roythebus

It never cease to amaze me that in the time it took UKplc to build HS1, the French and Germans built almost their entire high speed networks! For once the government seems to have foresight in planning and hopefully building this line. Had their forerunners had similar foresight in the early 1960's, then we would not now have capacity problems as major routes like the GC,Oxford-Cambridge, Uckfield-Lewes would still be there to take some of the additional traffic. The nimbys living on the route of HS1 a few years back are amongst the first to use Eurotunnel to get abroad without the hassle of going by air! And the noise of the E* trains isn't anywhere near as deafening as they made out. The only major problem I'm aware of with HS1 is that of groundwater drainage.

Back to the Met line question, remember the original Met was built with very wide tunnels to take broad gauge stock; the track was indeed dual gauge, so there would have been little difficulty fitting continental size stock there. The Met A stock was the widest stock to run on any British railway system! The Widened Lines were built to C1 stock on the St.Pancras bit; York Way and Hotel Curve could only take short suburban stock due to the sharp curves, so no big locos there! Stanier 2-6-2T locos were used on the Midland services to Moorgate. ISTR reading that Watkins' grand plan was for through trains to run from the GCR onto the Met, then via the Circle to Farringdon, then via Snow Hill to the continent. Meanwhile, back to the original question, an A4 ran out of Waterloo in about 1966/67 on a special, so it WAS possible to see an A4 and Buliied pacifics together!

I'd suggest that the straight/bowed cables depended on the length of the cables when fitted! Replacements could have been a bit longer, so would appear bowed when stowed away.

The only "regular" moves at Richmond was an evening parcels working up till about 1985 then the stock transfer to the NLL when it was 2EPB units! Prior to relaying in 1972 there was a double junction at Richmond from the LSWR to the DR/NLL which saw the occasional freight until they put a weight limit on Kew Bridge, 73s and 33s only! There were also a couple of electrified sidings at Richmond behind the signal box which were out of use by about 1968 when Pioneer Coaches (remember them?) took over the goods yard.

To add to what Gwiwer says, I'm not aware of any special arrangements at Richmond for stock transfer between the SW and NLL/DR sections (electrically) as the 4th rail is as he says bonded to the running rails on both sides of the station. I'm not sure of the arrangements at Queens Park as I've never worked on that line, but do know that there's a regular Bakerloo train to Kilburn High Road to keep the 4th rail "clean" and to keep drivers' route knowledge. See the district Dave site as this was discussed on there recently. As for the GN taking over the Northern city branch, I was at KX when this work was carried out and worked and walked the tunnels to Old Street. The tunnel was clear for a 31 as far as Highbury, an 08 reached Old Street albeit with a few scratches on the roof, but later in the works we regularly used the cut-down 501s converted to battery cars. These had an excellent turn of speed on the open section, one I worked achieved well over 60 mph on the Hertford branch!! But I digress. The common thing for 313s taking the wrong route towards Turnham Green was to change ends, release the brake, and roll back onto NR metals!

It would have had a problem as the DR goes towards Turnham Green....more than once 501s have ventured onto DR metals from Gunnersbury; luckily the neutral section is quite a long way from the junction, so they can usually roll back onto their home power source.. I once had to put a 6 car COP train in Wimbledon Park depot during a major shut-down when a train broke its leading wheelset at Parsons Green, circa 1971! It stayed in WP a week or so before they could clear the dead train and get a couple of battery locos round to tow it back.

OK, as one who has worked on the District, Met, and the South Western, I feel I may be a bit qualified to comment, though maybe not on today's situation! Correct, LU used the "split potential" for reasons stated by Royaloak, to prevent stray currents corroding the cast iron tunnels. Where NR meets DR, there are indeed neutral sections where trains coast through the gap. On the Wimbledon line these are on Putney Bridge, and on the Richmond line between Turnham Green and Gunnersbury. I don't know if they had any on the Euston-Watford line, but if so were presumably at Queens Park. At both DR locations there's a set of very long, heavy jump leads so that if a train should get stuck in the gap, the lead can be plugged into the train and onto the "juice" rails in the direction of travel to enable the train to be driven off. The neutral gap was ISTR 2 trains long, just in case a failed train was being assisted. On the NR sections, the 4th (centre) rail is bonded to the nearest running rail to the outside 3rd rail, this is to enable the short circuiting device (SCD) to be used in the event of an emergency isolation of the power supply. LU stock has a longer SCD which goes across the 3rd and 4th rails. As for rolling stock, the old DR Q stock and SR SUB (and earlier) stock had a bus line jumper running the length of the train, so in effect all collector shoes were connected. Everything on those units worked at line volts, except on the Q stock, where the door control worked at 110v fed from a battery. With the advent of more modern stock on the SR, there was bus line cable within each 2 or 4 car unit; on the DR C/O/P stock and 1938 later tube stock within each 2 or 3 car unit. On R stock, each car had collector shoes and each car was motored. C69s are connected as 2 car units. As far as I remember there was no limit on going over notch 2 on SR stock on the Wimbledon or Richmond branches, except for 4REPs on the Wimbledon line! There was a limit on class 73s not using 3rd rail on the North London line as the substations there were rated for the 501 stock only! LU stock CANNOT run on 3rd rail only, there is no connection between the centre shoes and the frame. Certain battery locos and Met loco Sarah Siddons have a switch to connect the 4th rail shoes to the frame for this purpose.

KX men would sometimes work a 45 on the 16:30 or whatever it was from Leeds to KX. They were the curse of us as they just couldn't keep time!

I regularly worked the Cambridge line from 75-78 as a secondman. the 31s were well up to the task and as I've documented elsewhere on this forum, we regularly managed the ton on the up through Wood Green tunnel with 8 on!! I can only remember one 31 failure during that time, that was on the double track bit at Welwyn in the evening peak!! Chaos ensued but luckily they sent a light engine bang road from Welwyn. I can't recall using a 45 or 46 on the Cambridges; 37s would have been a no-no as KX men weren't trained on them, though Cambridge men were. 47s very rarely, and never a Deltic! That's not to say they didn't work the Cambridge trains though. Fun days.

My BR leather driver's bag from 1974, well-worn!! My enamel tea-can from 1970 succumbed to tin worm on the KESR about 3 years ago and was thrown on the scrap with great ceremony... From LT, a SOUTH ACTON destination plate; the sign from the South Kensington Exhibition subway (about 8' long), plus loads of other odds. And my memories of happier (and sometimes not so happy) times when the railway was a railway!

I know the feeling, I've got a shed full of old buses to be getting on with!

You seem to be doing a good job there, keep it up. It's nice to see someone taking an interest in wagon preservation. all too often we see lines of wagons on heritage lines all looking un-loved and untidy! Using metric bolts....aaaaaaagh! But need must! I try to use original thread bolts when I'm doing bus restoration (my full-time job). Could I suggest you oil the springs? If the wagon's likely to be shunted around a bit of oil won't go amiss. Well done.

That'll make a change on the 0845 to Seaford, a 313 with catering and toilet!

Carters Tested Seeds had a big site next to the old A3 Kingston by Pass and next to the railway, north side of the line. I suspect the entire site has now been built on.

There was Wimbledon yard; the hangar-like building there was indeed an aircraft hangar, reportedly moved from Southampton. It used to be used to house flying boats! The Merton Road sidings by the Lines Bros. factory was in use till the mid 1960's if I recall correctly. I remember seeing a container wagon there with a lines Bros container, just like the one Tri-ang used to produce! There was also Barnes yard, usually shunted by a 73 or 33 in latter years, this was by the bridge where the singer Marc Bolan was killed in a road accident. West Brompton yard on the WLL, you can still see tracers of that; Clapham new yard on the Brighton side, already mentioned, was a GW yard served by a steep incline from the down slow Brighton line, worked by pannier tanks! Basically anywhere on the Wimbledon-West Croydon would make an interesting model, speaking of which Tooting Junction was at the other end on the Merton Abbey line, had a goods yard and some railway houses. My late father -in-law used to live in one on that site..

No pics, just a few more memories: my regular mate at KX was Ron "Brusher" Warren. He started as a cleaner at Hatfield just after the war and rapidly progressed to driver at KX after Hatfield shed closed. I worked with him in 2 link, 1977/78, mostly doing ECS and a couple of days to Leeds every week. At Donny, we were usually met by a group of yoofs, some of them asked "can we cabbit". Ron used to ask if they talked funny. "No we don't taark fooni" (Yorkshire accent). He'd then ask "do you catch a bus or a boos". "Oh, we catch a boos". "I spose you have a baaarf", "no we have a bath" (Yorkshire accent again).... sometimes they's try to do a paper rubbing of the nameplate if we were on a Deltic, and they'd produce a 20' roll of wallpaper! Another time we had 3 or 4 cabbits on a 47. Just as they got on, we got "right away" and went right away...to Leeds! Complete with cabbits! That's when the kids asked "ow d'we get back?" "That's YOUR problem" says Ron, as we had a long break before we worked the 1700 back! Happy days...

Quite possibly. There can't be that many Bert Collins around! I don't know what happened to the rest of the original management crew of the "original shop, AMS Pickering, who moved to Wemyss Bay, Viscount Garnock, also owner of a steam loco at the time, and a chap called Peter Beeston who was the "finance director when I worked there. I know AG Thomas is no longer with us; in the workshops we had Mike Sheppard, Geoff Packham and Simon Kelly who made the coach kits. Mike's locos had the tag MJS stamped on them, Simon's coaches had a cast SMK label, but Geoff's work went unrecorded afaik.

ISTR seeing a rather mixed train in the mid 1960's at Paddington going to Cheltenham Races, with a sand coloured Western, and a rake of coaches of every type and colour, including a Bullied, a couple of Hawksworths, Mk1s in maroon and a WR Mk1, and an early mk2 in blue and grey! Pity I never had a camera at the time. It left from platform 1.

The motor bogie design seems to have been copied by MTK many years later, with an X04 mounted over the wheels driving a drive shaft through large spur gears.

I happened to visit a shop next door to 14 York Way quite a few years back with my younger son to pick up some sound equipment from the top floor. Looking down out of the back window explained why we could always hear diesel locos at certain times of the day...the model shop backed onto one of the vetilator shafts for Hotel Curve! Had I bothered to look out of the top floor there I would have seen the trains going to Moorgate. Oh well...

There used to be a part-timer at Ashtead who done morning platform duties. He said he used to be a driver at Stewarts Lane in the steam days. He'd always meet and greet the drivers of Up trains and offer them half a Fishermans Friend! He must have been in his late 70's or early 80's, and that was back in the 1980's! I never did get to know his name. A nice old boy though.

Here's a copy of this email from my son who lives round the corner from the site. Remember the same Gervase is now fully restored and was working on the KESR last weekend. As an aside. when I worked at rugby in 1974/75, we used to work the sand hoppers from Willesden to Crewe, and the return empties. As we've discussed elsewhere on this forum, max speed was 35mph when loaded, even when vacuum fitted as the sand would blow everywhere. It couldn't be covered as it would then be explosive so we were told. Following a goods train at 35mph on the WCML was not popular... Nice picture of Gervase in original form- http://www.oldreigate.com/?goto=mersthamquarry Interesting local history stuff on my area…. And a few other pics of the Homlmethorpe sidings “before and after” Regards, Vince Gould Southern Railway Assistant Fleet Engineer- New trains

Just after I sent the last message I remembered Bill Woodman's surname!

I worked with Ted Hartwell and Mick Becks in my year at Rugby, 1974/75! Ted's son Mick joined a while after I did and followed me to Waterloo as a driver, as did Mr.Mawby,"fatboy" Robbo and others. The booking on point used to be manned by a TCS (Train Crew Supervisor), one of whom they reckoned used to scare the life out of a Hammer Horror film, known as the Gay Gordon. His teeth were multi-coloured, and he used to ride a moped; his crash helmet used to hide some of his worst features. There was Horace Biddle, also a TCS and someone called Bill, I foget his surname. Some of these moved to Rugby when Woodford Halse closed. There was a chap there called Clive Everett who I first met in about 1970 soon after I joined the Underground. I cadged a lift from him one Sunday returning from Portsmouth to Waterloo (he was a driver at Waterloo at the time). I didn't bump into him until a few years later when I lived at Northampton. He told me he took a girl out one night (when he was a fireman at Rugby), and "saw her home" as they did in those days. After a session on the doorstep, the upstairs window opened, and he was horrified to see Horace's face out of the bedroom window!! Harumph. I don't know if Clive is still around, he must be retired by now. There was a roster clerk at the booking on window too, always laughing and joking, Smithy was his name. I booked on one day, and he said "I've got lucky, I just come into some money". "Oh yeh"..."Yes, I had a w**k in a cash register".... That started the day on a bright note!

Probably the most unlikely place I've seen grounded BR van bodies was in Waterlooplein in amsterdam in about 1978! There were loads of them being used as storage for market traders. Quite how or when they got there who knows? I found a picture of one the other day.