D1001

Thank you Keith. I will look in to that if/when I move forward with BRDatabase.

I am adding cloudflare to my website - this is a service that will hopefully root out unwanted bots and increase security. It will take time and I'm not sure that I will be able to get the website up and running this month but things are happening behind the scenes.

Once again, my website is unavailable, but this time it is thanks to facebook. I don't fully understand this but facebook is indexing my website over and over again (it's a known thing) and has consumed all of my bandwidth for March (and it's only the 13th!) The hosting company wants me to go to a dedicated server which is like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. The cost of running it would triple from $18 to $48 per month (and that's just the starter offer). I can't afford that and I can't expect donations to cover that either. So, I have added some code to try and kick facebook straight off my pages but I still have consumed all my bandwidth so I cannot see brdatabase being available again until April. I am re-writing the website (it'll make it mobile friendly) and I am hoping to deploy to AWS where I may have more control over things. In the meantime, I am sorry for the incovenience. If you have any urgent queries, drop me a line and I'll look on my local copy for the relevant data.

As a follow up to the recent downtime on www.BRDatabase.info, I just wanted to thank everyone who has made donations to and comments about BRDatabase in the past week. I have probably received more in the past week than in the last 5 years combined. I am currently going through allocations in the late '40s and early '50s as I believe there are a few discrepancies that I am trying to iron out, which will probably please some here! As an aside, I mentioned that I had taken c. 48,000 photos of documents at the National Archive in the past 5 or 6 years. Does anyone have collections from elsewhere, such as the NRM or provincial museums and would be willing to share them? Thanks.

Whoops ☹️

I guess I owe you guys another apology for BRDatabase being unavailable. I was never very good at planning ahead and this time the requirements of my job caught me out. I have had a surge in donations which I much appreciate - BRDatabase has made a net loss of about £1000 in the past 5 years, so it is quite a commitment. And that is without research costs (for example, I have been to the National Archives a number of times and have taken over 48,000 images of documents such as loco record cards in those visits). Still, I have no plans to shut it down until 'death do us part' as it has cost me a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Thank you all for your continued support and words of encouragement. The last few days has been like reading an obituary, full of kind words and laments. I will try not to let the database disappear again!

I have noticed several discussions where members have been trying to determine what tender type was attached to members of a class at a particular time so that it would be possible to get an accurate snapshot of the configuration of a loco for a realistic depiction on a model layout. I looked at the existing snapshot page on BRDatabase and determined that it would be fairly straightforward to add this functionality where this information was already on the database. So, for instance, the tender information for the GWR Castle is already loaded and so a snapshot of tender type is possible for that class. This also applies to the LNER A3 and A4 but not much else at the moment. To see what I mean, run a query on this page: https://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=146003&type=S&page=snapshot and the current tender type is displayed. I have also extended this to show boilers where known. There are some minor bugs (like tender types displayed for long scrapped locos) and I will address those shortly. Although this feature is very limited at the moment, it should improve now I know it might be of use. Please let me know what you think!

As an additional to the above, I am including reports of livery changes too. This, again, is a WIP and will take some time to complete, so please bear with me.

I've recently been adding lots of info regarding the modifications made to diesel locomotives, such as dual braking, boiler status, livery etc... If you remember the spotting books back in the day used to publish a code indicating the current status of a loco, such as xo (dual braked, no heating) or vb (vacuum braked, working boiler). This is what I am aiming for. So, it is currently a work in practise (practice?) but will hopefully give modellers a clue as to what was what and when. Class snapshots have been enhanced so you can see the config of an engine at a particular date. As I said, though, it's a WIP.

You can see a few in 1934 - 5715/7/27 for example.

I have allocation books going back to 1903 - but haven't been through them yet - I can have a look if you are still searching.

I have had a look at "RAIL 254.99 - Register of monthly shed allocations of locomotive stock, 1945-46". 4144 indeed went new to Tondu, entering service ostensibly on 10th September 1946. It only stayed there until February 1947 though when it went to Severn Tunnel Junction. However, it returned in June 1957 4145 went to Tondu in August 1947 (coming from Ebbw Jct). It stayed there until moving to Cardiff in October 1948.

OK - got that - I use cache files to reduce the load on the database and when something changes, I need to delete the cache files so they can be refreshed. Guess what I forgot to do!

Quite often the dates of scrapping in the press are the dates sold to the scrapyard,not the cutting dates. I used to have a lot more information regarding scrapping but took most of it down because of the aggressive and childish behaviour of some members of the 'What Really Happened to Steam' team. They threatened me with 'exposure' in the railway press for using Peter Hands "What Happened to Steam" booklets which were being revealed as inaccurate but honest records. Peter and his team did a lot of work fixing the misinformation that came out of a discredited correspondent of the RCTS in the late 1960's regarding steam scrapping. Peter unfortunately died a few years ago but his website is very well worth visiting as there is a lot of verified information. The other team have done some great research to fix the errors but their blame culture seems to be part of a modern disease and it does them discredit.