The Pilotman

This thread is a highlight of my day. Some lovely, interesting and atmospheric shots. Thanks!

Definitely Portsmouth Harbour. This aerial photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/onemananhisdog/8583332383/ shows clearly the two tall buildings visible in the distance in the Class 47 photo.

Do I win a prize?

Help! I have no recollection of taking this photo - can anyone recognise the location, with tank wagons parked in a bay platform, and why would a 47 be hauling such a short train?

Could it be Portsmouth Harbour?

And if it's a short train it could possibly be a Cardiff to Portsmouth working.

Thirteen 37s all in a row: http://www.martinbray-ukloco.com/severntunneljunction-2.html

Bit of a nuisance if you need to get the one in the middle...

The term was certainly used in the Reading area during the 80s by bashers, if not staff.

Great photos. The one at Westbury is 6V96, the Tonbridge to Meldon Quarry ballast empties which invariably was a pair of 33s.

When I worked at Reading in the early 90s I remember one evening when two unusual workings called on the down main platform in succession. First up was the Dover to Liverpool cross country running about 90 late. The original 47 had failed on the Southern somewhere and was replaced by a 56 through to Birmingham. Once it had left in a screaming hurry, the next train in was the 1748 Paddington to Westbury hauled by another 56 (I think it was 56001) throughout. It would have been nice for three in a row but the 1800 Paddington to Swansea was the booked HST, sadly.

From a brief perusal of my old notes, I'd say that any of the Old Oak, Bath Road, Canton, Bescot or Crewe Diesel 47s would be likely.

Cracking photo - I loved those peak hour Thames Valley commuter services. Well maintained large logo Old Oak 50s on 7 coach VB Mk1 sets, with enthusiastic drivers like RMWeb's Brian Daniels - what's not to like? Fast from Paddington to Reading, often above the rated maximum for the stock with the BR1 bogies banging and hunting away over the points at Dolphin Junction and Ruscombe, before rolling into Reading in 27 mins for the 36 miles. Then crossing to the Down Relief for the main event - all stations to Didcot: flat out in notch 7 from each start until the last possible braking point, then hard in with the brake for a beautifully judged stop each time....Tilehurst, Pangbourne, Goring, Cholsey, Didcot....before a final sprint to Oxford. Deep joy! If I ever make enough money, one day I'd like to pay for a preserved 50 and Vintage Trains' VB set to do it all over again....

David

When I was a young basher in the Reading area I would sometimes get up early, cycle to Reading West and jump on the Newbury to Paddington loco-hauled train for the short run into Reading. Back round to Reading West on the Basingstoke thumper and into Reading again on the Westbury to Paddington train (praying it would be on time to avoid having to make a Mark Cavendish-style dash to school on the bike. In the evening there were four loco-hauled stoppers down the Thames Valley so you could go from Reading to Tilehurst on the first one, Tilehurst to Pangbourne on the second, back to Reading on a DMU and repeat the feat on the third and forth down trains. In all, six different locos in a day and all class 50s if you were lucky. Happy days.

I'd like to think the window-hanging commuter is savouring the sound of a Class 50 taking him home. A few years henceforth, the 50s would be gone from the Thames Valley and Class 165 and 166 units (from which window-hanging is impossible) would be employed on this sort of train instead. For the record, the train is the 1810 Paddington to Oxford stopper leaving Pangbourne on June 15th 1988. The loco is 50020 Revenge.

A couple of Hoover portraits:

 

50024 Vanguard hammering past Shottesbrooke Farm on a Paddington to Oxford train

 

50040 Centurion passing Southcote Junction on a Paddington to Newbury train 

Were they always BR blue? Or were the very first ones built in '67 ever BR two tone green?

Yes, and no.

A quartet of 50s (8% of the fleet) at Penzance some time in the mid-80s. From left to right are 050 on the Paddington sleepers, 016 (hiding behind the third sleeper), 012 on a short rake of Mk1s and 039 on a rake of Mk2 aircons. Scanned from a negative.

Niiiiiicccce!

"If variety is the spice of life, you could have made a curry with these!" (phrase © RM Poyner 2014 -- before someone like J.Clarkson nicks it...)

There's never a dhal moment on this forum...

Wow - gets my vote for "most interesting and informative post I've seen on RM Web" - thanks!   Re that last point: from your planning point of view what advantage did a pair of 37s have over a single 60 that led to your recommendation?  Was it just that two power units were less likely to fail?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

The noise is much better!

Can anyone tell me where the pic of 018 is? (I know I took it, but I can't remember where!! Aller divergence maybe?)

is 003 at Clapham?

any help gratefully accepted!!

 

Cheers,

Phil.

My guess for 18 would be the carriage sidings at Exeter. The track's too bendy to be a main line.

Nice shots! They bring back memories of holidays in Devon and walks along the Kennet & Avon canal.

I've been looking at lots of pictures from various sources to get some idea of which sorts of wagons were used on the various flows in Cornwall. Would I be right in saying that the china clay slurry traffic (be it silver bullets, Clayliner TTAs, Clan TTAs or Crosfield TCAs always originated from Burngullow? I can't find any pictures of these sorts of wagons on any of the other branch lines. Thanks.

50046 Ajax approaching Midgham station on the 1550 Newbury to Paddington. 13/3/89

 

 

D9000 ROYAL SCOTS GREY leaving Reading on 1S87 the Saturdays-only Ramsgate to Edinburgh in the summer of 1998. Despite having the authority and plenty of opportunities, this was the only time I took a photo at this location.

  

 

An enthusiastic passenger enjoying the sound of 31423 leaving Reading on the 1334 to Manchester sometime in the early '90s. Actually, this gentleman was BR staff and was perhaps one of the more eccentric people I worked with during my spell on the railway. 

That's really great information, thank you! I had assumed that there would be early and late shifts out of St.Blazey (0600-1400 and 1400-2200) but it looks like there were some much earlier starts involved. That will be a great help in trying to devise some sort of realistic operation in the absence of anything more recent. Thanks again.  

Thanks for the replies so far. This may be going into too much detail for anyone to recall but I'm interested in things like whether there would be enough traffic for trip workings to be formed of the first arrival at BZ, or would they wait for the second arrival before dispatching the first trips. Also, would the first up Speedlink departure be formed of wagons tripped into BZ that morning or would it be traffic that had arrived too late the day before to be accommodated? I shall go and have a look at your Flickr photos now Rivercider.

Thanks for the link, some useful details there. I have just had my loft converted and am about to embark on what I hope won't turn out to be a too ambitious project to build a layout based on a combination of Par and Lostwithiel. It would be nice to be able to run some semblance of a realistic freight operation, although that is many months away at present...

As there seem to be lots of people here with lots of knowledge about Cornwall and it's railways, I am hoping that someone can shed a bit of light on how the various trip workings in the Speedlink era were organised. I have searched through this forum and a number of books already but cannot find the sort of information I am after. For the period I am interested in, there seem to be three Speedlink arrivals at BZ (at approx. 0550, 0740 and 1215) and three departures (0930, 1520 and 2210). How would the traffic on these arrivals be tripped to the various destinations, and how would the loaded wagons be tripped into BZ for the various Speedlink departures? In other words, what might a typical day look like for BZ's fleet of 37s? Obviously some of them would be engaged on the Carne Point trains, and on that subject, how was that work programmed? I am guessing that a number of locos would set off at the start of the early shift to various points and somehow manage to get back for a shift change at some point. I suspect those in the know will be thinking, well, there was no such thing as a typical day, but if anyone can provide some information on how it all happened, I would be most grateful.