jazzer

Minoru’s driver seems to have kept his overalls remarkably clean for such a fairly dirty engine. I bet his wife is pleased she won’t have to boil them. I notice he is standing while the fire man is sitting though .Is that because the drivers seat is dirty and he is trying to keep his overalls clean ? Perhaps the missus has told him the copper has broken down and if he comes home with dirty overalls he can get the washboard out and get a packet of Daz and scrub them himself as it’s her bingo night tonight ?

Actually, 2hrs 50 min for a stopping train with 20 stops in 78 miles stands pretty good comparison with similar journeys in 1958 , especially as in served all the tiny communities on the way . If you tried the same journey by train today it would go via Lincoln and Doncaster at goodness knows what cost, not serving any local communities, and taking up to 25 minutes longer than our 1958 stopper ! Equally , the traveller in 1958 could catch the the early morning Kings Cross express and with 7 stops before PN would still arrive a few minutes quicker than his fastest 2023 counterpart. I don’t think it’s possible to even do the journey by bus. I think it’s something to do with what is commonly known as progress !

One of things about the plethora of pictures from similar angles is that it gives us a chances to focus on different aspects of pictures that are very similar. Something in the lower picture that I’ve never appreciated before ( probably because I am focussed on the trains ) is the amazingly different textures and colours of the ground and ballast, both from left to right and top to bottom. Something that a lot of us can probably learn from.

Yes I know. After I plucked the date out of the air and posted it the year did ring a bell with me so I double checked and yes it was Doncaster. In fact I was half tempted to quote some obscure shed allocation but I guessed that would undoubtedly send some digging out there old Ian Allan’s! If we can get back to the serious stuff now do you happen to know if any of the B1’s on the Cleethorpes or Grimsby expresses returned the same day . Technically there would be enough time for one of two of the early expresses to be serviced and return with a later train, but the round trip would be very good loco utilisation, better than a lot of Pacific’s in fact,

Modellers licence, like so many other things in toy train world !

“ Timaraing “ sounds like a great name for an A3. It fits in so well with names like Sansovino , Issinglass , and Solario, I bet most of us wouldn’t have noticed if you said it was 60113 Timaraing, named after the 1873 Derby winner

According to popular rumour at the Locospotters club the fires were the actions of dissident firemen who lost their jobs when the Stanier class 3 tanks were replaced by 127’s ! After I left school I didn’t travel on the line again for about 20 /25 years and by that time it was incredibly run down and on the way to closure. Trains seemed to be anything that was on its last job before the scrap yard, so that makes it even more strange they were using some pretty decent trains at one time. On the point about using 127’s on a loss making under used line compared the Cravens bone shakers out of Kings Cross I suppose it illustrates once again that for years after nationalisation the various regions continued to function as individual companies with little co- operation between them , which probably didn’t change much until sectorisation. As for the Barking - Kentish Town Line I haven’t been there for years but I understand money has been pumped in and it has been electrified with pretty good service , so after years of being under the threat of closure it is back from the dead, probably because of the increasing growth of Tilbury docks, and the lines importance to through freights. As an aside, the line would probably make an interesting topic to model as almost the whole route is on viaducts after Woodgrange Park

If that’s correct about being intended for the M&GNR it solves something that has puzzled me for a long time. Not that I lose any sleep over a DMU but I can’t think of anything less suited to a particular service than a Cravens bone shaker on the KX suburban. We read of passenger complaints of overcrowding when Those Who Know Best , scrapped the beautiful Gresley 8 coach double Quad-Art sets and replaced them with 5-coach BR standard suburban sets, so goodness knows what they said when those were then replaced with pairs of Cravens rattlers with even less seats. While Kings X were putting up with the Cravens, St Pancras next door had the warm comfortable and luxurious ( well for a DMU anyway ! ) class 127’s on their suburban services . In fact for a while I was coming home from school on 127’s barely a third full even at the height of the rush hour on the Barking - Kentish Town (LMR) route , which I suppose were sent over from Cricklewood. Meanwhile KX commuters we’re travelling like sardines in stock that would have been better suited to crawl along half empty between Barking and Kentish Town. It does seem odd though , that two mainline termini next door to each should have such massively differing quality of trains. Actually I found coming home from school on a cold winters night the 127’s had fantastic heating,

Yes, I also have one of them. Not been used for decades, but had so much use in the past ,it was almost worn out by the time I got past my early teens and went on to other interests. Reading this thread has convinced me it needs at least a cosmetic update, so lead the way and some of us can pinch your ideas !

I have a pair of Hornby Collett suburbans ( brake and composite ) which look great behind my Bachman small prairie but I want remove the first class numbers on the composite to give it a more prototypical branch line look . Any suggestions how I can do this without damaging the coach body ? Thanks in advance.

If I remember correctly it was At St Andrew’s Hospital Billericay where they had a a consultant urologist called Dr Jimmy Riddle although for obvious reasons he preferred to be known as Dr James Riddle ! I forgot about 61379, so you are excused 😜!

Mayflower Ward ? No doubt named after the Western Regions crack express to Plymouth ! True allegiance to Gods Wonderful Railway is coming out now !

Well, the things we learn on RM web, all because someone asked about shabby engines at Gateshead ! I’ve done a bit of background research as I find these things interesting insofar as they relate to Railway history. Apparently there was something called the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, which was the first ever legislation dealing with mass immigration and without going too much into the politics of it on a model railway thread , it gave Poles a country of refuge when they were being appallingly treated by Stalin, in their homeland. Apparently they initially settled around Swindon before large numbers settled in London , forming the Polish- British community. So , now we seem to have the full picture. Had it not been for the Polish Resettlement Act we might well have seen hopelessly filthy Pacific’s on the crack expresses from Kings Cross. Curious how these quirks of history work out isn’t it ?

If that’s correct about Polish cleaners it would answer some questions. From what I have read promotion was slow at KX because being a big shed train crews would often transfer from smaller sheds and as promotion was strictly on seniority so a man with 10 years service at who-knows-where could jump the queue ahead of someone with 9years 11 months service entirely at Top shed. I can’t imagine many wanting to spend years as a cleaner while others jumped ahead of them so it’s logical that immigrants from the then Communist Poland, perhaps not speaking very good English may have thought they had a good job ! You obviously didn’t see 70001 Lord Hurcomb then ! On the one occasion I saw it, it was so filthy I genuinely thought it had been painted black until I got up close. According to Richard Hardy all the Brits were based at Norwich towards the end of steam so you are probably right, about their condition improving .I think regular steam finished in Liverpool St in November 1960.

It’s always puzzled me that KX generally kept there locos in reasonable condition but Stratford 5 miles away they were usually in poor outside condition, although to be fair some the Britannias were working pretty intensive diagrams with 2. Round trips to Norwich per day and not much time for the cleaners to get to work in daylight. There might be something in your point about pride in the job. It’s quite well known that the Enfield Town crews would frequently come in unpaid on Sunday mornings to clean their engines but their N7’s were double manned so they were effectively “personal “ engines. On the other hand the Wood Street N7’s on virtually identical work Liv. St - Chingford rather than Liv.St- Enfield) were far less familiar with the cleaners rag.

Have I misread your comments ?

Hi Gilbert . Do you have any more information on the route of that train ? As far as I can tell it would have come off the ECML at Doncaster, gone across to Lincoln then down through the Eastern Counties to Ipswich then back down the Great Eastern Mainline To Colchester. My information is based on a 1960 time table so possibly it might have been re- routed at some point but I can’t see why a train bound for Colchester would go from Lincoln to PN the double back on itself to the Eastern Counties and Colchester. Can you enlighten us ?

The top picture shows why they were sometimes referred to as “ the plumbers nightmare “ !

I said Clive of India not Clive of Lincolnshire! Anyway I am sure Mrs Mortimore gives Clive of Lincolnshire far more tender love and care than Clive of India ever got at Stratford 😍

They certainly were filthy at Stratford . I’ve even seen one arrive at LiverpoolSt from Norwich with a pot of paint thrown over the side ! Probably by some disgruntled spotter who was hoping to see Clive Of India hammering through Diss at nearly 100 mph .Nothing was loved and cared for at Stratford although the Brits looked better when they sent them all to Norwich.😄

I have often wondered about electric lights. It seems probably a case of one department not knowing what another was doing. After the Golden Arrow was stopped a number of times in the early 1950’ s due to lamps blowing out at speed ( apparently only on the Britannias) one would think that serious efforts at electric lighting would be made but the Southern rectified the problem by fitting modified lamp irons and strangely there seems to be no record of the Brits or any other class for that matter having regular problems with lights blowing out on other regions. As far as I can tell electric lights seem to be something confined to certain ER express passenger classes only but oil lamps seem to have been regulation headlights to the end of steam, so why electric lights were fitted remains a puzzle.

But how would the engine crew know the coach had a hot box ? Most of the time hot boxes seem to have occurred on freight trains and noticed by the signal man, presumably because it was smoking or something . In fact, I am not certain but fairly sure that it was part of the signalman’s job to look at for such problems as the train passed. It was certainly his job to check the tail lamp so that he knew the train would be complete. The other thing is that I am also pretty certain that a hot box would have been stopped as soon as possible , not necessarily it first scheduled stop. So my scenario is that the train had a 10 minute later departure from KX but Bill Hoole was driving so he had made the time up by PN but alas the leading coach couldn’t take the pace and was starting to run hot as they were slowing down for the stop at PN and the signalman at the last signal box before the station noticed the hot box and immediately notified the station 🙂.

I think this extract from Clive Groome’s diary after a run from Bournemouth on 35007 Aberdeen Commonwealth sums it up nicely:- “It was lovely to be back on a steam engine after weeks of diesel training. To handle a Pacific like this one was a real pleasure. She accelerated better than any Crompton . She tore up the bank and maintained eighty five miles an hour effortlessly and endlessly, steaming freely with Frank firing nicely.To drive engines like this must be the summit of my life as an engine driver. No matter how hard I try to think of diesels as being quite interesting one trip on a good Pacific just make those thoughts hollow mockery and an exercise in self deception.”

No it’s not on here mainly because it proceeds at a snails pace , and it’s nothing special in terms of modelling. On top of that my garage is practically full of my daughters furniture till she moves into her new flat and my soldering iron is underneath it all somewhere so,I’m just tinkering round the edges. Maybe when there’s something worth seeing I’ll post some pictures.🙂

Very encouraging to me Andy as it very similar to my sort-of- Swanage track plan except my platform is between your run round loop and the goods shed , plus I have a bay platform so yours is a sort of role model for me. The point work at the station throat looks impressive.