peterd777

Yes. But very brief. In the first video at about 6.06 minutes shows four rails. In the second video at about 3.20 minutes shows a sketch with a middle rail but hard to work out if there is fourth. My mothers family lived at Prescot near Liverpool and I can remember on one visit my father taking for a ride on the overhead as it was due to close. He also had somehow acquired a Mersey Railway uniform button (showing a liver bird and the words Mersey Railway) which I still have.

Seem to be well organised for a very congested crossing including a man with whistle to control it. Except for the pushing forward regardless when the barriers lift the people all appear to understand what to do. Intriguing, I never realised that in Indonesia trains drive on the right, even though the road traffic is on the left. Of course the railways were built by the Dutch who had used right hand drive for road traffic from when they were occupied by Napoleon and had lost temporary control of overseas colonies to mainly British influence. Probably too big an issue to later attempt changing the roads in such populous country as Indonesia.

According to my GWR route map (circa 1930s) the GWR had running rights to Manchester from Warrington.

Thanks for the memories. As a child in the fifties I was fascinated by the variety of trains on this route. Especially the Electric locomotives. Whenever we went up to London we had wide choice either from Slough to Paddington more often/conveniently Uxbridge to Baker Street and beyond. I seem to remember some trains often terminating at Baker Street and having to change by walking through to the Circle Line. I never knew the pattern whether peak/non peak hours etc. There was often an electric locomotive parked in a short siding waiting to take the next Amersham line train. With child’s eyes from Uxbridge we had the big red electric trains, then at Harrow on the Hill we were joined by brown (timber?) trains with electric locomotives and then we were even joined by smaller electric red trains (Bakerloo). All headed for London. Mean time on separate tracks alongside there were more brown! trains with steam engines (and a massive coal goods yard). As often happens my teens got complicated. Silver electric trains and green diesels appeared. Steam went away.

Filmed at Cobstone Windmill At Turvillle Hill Bucks. Good GWR territory not far from Marlow and Henley. Great cycling territory in my long lost youth. 1950’s and 1960’s. Long dry valleys through the Chilterns. Turville has appeared in lots of TV shows. It was the Vicar of Dibley village and church. Sadly it never had a station.

I suspect that the box may have had nothing under it and when it was removed (or fell off) the logo was just reapplied to the metal sheet underneath it. The photo’ with the box seems to be less faded crimson paint. The photo’ without the box is more faded but one can just see a rectangle of brighter paint around the logo where the box would have been.

You should be alright. Over many years my wife has never had a problem using her Australian passport in the UK residents’ queue, when accompanying me (British passport).

I believe the the Isle of Man railways are in some way integrated into the public transport system and so should qualify. Ten years ago we were able to use combined tickets for the buses and the railways. I even speculated on the possibility of using the steam train as a cool airport link. The connecting walk (on a country lane) would be shorter than at many air terminals. In the end we decided our luggage was to heavy, so took the bus. I do think though that locomotive would and should exclude trams and multiple units.

The warship shown on the first page of that thread (in 1963) seems to have been taken from the same location as your photograph. The back ground structures appear to be the same. All be it from a slightly different angle.

Hi John. First an apology for contradicting you. I learned to drive in the early sixties. The signs and road markings shown in your link are late sixties. Signage changed after the Worboys Committee 1963 report to what is basically the current style. The following link has interesting before and after illustrations of signs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worboys_Committee I believe some changes occurred even later i.e. the zig zag lines before and after pedestrian crossings. Peter

I seem to have heard somewhere that the dream liner was designed by Boeing to seat eight abreast with 2- 4- 2 a fairly civilised set up for couples and not too bad for single travellers. The first airlines to take delivery had this set up. Then the airlines who specify the seats realised by making the seats a little bit narrower they could fit in nine abreast 3-3-3. Of course train operating companies wouldn't do any thing like that would they!!!!!!

Yes, certainly unless clearly marked smoking was the default permission in trains, planes, work places, and even cinemas during the fifties and sixties and probably earlier. I remember my parents, who were smokers, would always fuss and move along the platform if the specifically marked “no smoking” compartment pulled up in front of them. Even smoking households (a rare occurrence) would have ash trays for guests. Interestingly the buses had no smoking downstairs.

I recall spotting in Slough about 1957/8. The three car GWR railcar set was sometimes on the up stopping line in the early afternoon (just as we had to get back to school). According to my Ian Allan ABC I marked it as W33W and W38W. My memory suggests it was crimson and cream. I have no recall of it being different from the single railcars which were then crimson and cream. However it was long time ago.

Love your post. If the big railways are 5’ 3” then by definition 4’ 8 1/2” is narrow. Using the same logic I will raise you by nominating the Melbourne system mentioned above. To bring things back on topic there are even level crossings with trams and trains and different overhead voltages. Our tram drivers certainly do not do stupid things. But at such a crossing near me on slight hill I have seen grooves in the bitumen beyond the tram catch points !!!

I am not familiar with the pre-war situation but did some teenage spotting at Gerrards Cross during the late 1950s. Local trains came from Marylebone and were teak articulated suburban stock hauled by standard tanks and I think ex LMS? or LNER? large tanks. Later replaced by 4 car DMUs. Expresses were from Paddington to Birmingham and beyond usually hauled by kings later replaced by Westerns. I seem to recall at the end of steam a late afternoon train semi fast to Banbury stopped at G X. (no idea why but useful for some people). A very short train but Castle hauled. Goods traffic was long coal trains with ex WD 2 8 0s they often stopped at in the platform line at Gerrards Cross to allow expresses overtake. Sometimes they stopped on the main line to allow suburban trains to overtake. Gerrards Cross had a goods yard and the station approach had a few little coal merchants sheds/offices. This is probably a much later period than you are looking at but I couldn’t resist going down memory lane. I will watch with interest the pre-war history of this line.

Spot on and I didn’t recognise it. My school was somewhere behind those engine sheds. There is small figure by the fence at the bottom of the picture. I can’t claim that it is me but this is where my friends and I spent our lunch hours, in our spotting days in the late 1950s. BR era a fair while after this picture was taken I presume.