jazzer

I know , I was being facetious. I can’t remember what I had half the time. I was in the Loco Spotters club for a while and we used to be out all day, starting from Stratford and getting well out the other side of London, to places like Reading getting back late at night and I can’t remember even having anything to eat, far less remember what it was. One thing my memory has been jogged on was a few trips to Southend behind steam , straight out Southend Central into the Rossi’s ice cream parlour, for a cornet that seemed to keep me going the rest of the day. Only just remembered that, thanks to this thread !

.....but you said earlier that you used to eat food that was simple but nutritious, that’s why we all fought you always ad Tizer and marmalade sandwiches. Can’t get much more nutritious than that.

It’s it mere coincidence that Lyons closed their Fruit Pie factory the same year that that steam finally disappeared and left thousands of spotters distraught and bereft ? Dr B. Ching.

An, I had completely forgotten about Individual Fruit Pies , back in the days before the world went mad. I envy you seeing Exeter in the days of steam. My spotting pattern was similar to yours, but the bottom dropped out of my interest when steam disappeared from KX. Fortunately it revived a little in the last few months of Southern steam from Waterloo, and I bitterly regretted not taking an interest in the Southern much earlier after I started to appreciate that the disappearing Rebuilt Bullieds were every bit as magnificent as the Gresleys and Peppercorns.

Abosolutely right. Shrimp paste sandwiches and a bottle of Tizer served from a duffle bag at the end of Platform 9 at Kings Cross seasoned with a bit of soot or a few diesel smuts has rarely been bettered by the hoity-toity Jamie Oliver’s Of this world.

The photographer has excelled himself with the picture of the Ivatt class 4. It’s amazing that something designed as 100% utility can somehow capture the attention so well. Lovely pictures as ever.

Quite. I am also a member of a motorcycling forum and somebody with no connection to model railways mentioned it on there saying the culprits should be castrated with a broken bottle. I won’t comment on the violent suggestion but it does restore ones faith in human nature a little when this sort of support comes from outside the hobby and from people like Rod. ,

If you Google “Headcodes Part 2 - Great Eastern Society “ it should take you to relevant section of the GERS website which is probably as close as you’ll get to finding an answer at this distance of time. I can’t get my head round it all , but trying to make sense as best I can I would say you won’t be far wrong if you keep lamps on GER engines through PN, but it’s difficult to pin it down to a definitive answer.

I have only heard this anecdotally , so I can’t say 100% , and please correct me if anyone knows better , butmy understanding is that regulations relating to headcode discs only applied to the Eastern section, and then probably trains coming to the London area. Its seems probable to me though, because there is plenty of photo graphic evidence of trains on the MGN lines , carrying lamps rather than discs, and they would have come through Peterborough. Also the LTSR section, which by 1958 came under the Eastern region always used lamps. I am only summising but it seems that discs were introduced primarily for route indication on the busy lines out of Liverpool St where coloured as well as plain discs were used to identify route of suburban trains but they don’t seem to be used as much North of Cambridge , except on the Norwich line.

I have an old copy of Railway World somewhere that records an N7 , a Diesel of some kind , and an electrical thing all going up Bethnal Green Bank together with the N7 out-accelerating the other two ! As for the Brits racing the N7’s it was probably be a bit of a no contest. The N7’s were allowed 4 minutes for the 1.25 miles to Bethnal Green, including the station stop. They could do it easily as the short turn round time at Liverpool St would mean they would still be hot. By contrast the Brits would have a “cold “ start after being at Liv St for perhaps two hours between arriving with one train and leaving with another. The Brit drivers with 115 miles to Norwich in front of them would often make a fairly leisurely start , taking anything up to 5 minutes up the 1-in-70 to Bethnal Green because they wouldn’t want to blow a nice new fire out of the chimney by thrashing a cold engine when they could easily claw back a couple of minutes by Chelmsford, once they got warmed up and the superheater kicked in.

Yes, I can’t remember exactly when, but I think it was round about 2006 when the branch itself was closed and the Docklands Light Railway was opened to King George V. The museum had a lovely atmosphere to it, but I suppose geographically it was poorly placed to be a success. Its tragic that there is now so little historical record of the branch and the whole PLA dock area. When I was knee high to a grasshopper my mum used to take me to work on a Saturday morning, to the ships suppliers near Victoria Dock . I would spend the morning gazing out of her office window at the maze of dock railways and PLA saddle tanks struggling with seemingly endless trains of vans to and from the docks. It really was amazing but unlike the big stations and mainlines, hardly anyone bothered to photograph it so now it’s all swept away with relatively little record that it ever existed. I once spoke to a fireman who worked frieghts on the branch and e was telling me about the difficultly of getting through the tunnel which ran under Victoria Dock from Custom House one side to Slivertown on the other, and which, running under water as it did was always wet. Long heavy sugar beet trains for the Tate &Lyle factory at Silvertown would come down from East Anglia behind a KI 2-6-0 which would come off at Stratford and be replaced by an Austerity 2-8-0 specifically to get through the slippery Silvertown tunnel, which the Austerity would just about fit in and he swore the cab of the loco hit the roof of the tunnel at times as it rocked and rolled over the wet track , slipping like mad ! Regrettably, it was another part of railway history that has gone unrecorded and hardly anyone now remembers. More than sad, it’s tragic . .

The goods shed at Horley is some sort of retail outlet, Kentish Town Engine shed was taken over by J.Murphy the builders although at least they paid homage to its former glory inside, when making it a Hi Tech head office. Broad Street - oh! Broad Street has been replaced by some sort shopping thing that personified everything I despise about modern London. As for what was the suburban side of Kings Cross and the loco yard, let’s not even mention what is happening. The old Metropolitan bay platform at Liverpool St Underground , whose track formation was the inspiration for C.J.Freezers original Minories has been blocked up as if it never existed although I still feel the ghost of Sarah Siddons standing at the buffers the other side of the dreadful hoarding. And North Woolwich, the beautiful old North Woolwich where I first developed this addiction to railways ( that is proper trains , not soul-less electrics) stands boarded up and falling apart awaiting its fate , like some sick animal waiting to be put down because it’s owner can’t pay the vets fees. Worse still I can’t get in to photograph the old palace for posterity ( Elf ‘n’ Saydee , mate). Do our politicians have have no sense of history, culture or architecture ?

I remember the name. He was a partner in some big firm in Nottingham. Weren’t they in the Ropewalk ?

I think there have been a few changes since you were last in there, Clive. Heather is still there, but you probably wouldn’t know the others. In fact it’s maybe turned over a couple of times. I have to keep away from the place at the moment. I have contracted this terrible illness that I cannot control. I don’t know what comes over me but if I go in there I finish up buying locos I don’t need for a layout I haven’t built, so I am having to keep away until baseboards down the wall of my garage looks more like a proper railway and less like the runaway train. It is a lovely shop though , I must agree.

Well I am glad several of you have put me off buying any more 2-6-4 tanks. I thought I was just unlucky. My L1 had a terrible sideways wobble when I first got it . I managed a small improvement but eventually it’s gears stripped, or more precisely I think the worm came loose on its shaft. I took it to John Dutfields so could go back and Hornby would see the rubbish they expect people to pay big bucks for. When it came, duly repaired at no charge, it was a super runner, for a few months then suddenly the motor wasn’t driving the wheels any more. On top of that, both front buffers fell off within days of each other. One was must have been off for a day or two before I noticed it so that seems to have disappeared for good and spare ones don’t seem to be available. I should add that when it came back from Hornby the keeper plate was cracked, so I had to replace that. It’s almost as if Hornby don’t want anyone to buy their products.

A chap my wife used to work for was selling off a collection inherited from his father about two years ago.. I went to have a look but there was nothing to interest me - mainly 1960’s OO and TT stuff but he had been offered £1800 by a collector and was getting further offers. From memory , and as far as I can tell by the photos , his collection was nowhere near as big as the one in the pics you have posted, and there was nothing exceptional about their condition. I am not sure how many there are in the collection you have shown. Unless he wants to shift them urgently I would certainly get a few more offers.

I once knew a lawyer called I. Judge ( Igor Judge) and he rose to become Lord Chief Justice Of England. True . Not as funny as the urologist at Orsett Hospital called Dr Jimmy Riddle though .

Well, the things we learn on rm web ! Without giving it much thought I always “assumed”the fireman would work it out particularly as the whole pattern of what was class A or what was class B was very inconsistent, especially on the Western, but since it was to assist the signalman then if course logically it would be on the WTT.

Have one of the firemen set the wrong headcode or was it really a unique service that changed from Stopping Passenger to Express Passenger for the last leg of the journey ? Having said that, my recollection of my one and only trip from Ely to PN, was that there weren’t many stations to stop at anyway ( although that was behind a Brush Type 2 at a somewhat later date than the photo )

Thank you for that. I have now come to more or less the same conclusion. The funny thing is, one can look at a problem and get a mental block of ideas, then you bounce thoughts off others and they come up with thoughts and you think “ Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? “ I expect when I get to the bottom of it, it will probably be the bleedin’ obvious, but thanks any way for kick starting my thought process. As I said, I’ll be away on hols for a few weeks but if I sort it out when I get back I’ll put a post up and let you know.

Thanks . I don’t think it’s that because one power feed runs about 10-12 feet from the controller then supplies about 12feet of track but the other one runs about 6 inches to the controller and only supplies 4feet of track. The drop in voltage ( assuming that’s what it is ) is normally on the longest section of track which logically suggests it’s something to do with the wiring, but if I connect the controller to the longer section with crocodile clips the situation is reversed, I.e. plenty of power in the longer section and a drop in speed on the shorter section. That’s what puzzles me. It’s actually not all that much difference and if it was anywhere else it would hardly notice, but it just happens to be where the driver is making his final brake application coming to a stop so the increase in speed becomes quite noticeable. Anyway I’ll have a look when I get back home. Sunnier climes and open air music are top of the agenda ATM. Flying out in the morning. Thanks again for your thoughts.

Hi Clive Thanks for your comment. See more reply to Dr Goldfish. I will check the connections but I have also worked out a little experiment. If I get two lengths of track, insulated from each other with power fed to each and then see how whether the same problem arises that should point me in the right direction . I am flying out of the country on hols today so it will have to wait till I get back, but I will PM you, if that's ok if there is still a problem. Thanks for taking the time to reply though. Sometimes we stare at these electrical problems and can't see the wood for the trees, especially those of us whose electrical knowledge is roughly that of a chipanzee

Thanks for the comment. From the controller I have one pair or wires going ing to one end of the layout and one going to the other end 16 feet away. I have been thinking that may be I needed and extra feed half way , but now I think not. I THOUGHT the electrical connections were good but after re-thinking it after yours and Clive's reply obviously the first step is to re-set and clean the connections . I still don't think it's that but clearly there's not much else I can start looking at until I've done that. Thanks a lot.

Cracking layout. What sort of controller(s) are you using and where are the power feeds to the track ? I asked Andy P this question the other day but forgot he was a DCC disciple. The reason I ask is that I had a big argument with my train set last week and threatened to rip it all up, but started behaving a bit better , except for one thing , and I don’t want to invest in a new controller if it doesn’t help. I have an old gauge master which still produces slow running as good as the DCC wallahs can get but there is a problem on one section. Basically I have 3 x 4ft baseboards on a scenic section plus fiddle yard with power connected at each end. The fiddle yard and boards 3&2 are all linked by rail joiners, and everything runs consistently. However there is a beak between boards 2& 1, (the terminus end) because of facing points. Therein lies problem . Trains run into the terminus section, slowing down gently then suddenly speed up a bit just as the should be slowing to a walking pace before stopping. Then when the loco runs round the train it runs smoothly on board 1 then suddenly slows on baseboard 2. The controller is wired up to board 1 , but if I connect it with crocodile clips to board 2 the reverse happens I.e. boards 2&3 are ok and board 1 looses power. looking at how evenly yours runs I wonder whether I need another track feed , or some problem with the controller but I can’t logically work out why either should be necessary. Any thoughts/suggestions ?

Yes that answers Phils question and is my understanding as well. Th e train was loaded up to a maximum of 50 wagons which could mean anything up to 750 tons behind the tender, which was one reason for pacific haulage in later years as opposed to a V2, The train was part of the accelerated services from 1956, and its selling point was that goods could be delivered to KX by road up to 2 hours before mid -afternoon departure ( or sometimes 30 minutes before in the case of containers) and be in Edinburgh , Glasgow or Dundee the following morning or Aberdeen the following afternoon. With regard to Bill Hoole there is a well documented account of him getting a late start , then averaging 75 mph between Hitchin and Huntingdon before getting stopped with a hot axle box on one of the wagons. On another occasion he allegedly got signal checked when he caught the Talisman up !