csiedmo

The farish insulated van represents diagram 1/251 of which there were only 250 built. There wasn’t much call for them. Some were converted to Ale vans and repainted brown (farish make this one too) and most of the rest were broken up by the end of the 60s. The colour is correct for 1965. It’s just a question of how many were still in service. I’ve never seen a photo of one in a train. Much more common we’re the larger 1/800 and 1/801 fish vans as represented by the 2F-019 Dapol model. Unfortunately they have not chosen to represent one in ice blue livery, although there were plenty still in white in 1965. As for the ice blue AF containers, I have definitely seen those in photos of trains. There were upwards of 500 of them built. cheers, Ed

Hello Shaun, Regarding the passenger originating/terminating services, I have the 1936 WTT and a PDF of the December 1939 Leeds District "Carriage Working of Local Trains" (which is downloadable from the Robert Carroll's brcoachingstock forum google drive) both of which contain these services. I don't have the WTT to hand, but the 1939 document shows: - A triplicate set + BT operating the 12.50pm Bradford-Queensbury (arr. 1.5pm) which then forms the 1.52pm Queensbury-Halifax (I suppose you could think of this as a Bradford-Halifax service with a long stop) - Two twin sets operating the the 8.57am Halifax-Queensbury (arr. 9.13am) which then forms the 9.28am Queensbury-Halifax. I haven't done a full analysis on that document, so there may be others on the Bradford/Keighley side. Regarding the cattle vans, and I'm completely guessing here, but I wonder whether proper facilities were considered unnecessary if cattle was only being handled on the "unloading" side. The vans could be detached in the siding and it would be up to the consignee to provide their own means of unloading the beasts. (Incidentally, in the 1950 Britain From Above photo of Halifax station, I counted 32 cattle vans - quite a few more than will fit by the dock!) Thanks for the info on tranships. I was thinking it meant reloading onto another train, but your explanation makes much more sense. The timetable allows 20 minutes to get from Holmfield to Queensbury, which although a bit longer than normal doesn't leave much time for shunting arrangements, so maybe it was a case of loading/unloading a utility van from the passenger platform as required. Best wishes, Ed

Hello Shaun, I've recently acquired the 1947 WTT covering Queensbury, which I thought might be of interest. On the passenger side, the originating/terminating services that existed in 30s have disappeared, but there were still 20 per day between Bradford/Halifax, 27 per day between Bradford/Keighley and 10 per day between Keighley/Halifax. There was plenty of passing freight too, but not much calling, although those that did seem quite interesting: MX 12.40pm Clayton-Holmfield; Queensbury: arr. 12.50pm dep. 1.40pm SO 1.32pm Laisterdyke-Halifax; Queensbury: stop when required to detach cattle traffic SO 4.55pm Halifax-Bradford Goods; Queensbury: stops for tranships, dep. 6.22pm It's not obvious to me what "stops for tranships" means in this context as the above three are the only timetabled stopping freight trains. Best wishes, Ed

It should be pronounced TODmdn. If you're local you'll just call it Tod. The "southern locals" should stick to TODmdn though, else it just sounds silly.

If the hyphen indicates some sort of pause whereby it sounds a bit like two words, then absolutely not. This reminds me of my old headmaster who with a crisp and precise Co. Durham accent pronounced the village of Old Town with an overly long pause. If he talked of the Old Town bus service, it sounded like it might originate at a place called Oald and terminate at a place called Town. While we're in the wild west of civilisation, anyone who says TodMORden should be asked to leave.

To my mind Slaithwaite is only Sla’wit if tha mun spayk i brooad dylekt. Saans daft if thas an offcumdun. Similarly following a historical society talk given in dialect it took my days to figure out where Ox’np was. I’ve never heard it pronounced like that in the wild, not that anyone of local origin would say Ox-en-hope either. More like Ox@nope. (@=schwa)

I suppose a key might be useful too.

Part 2 of 2

Here you go. Part 1 of 2

Hello, I have the Section B4 March 1967 Passenger and Freight WTT, which includes a table for trains between Yeovil Junction, Yeovil Pen Mill, and Yeovil Town. I don't know how different that would be from the 1965 time table, but I can send photos of the relevant pages if you're interested. For info, the map on the inside cover of the WTT shows that only Yeovil Junction is covered by Section B4. Yeovil Pen Mill is covered by Section B3. Presumably that section shows the same table. The National Archives have the relevant 1965 time tables, but obviously not located conveniently for you. I believe that there is some sort of procedure whereby, for a fee, you can request photocopies and they post them to you, but they say that they will not do research for you, so you would need to be familiar enough with these documents to know what parts of which documents you want copying. A catch 22. In the Section B4 March 1967 version, the index for the part you require is labelled "Yeovil Junction and Yeovil Pen Mill" and is 3 pages, so you could try asking for that, but it could well be that the WTTs were organised differently in 1965. Here's a relevant page on the National Archives website, in which to my mind the relevant document could be any of RAIL 921/135, 137-140: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C1882267 It's worth keeping an eye on UK eBay as 1960s West of England WTTs are listed from time to time. Sellers usually include a photo of the map, so if even if it's not the document that covers Yeovil, the map might tell you the section that does so. Good luck Ed

Is Westhoughton what happened after Wesley was told to “think on”?

Most if not all of the 70/71 overhauls of the 22s were OOC or Bristol locos, whereas the final survivors were to be found in the south west. Although some of the OOC locos were reallocated to the south west in the final months, perhaps the local pet locos were preferred, having perhaps received less hammer?

Hello Mike, The only evidence I have is the P notation. I initially wondered whether it was a misprint but if so the same mistake appears in both the Summer and Winter timetables. I’ve not seen the WTTs from earlier years so I don’t know how long standing this was. If it is a misprint then the unusual six minute wait seems quite the coincidence. The 7.48 arrival comes off the ER line into platform 4; it is impossible to access platforms 1&2 from the ER line. But perhaps the impending 7.48 arrival is blocking the path of the yard shunter making it over the to the LMR side of the station? If there was any indication in the CWN of an attachment I’d be happy to assume that the yard shunter was otherwise engaged and that a van already sat in P1. Thanks! Ed

In this WTT, the key states that times in italics mean that the slow or goods line is used. In this context, it seems to be just another indicator that it's using P1 on the evidence that - there's only the main line and the goods line and it's obviously not using the goods line. - all of the times marked P are in italics. Thanks. Ed

Aw man, I didn't mean to put a downer on things. You can always imagine that the owners got some roofers to travel over from the middle east (York). Take care, Ed

Nothing is timetabled to overtake it. There's a train bound for Blackpool Central not far behind - arriving into P2 at 7.50 so I can understand the local train using P1 to reduce congestion, but why not just arrive into P1 in the first place? Here's the relevant part of the WTT below. P=Platform Loop, which when applied to Halifax "Up" refers to Platform 1. We can ignore the 7.48am arrival as that uses Platform 4 on other side of the station. Thanks, Ed

No, platforms 1 and 2 are either side of an island platform. So the manoeuvre is presumably: arrive into P2, unload, pull forward, reverse into P1, load, depart. Thanks, Ed

Hello, I have spotted a curious entry in both the Summer and Winter 1952 LMR Central Division WTT. It shows the 7.15am Bradford Exchange-Penistone train arriving into Halifax Platform 2 at 7.39 but departing from Platform 1 at 7.45. The usual explanation for this would be separate trains from Bradford Exchange and Leeds Central joining at Halifax, but it would happen the other way around and in this case there is no other train to join to. The six minute wait seems to suggest that something is happening (i.e. it's not just a misprint) and further, there is an unusually long ten minute wait later in Huddersfield. The carriage working notices for 1951 and 1955 show it to be a BT-C-BT which is standard for the route, with no attachments/detachments of vans. After 1952, the style of the WTTs is revised and they no longer show any platform info, but the six minute wait continues until Summer 1956 when it changes to a standard two minute wait. Any ideas why such a move might occur? Thanks, Ed

The stonework is looking spot on. Is the farmhouse on the Goathland layout? A tiled roof would be a bit poncy for West Riding tastes. Cheers, Ed

Another mini update: Class 14s (previously due April/May 2023) now back to "awaiting". Blue/Grey Mk1 SKs now due May/June 2023.

I’ve always been a bit surprised that’s there’s never been a RTR of the GNR N1. There were a reasonable number built, was quite long lived, and turned up at a number of different parts of the Eastern Region. It would make a fine companion to the Sonic J50. Or how about the missing WR Diesel Hydraulic the NBL D6xx? It seems unlikely to be picked up by Farish or Dapol yet I see no reason for it to be less popular than the class 14s or 22s. A few different style and livery combinations to have a go at too. cheers, Ed

It will be interesting to see how the two early blue liveries combine with the regional allocations. The Railcar site seems to suggest that BFYE was mostly confined to the ScR machines, with the reverse true for BSYP.

The original version that used to be supplied with new locos is was what is now called the medium. That worked fine in terms of going around the first radius corners of my test track, so in your context you’re unlikely to require the long ones. Perhaps the best solution is to get one pair of short and one pair of medium and experiment with combinations?

Halifax, not exactly a large town, had it's own dedicated Fish train that ran Sundays only "as required" from Huddersfield. The "as required" status would suggest that there were unlikely to be many vans attached. As there were no timetabled goods trains on Sundays beyond 4am, I assume it to have been unloaded either at the passenger platforms, or perhaps more likely, at the short bay at the west end of platform 4. What became of the "empties" is less clear; presumably pickup up at some point on the Monday by one of the goods trains. Cheers, Ed

A couple of updates from the Bachmann website: - Conflats have been put back to Aug/Sept - Class 14s now have a due date: Apr/May 2023. There may be other updates that I have failed to notice. Cheers, Ed