Wright writes.....

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

12 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

... I never knew a girl trainspotter, not even the sisters of trainspotting mates... 

A complete rarity, but our little gang had one - but only for a while. Dee was the classic tomboy, and would ride her bike down the steepest hill as fast as any of us, fall off, pick herself up and get going again without complaint. So, essentially an honorary boy.

 

Unfortunately, she one day revealed to her mother where we had gone from home on a summer day. And that was that, mother clearly of the opinion that no ten year old girl should go sans adult to KX. I got seriously lectured by my Pa about not leading girls astray, with no explanation about what the hell that meant. Much to my chagrin among the others in our gang 'the twins' didn't get such a lecture from their father. But he had left NZ on a wool clipper to the UK as ship's boy at age 15. Without telling his parents. (The captain wrote at their first landfall.) My 9 y.o. Pa had only travelled with his older brother (11) by steamship from Java to The Netherlands in 1938, unescorted, so didn't have quite such a well developed sense of adventure.

 

Truly it was a different time.

[Barry Ten]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

. But he had left NZ on a wool clipper to the UK as ship's boy at age 15. Without telling his parents. (The captain wrote at their first landfall.) My 9 y.o. Pa had only travelled with his older brother (11) by steamship from Java to The Netherlands in 1938, unescorted, so didn't have quite such a well developed sense of adventure.

 

Truly it was a different time.

 

I can beat that. Me and my mate Dave took the train to Swansea to see The Empire Strikes Back when we were 14.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Barry Ten

[PJT]

My mate Eddie and I took a day trip 'Merrymaker' excursion from Chichester in Sussex to Chester one day, when we were 12 (Merrymakers were a really affordable way for 12 year olds to travel a good distance - anyone else remember them?).  We then caught a train from Chester to Crewe and had a fabulous day there.  The bonus was travelling via the goods only route past Bescot yard on the way up and again on the way back.  That was all on our own, of course.

 

My Dad holds the record in our immediate family, though, by a long, long way.  Having just passed his 14th birthday, in 1922 he was packed off on his own to Australia to start a new life under HM Government's Dreadnought scheme, via a three month voyage on Aberdeen Commonwealth's SS Euripides.  I guess you could call that character-forming.  His younger brother joined him in Australia a year later, when he too turned 14, under the Big Brother scheme.

[chris p bacon]

7 minutes ago, PJT said:

Merrymakers were a really affordable way for 12 year olds to travel a good distance - anyone else remember them?

 

Yes, how about 1977 Sandy to Edinburgh for £1.50 then a trip out to Haymarket.

 

Note the flares......

 

 

And the 'Bomber' jacket....we were real fashion icons of our time.

 

 

[Anglian]

I have to admit to loving The Rev Awdry's railway books – I was more interested in the illustrations than the words although both worked well together to conjure a bit of magic, at least to me. The illustrations were of variable quality – the first and only book I had was no. 14 Little Old Engines which was really an ode to the Talyllyn – the illustrations in this book were excellent. I borrowed the rest from the local library and read them over and over again.

 

Perhaps interestingly I never really acknowledged the faces on the engines; I think I regarded them as a viable way of showing expression and nothing more than a surrealist subterfuge. Even as six year old I knew that real engines may have had a voice but they didn't have faces.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Anglian

[Tony Wright]

Today, my good friend Tony Teague arrived for some 'loco-doctoring', bringing with him some interesting Southern locos.

 

 

First, was an ex-BR Hornby Schools, repainted into late-SR black, renumbered and renamed. The pin holding the back end of the eccentric rod to the return crank had come adrift (a not-uncommon occurrence on modern RTR locos with outside gear). A simple fix - just solder in a replacement brass pin. 

 

 

Next we had a PDK original MN, where the front bogie kept derailing. An adjustment to the spring and a suggestion of adding more weight to the loco's front end. It ran around LB just fine, but couldn't take a typical 12-car rake. 

 

 

Finally, a DMR Z which just wouldn't go around 2' 6" curves. The diagnosis? Not enough sideplay in the axles (a common situation with kit-built locos). I dismantled the chassis and filed bits off the outside faces of the bearings, giving greater clearance. I then put it back together, stupidly putting the Portescap in back-to-front! So, take apart once more, turn the motor round and put it back together again. Also, repair the bit on the valve gear which came adrift! 

 

The result? It then ran round the 2' curves on the M&GNR bit of LB.

 

I've asked Tony to report again when he gets back home. 

[Headstock]

 

The Ladybird book of Pirates for me, much better than trains.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Headstock

[Bob Reid]

5 minutes ago, Headstock said:

 

The Lady Bird book of Pirates for me, much better than trains.

 

Which I'm afraid sounds like it's the kind of thing handed over the counter in a plain brown envelope!  

 

Bob.

[Headstock]

No way, the cover was too good to put in a bag. AHARRGGHHH, you have a Ladybirds hands M'lord.

 

[Bob Reid]

When your father was an Engine Fitter and your grandad a Driver (65B), wasn't it inevitable that this would be bought at the station to keep me entertained on every journey at the start to end of holiday? (and of course the obligatory stamped metal name plate)...

 

Bob

[thegreenhowards]

Hello Tony,

 

I’m afraid that I do normally run pretty fast through that reverse curve, because I rather like the look. I appreciate that it’s too fast to be prototypical but then the curve is too tight for a mainline - one of your pet hates I know, sorry! In my defence the camera is zoomed in and it’s not quite as tight as it looks. It’s 5 foot radius at the tightest point transitioning to straight and back to 5 feet the other way. To my eye it looks OK in the flesh, but perhaps too tight on camera.

 

Thanks for all your prototype formation photos. They are indeed inspiration and some would be lovely to model. But they do suffer from that all too common problem of not knowing what the train is. Books so often state 60xxx on an up/ down Express at xxxxxxxx before going on to give chapter and verse about when 60xxx was withdrawn. They miss the really useful information about what the train is....probably because it’s not recorded by the original photographer. While I could just take such a photo and model the train, I like to run to a timetable/ schedule and know what each train that I run is supposed to be.

 

As for the RK, some of the seasonal extras for Tyne Commission Quay (sort of reliefs to the Norseman) had a Thompson RK in the formation, sometimes with a small portion for Newcastle. Could it be one of those? It doesn’t match anything in the 1958 CWN ( which is the only late ‘50s Summer one on Robert Carroll’s list) exactly but is quite similar to the 1040 (SO) from KX. 

 

Regards

 

Andy

[Headstock]

A bit of repainting of RTR carriages. The Gresley BT (4) into BR crimson and the T (8) into post war weathered teak condition. The latter had the lining painted out, the class and carriage numbers were easily removed with a scalpel and the teak effect touched in if required. A series of paint washes and a little airbrushing toned down the original finish and moved the colour tone away from the more magenta based hue or the original. A new post war number is still to be added, the roof painted and screw link couplings fitted.

 

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, Headstock said:

A bit of repainting of RTR carriages. The Gresley BT (4) into BR crimson and the T (8) into post war weathered teak condition. The latter had the lining painted out, the class and carriage numbers were easily removed with a scalpel and the teak effect touched in if required. A series of paint washes and a little airbrushing toned down the original finish and moved the colour tone away from the more magenta based hue or the original. A new post war number is still to be added, the roof painted and screw link couplings fitted.

 

As always, lovely work, Andrew. 

 

The finish, particularly the weathering, is entirely natural.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

2 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Hello Tony,

 

I’m afraid that I do normally run pretty fast through that reverse curve, because I rather like the look. I appreciate that it’s too fast to be prototypical but then the curve is too tight for a mainline - one of your pet hates I know, sorry! In my defence the camera is zoomed in and it’s not quite as tight as it looks. It’s 5 foot radius at the tightest point transitioning to straight and back to 5 feet the other way. To my eye it looks OK in the flesh, but perhaps too tight on camera.

 

Thanks for all your prototype formation photos. They are indeed inspiration and some would be lovely to model. But they do suffer from that all too common problem of not knowing what the train is. Books so often state 60xxx on an up/ down Express at xxxxxxxx before going on to give chapter and verse about when 60xxx was withdrawn. They miss the really useful information about what the train is....probably because it’s not recorded by the original photographer. While I could just take such a photo and model the train, I like to run to a timetable/ schedule and know what each train that I run is supposed to be.

 

As for the RK, some of the seasonal extras for Tyne Commission Quay (sort of reliefs to the Norseman) had a Thompson RK in the formation, sometimes with a small portion for Newcastle. Could it be one of those? It doesn’t match anything in the 1958 CWN ( which is the only late ‘50s Summer one on Robert Carroll’s list) exactly but is quite similar to the 1040 (SO) from KX. 

 

Regards

 

Andy

I agree about the captions being weak with regard to exactly what a train might be, Andy,

 

And, the regurgitating of information about the build and scrapping dates of the locos is all too common.

 

But, what can the likes of you and I do? I'm frequently asked to comment on pictures the like of which I've posted. Dates are often suspect (though the locations are correct), and there's often a lot of guesswork necessary. It could well be that the train behind 60002 could be a relief to the Norseman, and only ran in this form once. 

 

The thing is, those trains actually ran, just like that. Though it might be impossible to identify every carriage in a set, a good stab could be made at guessing what each one is, at least up to a point. Many of my sets are made-up from studying photographs, just like those; perhaps more so than being reliant on BR's official documents, many of which in my collection have loads of hand-written alterations. 

 

I suppose the question is, what is one trying to actually recreate? Though LB's fiddle yard (as you know) is quite extensive, it would need to be at least ten or more times bigger to carry a representation of every train which ran through Little Bytham on a summer's day in 1958 (say, 8.00 am until 8.00 pm). I have the PTT, a WTT and the BR carriage workings for the period, but it would just be impossible. Just think (for a start), two Elizabethan rakes, two Flying Scotsman rakes, two Hearts of Midlothian rakes, two Queens of Scots rakes, four Talismans, two of many more, plus dozens of the single sets. It would be nonsensical in my view to have one set represent both Up and Down trains, because all the numbers/names would be need to be different. Then there are all the stopping trains, freights (a few), empty stock and parcels workings. Though a summer Saturday might reduce the freight workings, dozens of fascinating extras would appear. 

 

I'm happy with my representations, even though some might be more 'typical' rather than exactly prototypical. The 50-movement sequence (which you've operated) takes about two and a half hours of enjoyment to run through. Thanks to your help, trains are now in the right place in the sequence.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Northmoor]

Lovely set of images of A4s around Retford, Tony; the curve at Grove Road Crossing was still a great place to photograph trains a quarter of a century ago when I lived in nearby Worksop for a year.

The shots do though, reinforce your comments about the captions being lacking, because the photographer was clearly most interested in the locomotive and very little else.  The fact that the formation may have been highly unusual or even unique may well have, like the train, passed them by.  Sadly at least 90% of published material on railways seems to focus on locomotives; entire series of books of 3/4 views of locomotives on shed, or at the end of platforms.  If the photographer had ever turned around at the platform end, we might have seen how the signals were arranged, where the barrow crossing ran etc.

This is why Colin Gifford and Henry Priestley are for me, the finest railway photographers of all; Gifford for capturing the whole environment around the railway (so you get a great sense of the British urban/rural landscape of the time) and Priestley for often photographing railway stations when there were no trains around, but you can see in great detail, what those stations actually looked like.

 

Rob

[Headstock]

H C Casserley and Eric Bruton for me, if you want to find out something about Britain's Railways, neither have ever let me down. I would recommend photo archives and collections over books anyday. I recall a great photo archive at Kidderminster station that had images of all the stuff that research told us should be there but we couldn't find pictures of. The Bruton collection is at the NRM with his original notes, that's how we found the other BR streamlined Duchess. The one that the established works said didn't exist.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Headstock

[thegreenhowards]

Tony,

 

I recognise the difficulty of modelling every train - although Gilbert does manage it with his cassette system and loose stock. I would certainly have no qualms about using a set of coaches more than once - who’s going to read the numbers? In some cases, you could justifiably use one set four times, for example the Master Cutler/ Sheffield Pullman .

 

My ultimate intention is to model a shortish window of the timetable in full. Given my interest in sleeper trains, this will cover the late afternoon and evening, probably through to the departure of the Night Scotsman. Given my lack of discipline this will cover a wider window of history than LB. I intend to base it on the 1959 timetable, but use trains from c.1950-1961 to cover the end of the Atlantic’s through to the launch of the Deltics. This also allows me a greater proportion of LNER coaching stock than sticking with a late ‘50s rigid timeframe.

 

With all the suburban traffic at the south end of the ECML this will involve a lot of reuse of sets, sometimes with peak strengtheners added, and I certainly won’t be building, for example, half a dozen quad art sets! With judicious bending of the time period I can make more use of some sets. E.g. by modelling the 1957 Talisman, I can use the same set three times in my time window -  the up morning and up and down afternoon Talismans.

 

Your system works very well and the ability to showcase 50 trains in a 2.5 hour window is excellent. I particularly like the fact that (nearly?) every train is modelling a particular service - in general based on photographs.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[Tony Wright]

31 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Tony,

 

I recognise the difficulty of modelling every train - although Gilbert does manage it with his cassette system and loose stock. I would certainly have no qualms about using a set of coaches more than once - who’s going to read the numbers? In some cases, you could justifiably use one set four times, for example the Master Cutler/ Sheffield Pullman .

 

My ultimate intention is to model a shortish window of the timetable in full. Given my interest in sleeper trains, this will cover the late afternoon and evening, probably through to the departure of the Night Scotsman. Given my lack of discipline this will cover a wider window of history than LB. I intend to base it on the 1959 timetable, but use trains from c.1950-1961 to cover the end of the Atlantic’s through to the launch of the Deltics. This also allows me a greater proportion of LNER coaching stock than sticking with a late ‘50s rigid timeframe.

 

With all the suburban traffic at the south end of the ECML this will involve a lot of reuse of sets, sometimes with peak strengtheners added, and I certainly won’t be building, for example, half a dozen quad art sets! With judicious bending of the time period I can make more use of some sets. E.g. by modelling the 1957 Talisman, I can use the same set three times in my time window -  the up morning and up and down afternoon Talismans.

 

Your system works very well and the ability to showcase 50 trains in a 2.5 hour window is excellent. I particularly like the fact that (nearly?) every train is modelling a particular service - in general based on photographs.

 

Regards

 

Andy

Perhaps nobody would read the individual numbers/names on train carriages/cars, Andy, but how much re-marshalling will be necessary to get the sets into the right order for a return working?

 

For instance, remember the Queen of Scots always had the Leeds-only cars at the front end. Even where just one set was used in, say, The West Riding, the Bradford cars will be at the rear, both ways. 

 

As for cassettes, as you know I have four. They work very well, but I wouldn't countenance having dozens of them. Why not? Because of the potential risk of damage to stock, and too much handling of stock always causes surface 'damage'. Anyway, some of Gilbert's have started to warp (mine are made of aluminium channel, not MDF, so don't), with resultant derailments as stock is pushed out of and into them. No, such a system would drive me nuts (or even more nuts!). And, I doubt if every train on PN is to the full length - 14/15 bogies, 50+ wagons, etc. However, it works for him. 

 

To me the ease of running LB is paramount (if I can remember what to do). After two and a half hours of fun (concentrating?) in operating it, always with mates (I don't operate its sequence by myself), that's enough. Some 40+ different trains will have run, comprising anything from the non-stop fliers to the humble pick-ups.  

 

I would never have seen every train, anyway, during a 'day's' 'spotting at, say, Retford. Family 'restrictions' (either because of being taken there by my dad, or by the need to get back to Kiveton Park by such and such a time), meant no more than four/five hours spent in any one day.

 

I try to recreate those wonderful memories, obviously with lots of help. But, operating a layout has never been my principal interest in the hobby. It's making locos and passenger rolling stock (and some goods stock). As has been said many times (and you've had the experience), to be able to whisk a train round in the knowledge that 'I made that' gives no better feeling in my view. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

[Chamby]

16 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

.....Given my lack of discipline this will cover a wider window of history than LB. I intend to base it on the 1959 timetable, but use trains from c.1950-1961 to cover the end of the Atlantic’s through to the launch of the Deltics. This also allows me a greater proportion of LNER coaching stock than sticking with a late ‘50s rigid timeframe.....

 

It is perhaps inevitable that some form of ‘time creep’ occurs when we move to model a specific time and place...our specific interests are very difficult to tie down to a single day.  Whilst ‘Rule 1’ is often quoted, that doesn’t sit so comfortably with prototype modelling, where someone else’s railway is being reproduced in miniature.  Being highly pedantic about some aspects of modelling, but selectively blind about other points is inconsistent at best.  

 

There are a number of ways to work around this though... Such as running a carefully structured sequence of trains that progresses through time, starting with the earliest date and ending with the last, but ensuring that everything is correct regarding what is running alongside what at any given moment in the sequence.  This is surely better than (for illustration) more randomly running Atlantic’s alongside Deltics, misrepresenting historical reality.  Indeed, this approach offers more historical interest and educational value than simply modelling a fixed point in time.  Careful choice of a location that didn’t change much during the period would be necessary though, to maintain standards!

 

In my case I am contemplating modelling two completely different points in time, with separate stock to allow running sessions on an either/or basis.  Getting the railway environment right will be a bit more of a challenge, and may require a modular approach to some of the scenery, but it should be possible.  Clearly though, it won’t be on the scale of LB:  Tony’s experience last year of rolling back the time demonstrated that stock-swapping on such a epic scale would be too logistically challenging to be undertaken regularly.

 

On the subject of photographic record and the accurate modelling of coach formations, I like the fact that this is a foggy area.  It adds to the intrigue of researching the subject, it means there is always something new to learn, and allows individual interpretation of the subject.  If it was all fully documented In black and white... where’s the fun in that?

 

Phil  

[Headstock]

Looking at the photographs up thread, there is a certain logic to the featured trains that is consistent (not consist, yuck) with what you would expect from the CWN's . Given a bit of time it should be possible to pin them down. The presence of a Gresley brake composite, that has been highlighted at the tail end of one formation, would indicate, for example, that your signal man friend is correct, at least as far as the set and probably the working.

 

Of course, anybody wanting to model LNER mainline action should really consider the GCLE or the MS&LR. With approximately seven expresses and twelve ordinary passenger trains in each direction South of Leicester, in the weekday, daytime timetable, the GCLE is a much more manageable proposition for most modellers.

 

That said, LB succeeds admirably in portraying its time and location.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Headstock
add info and add space

[johndon]

37 minutes ago, Chamby said:

 

There are a number of ways to work around this though... Such as running a carefully structured sequence of trains that progresses through time, starting with the earliest date and ending with the last, but ensuring that everything is correct regarding what is running alongside what at any given moment in the sequence.  This is surely better than (for illustration) more randomly running Atlantic’s alongside Deltics, misrepresenting historical reality.  Indeed, this approach offers more historical interest and educational value than simply modelling a fixed point in time.  Careful choice of a location that didn’t change much during the period would be necessary though, to maintain standards!

 

 

This is exactly what I'm planning on my South Pelaw layout, a chronological series of trains from 1966 to the closure of the line in the 1980s so 9Fs and blue Class 37s will run but won't be seen alongside each other for example.  The one thing that is problematic and you mention it in your last sentence is that, between 1966 and 1980, the track plan changed quite substantially so I've had to make a decision on which year the track will be based on...

 

[Tony Wright]

Thanks to all for the recent comments. 

 

Unless one chooses an actual day in history, at an actual location and then only runs the locos/trains that ran on that day, then some compromises will be necessary. 

 

I most-often trainspotted at Chester (naturally, being a Cestrian) and I have published documents from a day's observation at Saltney Junction on a summer Saturday in the late-'50s (I could have been standing next to the compiler). A sports hall would be needed in 4mm to create such a scene!

 

With that in mind, Andrew's (Headstock) idea of modelling a line where there were far fewer trains makes sense. Except, it's boring in comparison. I can speak from personal experience of that. Kiveton Park gave easy access westwards to Sheffield Victoria or eastwards to Retford. I went to Victoria once (never to Sheffield Midland). The electrics I'd seen already, in Manchester, but the (very few) southbound 'expresses' were hauled in the main by B1s on the day of my visit. Contrast that to the next visit to Retford, where, in the first hour I'd seen three A4s, an A3 and two A1s! No contest; not for the trainspotter. 

 

I think the idea of representing a fairly tight timescale has merit, especially where the infrastructure didn't change. WMRC did that on Stoke Summit, where the years 1958-'61 were represented. It meant we had to ensure that, say, the W1 was not passing a Deltic, but it worked. We also carried on into the blue/grey era, because the mechanical signalling remained until the mid-'70s. 

 

The LB 1938 LNER weekend has been mentioned, but that was a huge logistical exercise; impossible without a large and highly-skilled team of builders of locos/stock. Graham Nicholas even went as far as building two replacement signals! 

 

Though nominally, LB's current sequence represents the summer of 1958, I admit to compromises. I should have a couple of A4s still with a single chimney (I don't, because those with single chimneys look puny in comparison, though I saw GANNET many, many times). I also have an A3 with double chimney and the useless fins beside it, representing 1959/'60. The prototype Deltic also runs on occasions (February '59 on to the ECML) and, (Rule 1!) a production Deltic or two from time to time! 

 

What I find difficult to accept are impossible situations where trains from totally different eras run side by side. This can often occur on club layouts, often at shows. I've mention before a Class 20 in BR all-blue, hauling a complete rake of brand-new, wooden PO wagons! 'That's what the owner likes' I was told. Each to their own, once again. 

[Jesse Sim]

17 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks to all for the recent comments. 

 

Unless one chooses an actual day in history, at an actual location and then only runs the locos/trains that ran on that day, then some compromises will be necessary. 

 

I most-often trainspotted at Chester (naturally, being a Cestrian) and I have published documents from a day's observation at Saltney Junction on a summer Saturday in the late-'50s (I could have been standing next to the compiler). A sports hall would be needed in 4mm to create such a scene!

 

With that in mind, Andrew's (Headstock) idea of modelling a line where there were far fewer trains makes sense. Except, it's boring in comparison. I can speak from personal experience of that. Kiveton Park gave easy access westwards to Sheffield Victoria or eastwards to Retford. I went to Victoria once (never to Sheffield Midland). The electrics I'd seen already, in Manchester, but the (very few) southbound 'expresses' were hauled in the main by B1s on the day of my visit. Contrast that to the next visit to Retford, where, in the first hour I'd seen three A4s, an A3 and two A1s! No contest; not for the trainspotter. 

 

I think the idea of representing a fairly tight timescale has merit, especially where the infrastructure didn't change. WMRC did that on Stoke Summit, where the years 1958-'61 were represented. It meant we had to ensure that, say, the W1 was not passing a Deltic, but it worked. We also carried on into the blue/grey era, because the mechanical signalling remained until the mid-'70s. 

 

The LB 1938 LNER weekend has been mentioned, but that was a huge logistical exercise; impossible without a large and highly-skilled team of builders of locos/stock. Graham Nicholas even went as far as building two replacement signals! 

 

Though nominally, LB's current sequence represents the summer of 1958, I admit to compromises. I should have a couple of A4s still with a single chimney (I don't, because those with single chimneys look puny in comparison, though I saw GANNET many, many times). I also have an A3 with double chimney and the useless fins beside it, representing 1959/'60. The prototype Deltic also runs on occasions (February '59 on to the ECML) and, (Rule 1!) a production Deltic or two from time to time! 

 

What I find difficult to accept are impossible situations where trains from totally different eras run side by side. This can often occur on club layouts, often at shows. I've mention before a Class 20 in BR all-blue, hauling a complete rake of brand-new, wooden PO wagons! 'That's what the owner likes' I was told. Each to their own, once again. 

It really does go down to each to their own, but what I find annoying, this is more common on Facebook groups, is when you mention to someone that what they have running, or a building, or anything is wrong, you get called the biggest a*shole in the world. 

 

That is why I prefer RMWEB, if I have something wrong, I take it in and try to correct it and thank who ever it was that told me. I don’t get all sh*tty because someone’s bagging out my work. 

 

 

[Kier Hardy]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

What I find difficult to accept are impossible situations where trains from totally different eras run side by side. This can often occur on club layouts, often at shows. I've mention before a Class 20 in BR all-blue, hauling a complete rake of brand-new, wooden PO wagons! 'That's what the owner likes' I was told. Each to their own, once again. 

...... and this is another impossible situation. Or is it?

 

It all depends on what you see, or what you want to see - everyone's different. 

 

[Chamby]

1 hour ago, Headstock said:

...Of course, anybody wanting to model LNER mainline action should really consider the GCLE or the MS&LR. With approximately seven expresses and twelve ordinary passenger trains in each direction South of Leicester, in the weekday, daytime timetable, the GCLE is a much more manageable proposition for most modellers.

 

That said, LB succeeds admirably in portraying its time and location.

 

49 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

...I went to Victoria once (never to Sheffield Midland). The electrics I'd seen already, in Manchester, but the (very few) southbound 'expresses' were hauled in the main by B1s on the day of my visit. Contrast that to the next visit to Retford, where, in the first hour I'd seen three A4s, an A3 and two A1s! No contest; not for the trainspotter. ...

 

A bit harsh, Tony!  Yes the B1 was the mainstay of GCLE passenger services at one time, these and very tired ex-LMS 4-6-0’s post 1958.  A few years earlier though and A3’s featured prominently too, and the occasional V2.  But surely the GCLE was more renowned for its cross-country and freight workings, than top link passenger services (Master Cutler and South Yorkshireman excepted). GW Halls routinely seen up as far as Leicester, and of course the famed and frequent ‘runners’ between Annesley and Woodford Halse.  Even 9F’s hauling expresses for a season, because they were the best locomotives available to the shedmaster on the day...  did that ever occur on the ECML?

 

The contents of Top Shed has its place, of course, but Each line has its distinct character, and we are richer for it.