speed, goods trains especially, any derailments are usually my fault not changing points etc, though I occasionally like to put 12 behind a Bachmann Deltic and let her fly !!

 

Brit15

In fairness to those who seek greater scale fidelity, the Lima wheels, though always concentric and with accurate back-to-backs were rather crude, with their wide tyres and very deep (and sharp) flanges. They always rode very well, but not on 'scale' track (SMP/C&L). On those the flanges just clattered along. I seem to recall just changing the wheels was not easy (I tried on a Lima LMS bogie van) because the Lima axles were shorter. 

 

It's not just Lima flanges that can clatter on the chairs of nearer-scale bullhead track. I've noted Bachmann A1 and A2 tenders have deeper flanges and clatter on the C&L crossings, as do the Austerity tenders. 

 

I suppose it just comes down to consistency - the correct b-t-bs running over the correct flangeways. I'm not advocating great wide tyres and 'pizza-cutter' flanges, just something 'nearer scale which is reliable. My 'standard' wheels are Romford/Markits/Jackson, with the occasional set of Gibson bogie/pony wheels. For the followers of more accurate standards, these are crude indeed.  

[New Haven Neil]

I defected to the dark side (US and DCC!) the best part of 20 years ago, to obtain better running.  My own efforts at chassis building proved no better and probably, no, always worse than RTR at the time, and in frustration together with an active US modelling group of friends, off I went to 8 wheel drive, flywheels, silent running and no hand of deity ever needed. EVER.  A lot of kit built rolling stock probably fulfilled my need to be creative and the layout is of course still only half built - I did move countries in the middle to be fair!

 

I am now leaning back towards UK practice, enticed by much improved RTR running qualities (sorry Tony!) but when I have something to run them on there are several loco classes I would like to build, I only hope the standard of kits has improved while I have been 'away'.  TBH they were dire previously in my experience, and that drove me away.  In the interim I appear to have aged, 60 isn't that far away I find my dexterity reduced compared to approaching 40.  Will I cope?  Who knows, but it would be nice to have a 'Tony' on hand to guide my re-entry into kit loco world!

[robertcwp]

Robert

 

When we exhibited Aberdeen Kirkhill at Alexandra Palace in March 2013 I was introduced to Brian Kirby and he did say that you had also seen the layout at that exhibition.

 

With regard to the stock formations, the running of the layout and the amount of train movement it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts. Please be brutally honest as I am very thick skinned and I would far prefer to know if there are improvements we can make.

It's a while since I have seen the layout but from what I recall the stock was very good with lots of thought having gone into it, including depicting variants on the Mark 2 air-con theme, amongst other things.

[Focalplane]

I defected to the dark side (US and DCC!) the best part of 20 years ago, to obtain better running.  My own efforts at chassis building proved no better and probably, no, always worse than RTR at the time, and in frustration together with an active US modelling group of friends, off I went to 8 wheel drive, flywheels, silent running and no hand of deity ever needed. EVER.  A lot of kit built rolling stock probably fulfilled my need to be creative and the layout is of course still only half built - I did move countries in the middle to be fair!

 

I am now leaning back towards UK practice, enticed by much improved RTR running qualities (sorry Tony!) but when I have something to run them on there are several loco classes I would like to build, I only hope the standard of kits has improved while I have been 'away'.  TBH they were dire previously in my experience, and that drove me away.  In the interim I appear to have aged, 60 isn't that far away I find my dexterity reduced compared to approaching 40.  Will I cope?  Who knows, but it would be nice to have a 'Tony' on hand to guide my re-entry into kit loco world!

 

I can certainly empathize with your posting, having spent a lot of time in Texas, WITH HO, SP, UP and the rest.  But on leaving the State after 23 years I had a wunderlust for steam in the late 1950s and my SP stuff is now in storage.

 

I "coped" by moving up to 7mm scale, Gauge O.  My 4mm stuff remains cocooned, waiting for a miracle, perhaps.  Scale aside, this topic has been a salvation, with so much information that I could drown in it!

 

As a Midlander I find East Coast stuff way off to the 'right', but there is always something of interest.  Now "coachmann" has reinvigorated my latent involvement in Oswestry and also steered me into the right attitude toward coach building.

 

Ooh lal la!  My French location gets all excited with a tiny Gauge O layout allowing 7mm scale kit built locos to run, with DCC and sound, up and down and around and around the hand built turntable!

[46256]

May I post an enquiry. I have just browsed through the February 2005 British Railway Illustrated. The first article was a selection of photographs taken on the East Coaat in the fifties during the cold winter months. Then an article called finale...a selection of photos taken in 1965 at Gloucester. One in particular....a York K1 62057 taking an empty coal wagon train further west into South Wales......does anyone know why a loco of this type would have been so far from home? The unexpected joys of the steam railway...

[Brian Kirby]

May I post an enquiry. I have just browsed through the February 2005 British Railway Illustrated. The first article was a selection of photographs taken on the East Coaat in the fifties during the cold winter months. Then an article called finale...a selection of photos taken in 1965 at Gloucester. One in particular....a York K1 62057 taking an empty coal wagon train further west into South Wales......does anyone know why a loco of this type would have been so far from home? The unexpected joys of the steam railway...

I would guess by 1965, various rules and working practices were relaxed, and blind eyes were being turned. Steam in this area was being run into the ground by then, and maybe WR didn't have a spare loco to take the train forward? If it got as far as Ebbw Jct., Cardiff Radyr, or even Margam with a WR crew, and then failed, it would no doubt be withdrawn there and then, such was the situation at the time. It was probably stopped at Severn Tunnel Jct. yard, one reason being the lack of GWR ATC on a LNER loco, not sure when the South Wales main line switched to BR AWS, many WR diesels had to be dual-fitted right up till the mid-1970s? The WR crew wouldn't have enjoyed driving the K1, since the controls were on the wrong side . . . . :-))    BK

Edited November 14, 2016 by Brian Kirby

[Tony Wright]

May I post an enquiry. I have just browsed through the February 2005 British Railway Illustrated. The first article was a selection of photographs taken on the East Coaat in the fifties during the cold winter months. Then an article called finale...a selection of photos taken in 1965 at Gloucester. One in particular....a York K1 62057 taking an empty coal wagon train further west into South Wales......does anyone know why a loco of this type would have been so far from home? The unexpected joys of the steam railway...

Without checking too many of my records, as has been mentioned by Brian, towards the end of steam it seemed that there were many workings of locos far from home. In fairness, it was not right at the end; for instance, LNER locos used to work deep into GWR territory on inter-company trains. It wasn't as common the other way because of the GWR's more generous loading gauge; does anyone recall the incidence of a Grange demolishing platform edges as it fought its way towards Huddersfield, having not been replaced (as it should have been) at Nottingham?

 

York depot seemed to have been used as a 'garage' shed. By that I mean it probably had more locos than its duties required, but other depots would frequently use 50A motive power on their own duties, often keeping them for some time. Speaking of 'keeping' locos, when CHELTENHAM ran on a special from Nottingham to Darlington, it was used for a time before and after on the London Extension semi-fasts between Nottingham Victoria and Marylebone. With the Schools being withdrawn, presumably the SR had no use for it. When WMRC built Charwelton, I built the loco for just such duties. At one show, an ex-driver said it was the best loco they had at the time. 

 

The 'strangest' sojourn far from home, off the top of my head, was of a B1 failing on a pigeon special from the NE, deep into Surrey/Sussex. The loco was repaired (at Redhill or Brighton?) and was kept for some little time afterwards hauling service trains. I think it even got a Redhill shed plate! Perhaps some of the drivers remembered having B1s on loan in the decade before.

 

There used to be a regular B1 turn through Chester on summer Saturdays, heading to/from Llandudno from/to the West Riding. Though my fellow 'spotters would leap for joy, I rarely did because I'd often have already seen it on its home patch. 

Edited November 15, 2016 by Tony Wright

[Enterprisingwestern]

I believe Cheltenham was used on the Ruddington/Gotham/East Leake pick ups also.

 

Mike.

[billbedford]

Without checking too many of my records, as has been mentioned by Brian, towards the end of steam it seemed that there were many workings of locos far from home. In fairness, it was not right at the end; for instance, LNER locos used to work deep into GWR territory on inter-company trains. 

 

GWR locos irregularly worked to Nottingham on special during the 1930s. One, a Castle I believe, even made it to Grantham

[Bernard Lamb]

Mention of B1s in strange places reminds me of a story of one that ventured onto the Maldon branch.

They managed to stop it well before it got near the timber viaducts.

Bernard

[Headstock]

Without checking too many of my records, as has been mentioned by Brian, towards the end of steam it seemed that there were many workings of locos far from home. In fairness, it was not right at the end; for instance, LNER locos used to work deep into GWR territory on inter-company trains. It wasn't as common the other way because of the GWR's more generous loading gauge; does anyone recall the incidence of a Grange demolishing platform edges as it fought its way towards Huddersfield, having not been replaced (as it should have been) at Nottingham?

 

York depot seemed to have been used as a 'garage' shed. By that I mean it probably had more locos than its duties required, but other depots would frequently use 50A motive power on their own duties, often keeping them for some time. Speaking of 'keeping' locos, when CHELTENHAM ran on a special from Nottingham to Darlington, it was used for a time before and after on the London Extension semi-fasts between Nottingham Victoria and Marylebone. With the Schools being withdrawn, presumably the SR had no use for it. When WMRC built Charwelton, I built the loco for just such duties. At one show, an ex-driver said it was the best loco they had at the time. 

 

The 'strangest' sojourn far from home, off the top of my head, was of a B1 failing on a pigeon special from the NE, deep into Surrey/Sussex. The loco was repaired (at Redhill or Brighton?) and was kept for some little time afterwards hauling service trains. I think it even got a Redhill shed plate! Perhaps some of the drivers remembered having B1s on loan in the decade before.

 

There used to be a regular B1 turn through Chester on summer Saturdays, heading to/from Llandudno from/to the West Riding. Though my fellow 'spotters would leap for joy, I rarely did because I'd often have already seen it on its home patch. 

 

That would be Woolston Grange, I believe it was towed home as an out of gauge load via Crewe. A less unusual working was that by the Ivatt Atlantics on the Sundays only Sheffield-Swansea service. the Locomotives worked as far as Swindon.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Headstock

[jwealleans]

There is a lovely shot of 3276 in Swindon shed in LNER in Focus by John Crawley. I didn't know that was a Sunday only service. How did they work back?

[APOLLO]

B1's & Royal Scots got to Bath Green Park in the 60's, on holiday trains to Bournemouth from the Midlands & North via mangotsfield.  As far as I know they did not venture south on the S&D. Seem to remember seeing a photo of a Brittania there also.

 

There is a good write up with photos of the above Grange venture to Huddersfield in the book "Railway Memories No 13, Huddersfield Dewsbury & Batley, by Robert Anderson, a Bellcode Book.

 

Brit15

[Headstock]

There is a lovely shot of 3276 in Swindon shed in LNER in Focus by John Crawley. I didn't know that was a Sunday only service. How did they work back?

 

I'm about to depart the house but from memory, the overnight stay on Swindon shed was associated with the late night York Swindon service. The locomotive then could return on the Swansea-York day time Restaurant car express or the Sundays only Swansea-Sheffield. When Leicester shed was working one of the two overnights, one of the locomotives would return on a train to Woodford and then pilot either a northbound runner from Woodford to Leicester or the Woodford-Hull fitted freight. This train returned empty fish vans as part of its formation. The train would enter the north loop at Leicester and the pilot engine would come off at south box and go on shed. The train would then proceed on its way. It is worth remembering that locomotive workings didn't remain static, so it all depends on the time frame involved.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Headstock

[sandra]

Great Western locomotives did not often work off their own region due to the need for a greater loading gauge but there were regular workings of Halls and possibly other 2 cylinder engines to the Bournemouth area. I believe that Castles were banned from the line although a Castle did get to Eastleigh on at least one occasion. 

 

The Great Central was built to a larger loading gauge and thus GW engines could work on it. During the locomotive exchanges after nationalization I think Witherslack Hall was used on the Great Central. I know that in the 1920's there were trials of GW Castles on both the East Coast and the West Coast main lines. I wonder if the locomotives concerned, which I think were 4079 and 5000, were modified before the trials to conform to the different loading gauges?

 

On a different subject, I was recently looking through some old Trains Illustrated and I came across what may be a very unusual working. It was a report of an Royal Scot taking over an East Coast Edinburgh express at Doncaster and working the train through to Newcastle, there was even a photograph of the locomotive returning light engine from Newcastle. However there was no explanation for the working or even why a Royal Scot was at Doncaster. I wonder if anyone else had heard of this incident or could offer some explanation.

 

Sandra

[Mallard60022]

Without checking too many of my records, as has been mentioned by Brian, towards the end of steam it seemed that there were many workings of locos far from home. In fairness, it was not right at the end; for instance, LNER locos used to work deep into GWR territory on inter-company trains. It wasn't as common the other way because of the GWR's more generous loading gauge; does anyone recall the incidence of a Grange demolishing platform edges as it fought its way towards Huddersfield, having not been replaced (as it should have been) at Nottingham?

 

York depot seemed to have been used as a 'garage' shed. By that I mean it probably had more locos than its duties required, but other depots would frequently use 50A motive power on their own duties, often keeping them for some time. Speaking of 'keeping' locos, when CHELTENHAM ran on a special from Nottingham to Darlington, it was used for a time before and after on the London Extension semi-fasts between Nottingham Victoria and Marylebone. With the Schools being withdrawn, presumably the SR had no use for it. When WMRC built Charwelton, I built the loco for just such duties. At one show, an ex-driver said it was the best loco they had at the time. 

 

The 'strangest' sojourn far from home, off the top of my head, was of a B1 failing on a pigeon special from the NE, deep into Surrey/Sussex. The loco was repaired (at Redhill or Brighton?) and was kept for some little time afterwards hauling service trains. I think it even got a Redhill shed plate! Perhaps some of the drivers remembered having B1s on loan in the decade before.

 

There used to be a regular B1 turn through Chester on summer Saturdays, heading to/from Llandudno from/to the West Riding. Though my fellow 'spotters would leap for joy, I rarely did because I'd often have already seen it on its home patch. 

Sat at Redhill for a considerable time. Repaired there eventually.

Phil

[Mallard60022]

Great Western locomotives did not often work off their own region due to the need for a greater loading gauge but there were regular workings of Halls and possibly other 2 cylinder engines to the Bournemouth area. I believe that Castles were banned from the line although a Castle did get to Eastleigh on at least one occasion. 

 

The Great Central was built to a larger loading gauge and thus GW engines could work on it. During the locomotive exchanges after nationalization I think Witherslack Hall was used on the Great Central. I know that in the 1920's there were trials of GW Castles on both the East Coast and the West Coast main lines. I wonder if the locomotives concerned, which I think were 4079 and 5000, were modified before the trials to conform to the different loading gauges?

 

On a different subject, I was recently looking through some old Trains Illustrated and I came across what may be a very unusual working. It was a report of an Royal Scot taking over an East Coast Edinburgh express at Doncaster and working the train through to Newcastle, there was even a photograph of the locomotive returning light engine from Newcastle. However there was no explanation for the working or even why a Royal Scot was at Doncaster. I wonder if anyone else had heard of this incident or could offer some explanation.

 

Sandra

Castles didn't have the cylinder clearance problems of the two cylinder loco's.

 

Might it have been one of the ones allocated to Annesley towards the end of their days when they were knackered. Could have been in Donny for bit of TLC and by coincidence, got a run out down the ECML. Someone will know the correct version.

Phil 

[billbedford]

The Great Central was built to a larger loading gauge and thus GW engines could work on it. 

 

 

The loading gauge on the Great Central's London extension was set by the tunnels, dating from the 1840s, on it's main line between Manchester and Sheffield. The loading gauge may have been slightly higher than some other railways, but it was the same 9'3" width.

Edited November 15, 2016 by billbedford

[The Stationmaster]

GWR locos irregularly worked to Nottingham on special during the 1930s. One, a Castle I believe, even made it to Grantham

 

(G)WR engines actually had a regular booked working through to Nottingham almost to the end of the GC and the large GWR 4-6-0 classes (except 60XX) were all cleared to run through as far as Sheffield.

 

The furthest north GW engines got off home territory was Warrington (which was definitely the case with coal trains during WWI but probably happened earlier as the GWR had running powers) and until WWII there were regular GWR workings on passenger trains through to Manchester Exchange (43XX and 'Dukedogs' were photographed there on GWR trains).  Being presumptive and with no firm photographic evidence I also wonder if the GWR freights to their Manchester depot were also worked by the company's engines - the history of these trains went back a long way so I would think it likely they worked right through.  The final rump of Western workings in this direction were those to Crewe of course.

 

The GCR working through to Swindon was also very long established - at one time it was covered by GC atlantics but these were replaced by ex GN C1s (probably in the 1930s) and these were in turn supplanted by the B1s in later years.  It was always a peculiar highlight of Sunday shed visits to Swindon to see the B1 lurking among newly outshopped Western 4-6-0s.

 

In my spotting days the GW mainline could also turn up some interesting excursion workings from foreign parts - some of which clearly had proper authority to be there and some of which either didn't or had been specially cleared for a particular train.  Thus I saw a 'Crab' passing through Twyford on an excursion (authorised - but not cleared to Windsor, which is where it had come from) and similarly engaged a 4F (not cleared south of Oxford) while a 'Jubilee' is known to have worked a Windsor excursion via the High Wycombe - Maidenhead branch (again not cleared).

 

The situation in respect of ex LNER engines was rather peculiar - B1s were given quite a lot of authority to run over various WR routes but oddly they weren't officially cleared south of Radley so technically they weren't authorised to work through to Swindon (June 1963 restrictions)  A3s weren't allowed south of Banbury station but A4s were cleared from Paddington to Plymouth (with no hint of how they could get to Paddington in the first place!).  The widest WR route availability permitted for any Eastern engine was - perhaps not surprisingly - that given for 04 2-8-0s, but we all know why that would be the case (I hope).

 

So while official clearances were given for 'foreign' engines it also seems to have been the case that some were undoubtedly observed in the breach

[coachmann]

The very last BR loco I saw was a 9F 2-10-0 working past the under-construction Abergele bye-pass (I was driving McAlpines engineers bus), a working that would not have taken place had it not been end of steam. This was in 1967. Had the loco continued its diagram beyond Llandudno Junction it would have ended up in Blaenau Ffestiniog, but control was on to it, albeit late in the morning, and panicked. Fortunately it hadn't left the junction so the loco was removed and returned to Mold Junction as instructed.

[The Stationmaster]

Castles didn't have the cylinder clearance problems of the two cylinder loco's.

 

Might it have been one of the ones allocated to Annesley towards the end of their days when they were knackered. Could have been in Donny for bit of TLC and by coincidence, got a run out down the ECML. Someone will know the correct version.

Phil 

But oddly unlike various 2 cylinder classes the 'Castles' weren't officially cleared beyond Basingstoke. 'Halls', complete with those nice big outside cylinders were cleared right through (from Basingstoke) to Portsmouth Harbour, Southampton Terminus, Bournemouth West, and Weymouth.

[billbedford]

(G)WR engines actually had a regular booked working through to Nottingham almost to the end of the GC and the large GWR 4-6-0 classes (except 60XX) were all cleared to run through as far as Sheffield.

 

 

Pre-nationalisation the change over point on the GC for NE-GW inter-company trains was Leicester. When was it changed to Nottingham?

[Jol Wilkinson]

Thanks Jol,

 

I'm not entirely sure, from my own experience, whether trains derail less frequently at speed, though isn't it a bit like saying 'you're driving them too slowly' if they do? 

 

Still on with my own experience (contentious as usual), though I've seen some absolutely abysmal running in OO, with regard to derailments I've probably witnessed more on P4 systems. I know that's probably the jinx I put on any layout when I observe it, but Adavoyle, by the late Tony Miles, was one of only two P4 layout I've ever seen where trains ran faultlessly, fast or slow. The other's Eddie Bourne's Cornish terminus. 

 

Anyone who's seen Roy Jackson's EM Retford will testify to the superlative running (of the track, locos and stock - not always the operators!) and that's incredibly complex, as it's the meeting point of two main lines. I've seen some 4mm layouts where the whole thing would fit into a tiny part of Retford, yet derailments, stuttering, jerking and poor running were endemic. One end-to-end layout I saw recently (in OO to be fair) didn't seem to be able to provide a stage where anything could get from the fiddle yard to the terminus (some 24') without stalling or derailing. The fact that it was DCC seemed to exacerbate any poor running problems. I think what concerned me the most was that the operators seemed to accept it. I can only speak personally but if there ever was a derailment on Stoke Summit or Charwelton I immediately investigated it. Invariably it was a loco/vehicle, not the track. So, the offender was immediately taken off and attended to once back home. On the layout in question, an apparent dodgy loco was picked up, looked at, a placed straight back on the track; just to continue on its wobbly, jerky and un-prototypical way.

 

Which leads me to wonder, what's the 'average' modeller's tolerance threshold when it come to what is acceptable running; or should that be unacceptable running? To me it means at least 40 consecutive train movements, many involving very long trains, some at high speed, but also slow-speed shunting backwards and forwards, reversing and so on. All without a single loco/stock/track/electrical/mechanical problem. I'm the operating problem, but I just have to accept that.  

Hi Tony,

 

an interesting topic and a little bit of the OO or P4 discussion too.

 

Model railways don't perform like the real thing, as momentum, mass, etc. doesn't scale down. My experience with P4 is that most derailments occur when non prototypical sideways forces overcome the flanges ability to hold the wheel on the rail. The simple answer is to provide a deeper flange, which is what OO and EM does. Some forces are harder to manage, coming from such as the sideways force from flexing corridor connections through crossovers, etc. Of course RTR copes with that with gangways that don't actually meet. One S4 Society member advocates the use of EM wheels set to P4 B2B as a solution. Moving stock slowly sometimes allowances the "unwanted" forces to overcome the forward momentum, but it's not a case of driving too slowly. 

 

We all model to differ criteria and Roy Jackson developed an approach with Retford, as you have done with LB, to provide what you wanted.  There is no doubt that modelling to P4 standards for wheels and track is more challenging than OO or EM. Having done OO and P4 I know that my P4 models run better than anything I ever built in OO - although my Hornby Dublo was never much of a problem.

 

I too have seen layouts, off all scales and gauges that ran well and some that didn't. I decided to convert London Road from a terminus to a through station for a number of reasons, one of which was the realization that many of the  well regarded exhibition layouts tend to run uni directional trains i.e. the stock was only pulled, rarely pushed. Most of our problems with the terminus format came from shunting carriages between platforms, when the forces I referred to above took over. One of the layouts that influenced that thinking was Stoke Summit.

 

Why do people accept poor running? I'd suggest that in P4, EM or self built OO they will  look for fixes to avoid repeat problems. Having built it they understand how it works. At  a show a policy of removing troublesome stock should be normal. "Adjustments" to trackwork may not be so easy, especially where transit damage has happened. I don't like any derailments when running London Road and we strive to avoid them . Not always possible with a portable layout and I am sure we could eradicate them if it were permanently erected - trouble is I don't have the space but that's another story.

 

It may be different for some OO modellers. Track standards are not, I believe, such a well understood topic in OO circles. Most have been brought up an a diet of "Universal" track which implies it will work with any OO model. Are RTR  wheels adjustable for B2B? If they were, what standard should you apply? How well is the track laid? Ironically, for rigid chassis then track "flatness" is arguably more important than for compensated or sprung vehicles. How many OO layouts wouldn't benefit from Norman Solomon's track work, both in appearance and performance?

 

Jol

[Brian Kirby]

Pre-nationalisation the change over point on the GC for NE-GW inter-company trains was Leicester. When was it changed to Nottingham?

Photo evidence does show GW locos at Nottingham Victoria, prior to WW2, then later on and post-WW2, loco changing seemed to be more usual at Leicester. Perhaps coinciding with the closure of Leicester shed in the early 60s, Nott.Vic. once again seemed to become the more frequent loco exchange spot, although locos could still be exchanged and turned in Leicester Central station? I think the Hymek diesel on the overnight parcels from Swindon, was still replaced at LC, right up until 1966? NV also had the advantage of turntables at both ends of the station. I wasn't around at the time, all the above is gleaned from books and videos, so I could be wrong, Headstock is probably are man on the spot for this one?    BK

[Rail-Online]

Leicester Central shed closed in July 1964 and with it the ability to turn engines in Leicster, normal loco changes from WR to NE (actually LMR by then) at Central finished at that date. The WR locos off the inter regional workings carrying on through to Nottingham Victoria.  I was unaware of the Swindon overnight Hymek working, perhaps two parcels trains were combined at Central therefore it could terminate there, otherwise a light engine movement down to Leicester would have been necessary.

 

Tony