jazzer

I am rapidly coming to the opinion that there probably wasn't an Up Scotch Goods, or more precisely no Up equivalent for 266 Down. Thinking back on everything I have ever read about the Scotch Goods, they all referred to the Down run, never the Up run. 266 Down was a Newcastle lodging turn for Top Shed crews and they brought the same engine back from Newcastle on either the Flying Scotsman or Northumbrian. . There were s fair number of Class C freights between KX an Edinburg but 266 Down was the only one that had sufficient custom for a full train to Scotland , the others having to stop at the usual centres to pick up or drop wagons off. Bearing mind London's position as a business and manufacturing centre, compared with Edinburgh and the complete absence of any evidence of a through working direct from Edinburgh to London, including in your WTT it seems, my guess is that 266 Down had no equivalent "English Goods ", but any freights originating in Scotland would have to include wagons for other destinations and /or pick up from Newcastle etc en route.

I don’t have any details of the Up Scotch Goods, but the down one was officially known as “266 down “ and ran from Kings Cross Goods to Niddrie , departing 3.05 pm. It only conveyed Scottish traffic apart from additional wagons added at Biggleswade. It was a top link job for Kings Cross Shed . Assuming the up run was a mirror image of the down run, it seems the train in your photo is not the Scotch Goods, firstly because it is running between Craigentenny and Wood Green, not Niddrie and KX , secondly because it has apparently dropped wagons off at Peterborough, which the Scotch Goods wouldn’t have done, and thirdly, I don’t think Thane ofvFife was a KX engine. One final thought is that the Down Scotch Goods ran from a mid afternoon departure from KX to an early hours arrival at Niddrie so that Edinburg traffic could be delivered the next working morning, and Aberdeen freight the next working afternoon . Presumably the Up train was a similar overnight service , in which case it would be passing through PN in the dark, probably a little after midnight. Hope this throws some light on it. The pics just get better and better !

Well said. It drive me absolutely nutty at exhibitions when I see a loco running up at a scale 20mph then skids almost to a stop, far faster than a Westinghouse brake could slow it down and it clouts the carriages. The only thing I would add is that there are plenty of videos that show that in practice drivers didn't always stop first but they did ALWAYS approach at what was called collision speed I.e.walking pace. If, as was sometimes the case there was no shunter giving signals the driver (on a steam loco at least) would judge his approach speed by looking down at the ground because one can easily misjudge the speed by looking back at the train. However the correct procedure, as Clive describes it can be seen practiced at the Bluebell Railway. Incidently the reason the c coach/train is coupled up before the brake pipes are conected is that while the brake pipes are not connected the train cannot move, thus the train is coupled to the loco first, and the loco will hold the train while the pipes are coupled. When uncoupling the brake pipes are disconnected first then the train can't move while the couplings are unhooked. So to be prototypical, once a loco is buffered up on its train, or being uncoupled you need to allow 1-2 minutes while this procedure is carried out.

Just taking a guess at that one but the eight coupled O2/3’s with their “luxurious “ cabs were first being built in the 30’s at the same time as the then state of the art luxury cars, the Napier-Railton “straight eights” were being built, so that’s the kind of thing engine men latched onto in the era when cars of any kind were for toffs and locos with full cabs were s till something of a luxury . Just a thought.

It will be an even better line up if that Hertford set appears one day

The house is very impressive. The walls are excellent. Are they from pre- formed sheets of entirely scratch built ? How did you get that effect ?

What controllers are you using Andy?

I daresay the station staff at Sheffield Exchange feel the same way when they try to help a dim passenger that Mis read the time table and turned up after their train has left. All part of life’s rich pageant . But never fear, most of us are, I am sure as enthralled and delighted by your jaunty prose as we would have been by a trip out to Enfield Town behind an N7 on the Jazz. More importantly, I hope, with tomorrow being a bank holiday we will be seeing some (steam hauled ) excursions to the seaside , well Cleethorpes anyway ?

As one chuffer to another, don't forget the Chshhhhhhhh when the cylinder cocks are open.

The turntable at North Woolwich was really a space saving thing so that locos running into platforms 1 and 2 could be easily switched onto the engine release road that ran between the platform lines. At some point the small turntable was removed ( I think it was bombed in WW2 ) and replaced by points. I think Margate might have had a similar arrangement in at one point before rebuilding. Of course pushing a turntable manually is very hard work and I cant imagine many crews doing it unnecessarily. I cant remember any pictures of LBSC tank engines running tender first but I think most of the other lines seemed to especially when 2-6-2s and 2-6-4s became common. . Certainly on the LT &S 80 mph in both forward and reverse was common when they had a run missing a few stops. .

Those steam locos are immaculately clean, especially the Standard class 4 tank and the N2. With locos sparkling like that (even the wheels) , are we to conclude that Sheffield Exchange has been transferred to the Western Region or have they just bought a job lot of elbow grease from Swindon ?

Would you mind starting a thread on here showing how the build goes ? I might well invest in one if it’s a good kit. Thanks

Just when I think this layout can’t get any better.....it does! It just oozes the late 50’’s/early 60’s feel so brilliantly in almost every detail.

The Glasgow and South Western had a CME called Hugh Smellie. He must have had a broken ball cock, but apparently never seemed flushed

If you want absulute realism look at the picture of a real B1 posted by Tony Wright on the Peterborough North thread last Sunday. In line with the smoke box there is a train spotter balanced precariously on a wall about 8ft high ready to fall and crack his skull open. Oh, the daft things we have all done before before Elf an Sayfti came along, but there is your prototype. Will you be the first one to model such a scene in Sheffield Exchange ? Go on I dare you ! Also, it is yet another loco picture where you can’t see the crew. In model form it is a fine balance whether to have no loco crew because half the time you can’t see them anyway, or a driver and fireman that look like statues.

It wouldn't surprise me . Slightly off topic but some years ago I read on article by an ex- Plaistow fireman who said that during the long lay overs on night shift at Fenchurch St they would go along a headshunt on the embankment , looking down on houses where " working girls were plying their trade with the curtains open "! As they say, there is a prototype for e very thing ! Apologies for interrupting the topic.

Hi Mr Troll, (Fol-de Rol!) Crews for steam locomotives : Depends on the age of the driver and type of loco. One old Nine Elms driver told me that in steam days, at the age of 60 they had the option of coming off the mileage jobs and going on regular day work, which basically meant ECS workings in and out of Waterloo, where, as he so eloquently put it, the driver could just "sit at the end of the platform, puff on his pipe, look at the crumpet , and watch the world go by" . Translate that to OO gauge and you could have your tank engines coming in bunker first with the driver looking towards the front of the engine and therefore looking at the train to make sure all is in order. He has been in the platform a thousand times before and knows exactly where to make the brake application entering the platform to bring the train to a halt 6 feet from the buffers, so he doesn't need to look, He is then in a perfect pose to "watch the crumpet go by ", and facing the front of the engine ready for departure. The fireman could be looking through to rear spectacle plate as they enter the platform to keep a look out entering the platform or to check the coal as they leave but a fireman putting some coal in is not wholly unrealistic. Picture this scenario : - the journey's end is Sheffield Exchange and he has to keep the engine quiet and stop it blowing off in the station or loco yard so he stopped putting coal in several miles away to run the fire down and run in with a small fire and a half empty boiler. Approaching the station he fills the boiler with cold water to knock the boiler pressure down , closes the dampers and fills the firebox with fresh coal which will take a long time to burn through while the dampers are shut, so the engine wont be blowing off in the yard. Before he leaves the loco yard for the next trip he sticks some more coal under the firebox door and back corners which will then burn through very quickly with the dampers wide open, to bring the boiler back up to full pressure. You can often see them shovelling coal in at Sheffield Park shortly before departure, for example. . Coupling, uncoupling and cleaning ash from the smoke box could present a problem for your plastic card engine crews

Well I lived next door to her for 24 years but I never saw no white rabbit. She just went off one day without a word...... Strange girl.....

Even among the super pictures on this thread the B1 stands out. Exactly as I remember them at Liverpool St, on the Cambridge and Parkeston Quay turns. Breathtakingly good weathering.

What are you trying to say ? Are you thinking of joining ZZ Top ?

It took two of us to groom our cocker, one to wield the clippers the other to keep him plied with dig biscuits. He hated being groomed but loved biscuits more than he hated grooming, so he would be as docile as anything while chewing his biscuit, then become totally unmanageable unti another biscuit was produced, and so it went on till the job was done. It was the same going for a walk over the park. He would run round quite happily until it was time to have his lead on to back on to go home , then he would come and stand just out of reach until a biscuit was produced then he would move closer, collect the biscuit and let me put the lead on. It's called blackmail. And some say dogs aren't intelligent.

Thanks for that clarification . I only have a 1960 public timetable, which obviously don't include those details. The up run always seems to have been allowed a few extra minutes than the down journey which I always assumed was perhaps due to congestion or the general need to ease approaching the Capital . Interestingly by 1960 times had speeded up a little with plenty of trains being allowed 80 min on the Down journey but the 4.40 pm up from Doncaster that we have mentioned had been extended to 93 minutes !

The detail of your comments always fascinate me, Gilbert. Why on earth would Mons Meg take 91 minutes to KX even including a stop at Huntingdon I think, with only 6 on when quite heavy trains were doing it in 80 minutes or so ? It seems in those days there was very little consistency in the timings of certain trains. If I remember rightly I think 90 minutes would have been. B1 timing ? Or were Thompson Pacifics really that bad ?

Not only is the glare prototypical but the way the light makes the glass on the canopy look dirty looks sooooo like the real thing.

That’s correct. If we pick up on Gilbert’s comment and use correct railway terminology a distant signal is never at danger but either at “ caution “ or “off” . Home signals are at either “danger” or “off”. Lets not get into the intricacies of multiple aspect colour light signals though. You know where you are with the good old semaphores ! Fantastic pictures though, as always.