I guess I'll have to go back to spending more time doing work!!
Thanks very much for sharing all of these photos of a world that is before my time; it strikes me that they pick up wide cross-section of railway life - and not just the big expresses - and this is what makes this thread so good.
Look forward to the Northumberland pictures - it's one of my favourite parts of the country and those old branches that wandered the country are long lost.
Thanks to Armchair Modeller and P D & SWJR for the Nottingham-Northampton route. My attempts to follow dismantled railways on the current OS / Street Maps was flawed because I foolishly assumed that the lines connected at Melton!
Thanks - and thece to Syston I presume, and then Leicester, Mkt Har? Although I lived in Northampton for 10 years most of the lines in the area had long been taken up and with it a myriad cross country services
I'm interested by the references to Nottingham Victoria to Northampton trains (7302 et al). What route did these run by? If I understand things correctly Nottingham Victoria is a Great Central line station. Did the trains make their way from there on to the MML and via Market Harborough and on to Castle Station - or did they take another route off the GC later? The services are clearly LMR motive power.
SEMG online has the following in the H1/H2 section:
http://www.semgonline.com/steam/h1-h2_02.html
which would seem to show more than a static trial. The same photo also appears in the Leader section:
http://www.semgonline.com/steam/leader_02.html
with the added note that Hartland Point performed succesfully at speeds up to 80 mph