Garry Morris

Returning to the topic of livery. The new colour is functional rather than showy. It is cheap to maintain to a high standard and is a recognisable brand colour. It is designed specifically for its purpose. FGW are operating at or near full capacity and gaining further passengers through flashy livery applications will create problems of overcrowding.The company is trying to solve this overcrowding by buying bigger trains and creating more seats plus abolishing catering on the London route thus saving on a catering vehicle. They are unable to control numbers by economic means and put up fares so dumbing down is their chosen option. Plymouth and Cornwall have no motorway or airport to compete with mass travel. FGW have done their homework on this and long term they need to hold useage to manageable levels. Some London bound HSTs are pretty unbearable with overcrowding.The plain livery is entirely appropriate they don't have to sell themselves on livery.

At Paignton! I see a man and a boy on the up platform!

Not a diesel but this coach on 'The Torbay Flyer' recalls an age when catering was taken seriously; a coach given over solely to food preparation. Much food prep was going on in Platform 2 for the return meal, all the Pullman seats were laid up ready. Other staff of all sorts exchanged banter with Dartmouth Railway staff in the sunshine having been on the go since 06.00 or before from Nuneaton. There were 40 of these coaches built originally but this is a latter day conversion not an original as it is beyond the number series of the originals as M80042. It shares this practice with Tornado! I am not sure what it started out as but I imagine there must be an 80041 somewhere.

More of the same event!

Platform 2 at Kingswear has an old world charm of it's own quite unlike any other arrival platform anywhere. Possibly because it is hemmed in between the canopy and the wall and holds 15 coaches. It will be in use three consecutive days this week. Here is the Torbay Flyer with a rare visit of Class 20's to the terminus which was bustling with the ragatta in full swing and HMS Monmouth taking prime position in the river. There was a queue to cross the river which extended all the way from the pontoon to the buffet door on the platform! Class 20's in Devon probably don't outnumber the class 40 visits though they have only ever visited in pairs I believe. A stirling performance was put in by these machines to make an on time arrival. Here they fill the terminus with their unfamiliar whistle awaiting release by D2371.

Correction SDR class 20 did appear at a diesel gala according to my records back in the 90's.

Hope to see the assault on Goodrington bank. RedArrows only a flypast from now on. Let's hope this isn't the last Torbay Flyer. I can't recall 20s ever going to Kingswear before, most other mainline classes have except 24\26\27. Don't think we've seen any at Paignton for a long time. Good weather ATM clear blue sky Here in Cornwall.

Yep. That's definitely solid evidence! Good choice of locations to get the carriage window shots.

08 955 trundling through platform 4 at Exeter St Davids in June 1981 on the Exmouth Junction - Riverside Yard trip. This was part of Turn 1601 which included a trip down to Exeter City Basin to shunt Kings Asphalt.

The daily trip working from Riverside yard to Exmouth Junction repair shops was rarely photographed. Thanks for posting those.

Bristol and Bath are on the M4 corridor.All lands that lie North of that corridor are Midlands orientated and all lands that lie South of that corridor are culturally Westcountry. Effectively Bristol is the gateway to the Midlands when viewed from the Westcountry.

What a stunning shot of 37275 TG, Perfectly framed and elevated with the red cliffs behind, I guess this was the Summer Saturday dated South Wales working, In steam days this used to produce an Ebbw Junction 9F to Kingswear! The equivalent working features earlier in this thread with a 33 on the Swansea at Aller and Dawlish Warren,. Did a 37 turn up on this working on other occasions?

Taken from the bridge in the last photo this Ruston shunter was always stabled at the end of the headshunt. This location on the clifftop would make a superbly interesting model railway layout. Compact, dramatic, red cliff scenery, heavy industry and an industrial loco to run. One day it will appear in an exhibition surely! The Gasworks were always very smelly and discharged hot sulphurous water in a stream down Hollicombe beach. We were never allowed to play anywhere near it. A regular train of about 20 coal trucks came up from Kingswear daily? The Ruston which here is shown fresh from it's very last overhaul, fell into disuse and the train loco was used to position trucks from about the mid 1960's onwards. I remember seeing D864 Zambesi in ex works condition. It was the first loco I remember seeing in BR blue and looked stunning in the bright sunshine (1967?). The Ruston I believe was a ubiquitous off the shelf loco of the Ruston range but none could have been posted to a more bizarre location as this!

From the same location about to pass under Hollicombe bridge where the headshunt of the Gasworks Sidings stopped on the landward side of the mainline.

The complete railtour powers through Torre on the return leg.

A Short History Of Class 40's in Devon Surprisingly at least 15 Class 40's have appeared in Devon so far. This may not be a complete record because no one person holds all the data! Please post if there are any other 40's that you know have come our way. 10/62 D336 11.30 Liverpool-Penzance 9/10 77 40081+40084 MTK railtour. Paddington - Exeter (2x25 on to Paignton) 16/10/77 40081+40083 Deltic to Devon railtour. Paddington-Newton Abbot (2x33 West) 6/5/78 40118 Cathedrals Express railtour. Cardiff-Exeter 3/12/78 40028 Parkandillack clay working 20/5/82 40126 Exeter Riverside inbound freight service 19/9/82 40025 Western Whistler railtour. Crewe-Plymouth (2x37 to Carne Point) 28/5/84 40057+40135 Devonian railtour. Preston-Paignton and Meldon 16/9/84 40079 The Devon Belle railtour. Swansea-Paignton 24/11/84 40118+40086 Devon Quarryman railtour. Paddington-Meldon 31/8/87 D200 Desert Songster railtour. Waterloo-Exeter 30/4/94 40012 Display exhibit-Riverside Yard 22/5/04 40145 Western Whistler 2 railtour. Crewe-Plymouth 28/8/06 40145 The Whistle Pixie railtour. Ealing Broadway-Penzance 8/09/07 40145 Devonian railtour. Banbury-Kingswear 20/9/08 40145 Torbay Whistler railtour. Thame Bridge-Kingswear 27/6/09 40145 The Cornish Explorer railtour. Portsmouth Harbour-Penzance 25/5/10 40145 The East Lancs Champion railtour. Crewe- Penzance+ with D1015 This photo is of 40057 and 40135 passing the site of the former Hollicombe Gas Works sidings. A creative railtour as this is only a four coach train, the rest of it went to Meldon Quarry, a very popular short train!

Thanks Dave. Surely this must be one of the most remarkable workings to Cornwall ever. On a par with a Jubilee once turning up at Goodrington!

What are Traffic and Traction pages? Are they a complete record? Very interesting that 40028 was recorded so far west. Is there a date? I once heard that axle loadings on the Royal Albert bridge were a limiting factor to heavier diesel electrics in the 1960s. Maybe Cuneo's curious painting of a class 40 coming off the bridge into Saltash isn't so far fetched after all (see tria-ang catalogue 9?)! The only other recorded 40 to Cornwall is 40145 on railtour duty as far as I know.

Paignton 14th June 1969. This arrived as a double header a few minutes earlier. D1933 came off the front and refuged? in Park sidings and will be the standby loco for the day. This might explain the strange headcode for this overnight arrival - taken off 'the wall' at Sands Road Paignton at about 07.30. I remember my mum couldn't understand why I wouldn't get up on a school day but I could be out trainspotting at 7 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday! D1687 is displaying a white colour around parts of the bogie frame - stress related? Any number of 47's had this colouring in the same place. One of the overnight arrivals to Paignton sometimes featured a 45 straight out of the paint shops at Derby works, unfortunately I didn't always have my camera with me and ex works doesn't really translate into Black and White!

To round off 'double headed in Devon'! A perfect evening in Paignton sees D153 and D1925 with 'board off' ready to depart with a local train? Taken on 12th July 1969 it had been a full on Summer Saturday and I suspect one of the pair had been on standby duty in Goodrington Yard. This duty included some splitting of stock even in '69 but more importantly the loco could substitute for any arrival with a defect including shortage of fuel which could happen on occasions. 2B46 may not be correct but as the train had waited for time it was probably a timetabled local to Newton Abbot working 12 coaches that would otherwise have been ecs. Slick working between Paignton South and Paignton North boxes sometimes resulted in a non stop run through the platform from the yard at Goodrington. Judging by the clothing, the people held up at the gates are most definately 'Grockles '- the local term for holiday makers. Actually as teenage boys we relished their arrival especially if they were female and attractive!

One last shot. The loco ran round and then set the stock back into the Platform 1? Then there was refuelling just beyond the signal box on the old goods shed road. Logged at 102mph on the down run, a good trip by all accounts.

Another stabling point in Devon! Refueling on the hoof. This tour arrived with 500 gallons which was topped up to over 1000 gallons at kingswear, Not often a Deltic is refuelled at a marina!

D9009 Alycidon storms out of Greenaway Tunnel 4/07/14.. Kingswear to Derby, Pathfinder Tours

The ultimate pulling power in Devon in the diesel era? This one cost me an ice-cream as I remember. As a 16 year old in 1974 I had a regular bike ride with a friend on a Sunday afternoon which would take us all over South Devon using our trusty one inch to the mile Ordnance survey map. We found ourselves at Newton Abbot and he bet that the 12.30 Paddington - Plymouth would be a double headed Western, would you believe it, it was! I think it was a summer dated working and he had heard a rumour that it had happened the previous week when new rosters had started. So here we are at Newton Abbot with D1062 Western Courier piloting D1049 Western Monarch on the 1B29 with the iconic Newton Abbot Power Station cooling tower in the background. I am not sure if this pair had worked all the way from Paddington.

D6343 was in fact the first diesel to be seen at Moretonhampstead on 9th August 1962. (Source:Modern Railways) D6327 was noted at BNS on a 17.45 from Oxford (date unknown). A lot of information on these machines is in issue 206 of Traction (Nov 2012) where I have outlined everything that I could research on their operations.