lanchester

Isn't it funny how everyone knows that the GCR London Extension was 'the last main line railway' to be built (until HS1, I suppose) but I bet there are  very few of us realise how late the Dore-Chinley line was (1894). You (OK, I) would imagine it had been built much earlier). Didn't the Midland see any merit in linking their Leeds and Sheffield interests to Manchester on their own rails, or was the company just too focused on Derby as the centre of the universe?

Just a late thought about the mystery pipe : it couldn't be for a steam lance as in de-icing pointwork etc? it gets pretty wintery up at Dowlais.

43 minutes ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

More specifically, the North Eastern Railway. It pioneered the use of bottom-discharge and hopper wagons for coal traffic and provided coal drops at most stations. It has been said that one reason for using hoppers was that a lot of coal traffic was taken to staithes to be tipped into ships (there are staithes preserved at Dunston though with no rail connection now). Tyne Dock was probably the location that saw most of this activity.

 

The NER didn't see any private owner coal wagons. Another feature was that NER stationmasters acted as coal merchants.

To pick nits, that's not quite  true, in that the Lambton, Hetton and Joicey, for example,  had running rights over the NER to get to the staithes and had their own wagons (some ex NER). But true, they wouldn't be used to take coals to landsale depots on the NER system. (Some of the colliery systems had their own landsale depots).

Also, and as elsewhere, I suspect there would have been 'foreign' wagons to bring in grades of coal not available from North Eastern pits (particularly anthracite). Certainly there are pictures of GWR open wagons not just on the NER but on colliery railways (from memory one occurs in a picture in one of Colin Mountford's books after a bit of a smash at, I think, Morrison Busty or thereabouts) and I imagine POs may have appeared as well.

3 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

One of the ones at Llanelli was in use, at least into the mid-1980s, as a stores for the Carriage and Wagon Dept.

Were these structures manufactured by the railways themselves (at Exmouth Jct or Taunton), or were they bought in from an outside supplier, such as 'ATCOST', who specialised in prefabricated concrete structures?

Both. There was an ATCOST shed at Lanchester, North Eastern Region in the early sixties, behind (ie closer to the buffers) the stone-built NER goods shed. Not sure of its use - possibly agricultural materials (fertilizers etc).

23 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Dave

 

You are right that using a commercial brick paper or even embossed plastic card most modellers do not model the queen closers.

 

Conversely, how many people notice what type of brick course the building is made of. I say this because I extended a building width wise, the front is Flemish bond and the rear is stretcher bond.

Only because I didn't have any Flemish bond embossed plastic card at the time.

 

No one ever commented on the types of brickwork.

People did look closely as I had scratchbuilt the interior, including the sausages and chips Doris has on the hot plate.

 

 

Clive - having the 'public facing' wall or walls in something reasonably classy like Flemish bond, and the back walls in something cheaper like stretcher, or English Garden, is actually normal; almost the rule. Similarly, front/street faces in 'Accrington brick' (the glossy terracotta-ish stuff) and other walls in commons. Anyone building a netty or similar in Flemish Bond had more money than sense.

A problem thing to model well is, I suspect, the diaper effect obtained by using the dark 'burnt ends' of bricks to make patterns (often diamonds). I think the North Staffordshire was particularly fond of this effect in its station buildings, but doubtless there were others.Obviously it has to be tailored to the features of a particular wall, working round windows and scaled for length and so on, so a generic paper is unlikely to fit the bill.

On 26/07/2019 at 16:44, phil-b259 said:

Sorry, you will look in vain as there was NOWHERE in the UK where ALL of the big 4 met in infrastructure terms met - and even occasions where 3 out of the 4 (LMS, LMER & GWR) came together were rare.

 

Due to the river Thames Southern Railway owned infrastructure only met that of the LNER in one place - Shoreditch due to the Southern Railway having a stake in the ELL under the Thames (the widened lines north of Faringdon were owned by London Underground even if they hosted LMS and LNER trains).

 

A little bit different when we get to locos though as in a few places like Oxford you would see Southern Railway locos arriving from the south (via Reading) plus LNER locos arriving from Banbury and the Great Central route in the North on GWR owned tracks with inter-regional services while the LMS had its own station and line from Bletchley next door to (but separate from) the GWR infrastructure.

 

The LNER and LMS had quite a few jointly owned lines / stations - and in the Liverpool area the GWR got into the mix too - however most joint GWR facilities were with either the LMS or the SR

 

I hadn't realised until a day out with SWMBO last week that one of the warehouses at Manchester Liverpool Road (now the Science Museum) was originally Great Western. Question - would GWR locomotives have worked in (and what might have turned up?), or would trains off the GWR hand over to LNWR/LMS traction somewhere else?

More generally, there are quite a few places where one company's quite substantial warehouse or goods yard complex is isolated, sometimes by many miles, from the parent network - what would the usual arrangements be for working in and shunting? I'm thinking for example of the LNW City Goods depot in Sheffield (nearest LNW being Huddersfield?) or the cluster of depots outside Fenchurch Street - Haydon Square LNW, and both Mint Streets, GN and MR, all three of which are a good shoogle away from their parent systems.

On 26/07/2019 at 22:50, ElectroSoldier said:

So you would call the item in question a fishplate and leave it at that would you?

Or an insulated joint... insulated joint fishplate or an insulated block joint fishplate. Or maybe an Insulated block joint?

 

Its like me saying all dogs are creatures but not all creatures are dogs!
Well yeah, but you wouldnt just say "its an creature" would you.

 

Yes of course it is a form of fishplate. My words were to point out the fact its not simply a fishplate.

 

Ex track inspector ;-)

'This is not a fishplate - it's an S&T fishplate'?

With apologies to Marks and Sparks

On 25/07/2019 at 12:14, Martin S-C said:

This is the other part of your post I didn't pick up on. While death rates were calamitous during canal and later railway construction, as well as other civil engineering projects such as bridge building and tunneling, there certainly were some conscientious employers around, even in the Victorian era. I suspect though that modern writers pick up on these cases because to the modern lay reader the wasteful approach to life is shocking, whereas at the time it wasn't; it was simply how life was. I also wonder if writers highlight such examples of philanthropic corporate behaviour to illustrate that such attitudes were not the norm. Yes, it did happen, but the fact we remark on it means it wasn't common practice.

Long service awards were also often given out - though in past centuries "long service" might mean beginning work for a company when you were a boy and retiring in your 80s. Perhaps, with my cynical hat on, such awards were again rare and companies could afford to hand them out because there were so few of them!

I think the big social change came about after the Great War. Socialism with a lower case "s" had been gaining ground since the early Victorian times and went hand-in-hand with rising education standards but the Great War caused a step change and the 1920s and 30s saw the big rise of the unions, and of slowly improving working conditions generally.

One comment I come across often on such FaceBook groups as the 19th century railways group is from people who wonder how loco crews could accept driving trains in all weathers without a cab and the answer is that they did it because it was perfectly normal. Our retrospective attitude is coloured by locomotive cabs, first of steamers and later on diesels and electrics complete with padded armchairs but one must remember that the Victorian era, like every era before it was one where it was customary to work outdoors in all weathers without much protection. Canal boat families did so, wagon drivers did, fishermen and other seafarers did, farm workers did, coach drivers did and of course railwaymen did as well, it was just how it was. The gradual increase of footplate crew protection with at first spectacle plates and later roofs and side sheets I suspect came about due to increased speed and the need to be able to sight signals at these higher speeds. It was okay to briefly stick your head out in a blizzard to check a signal ahead but at least 90% of the time you had shelter and therefore your vision was protected until you needed to check 'outside'.

I can't back this up, all my stuff being in storage, but I believe there are multiple instances of footplate crew actively resisting the introduction of 'better', ie more enclosed, cabs, despite the conditions they faced. From memory the GNR had this, hence the very minimal Stirling/Ivatt cabs; I believe also the GWR; and when Bouch on the S&DR section of the NER introduced full cabs with proper side windows (for the Stainmore line? - and of course the NER in the end probably had some of the 'best' cabs of any of the pre-grouping railways) these also were resisted. Arguments like 'the snow sticks to the spectacle glasses so you are better off without' come to mind. Also 'give us seats and we'll doze off', although hours prior to the Act, that does seem somewhat plausible.

Difficult to work out why, but this sort of thing was by no means uncommon in British industrial labour. There is a long history about resistance from pit workers to the introduction of safety lamps, which seems incredible but is true. Sometimes I suppose it was the entrenched attitude that 'if the management is doing this for us, there must be a catch', or that 'they must be doing this for profit so where's our slice'. And then, think of consultant surgeons who don't reckon there's anything wrong with their juniors working 96 hour weeks because 'it never did me any harm' - not too sure what harm it did to the patients. And the long history, in the pits and elsewhere, of the lads coming out because its unsafe - but for another shilling an hour, suddenly it's safe again. And of course anyone on piecework is likely to reject any safety features (guarding on machines, for example) that might reduce their earnings.

Industrial management tends to get a bad write-up, but it can sometimes be 'strordinarily difficult to do the right thing. 

7 hours ago, great northern said:

No sleepless nights while waiting for the next Tim special to be revealed, I hope?  Anyway, the time has come. I got a bit bored of having just enough Gateshead locos for the rostered duties, so I succumbed to temptation, yet again, and decided to get another. I do like to have locos which appear in my very useful copy of British Railways steaming through Peterborough, so that restricted the choice, and having just acquired another A3 meant it wasn't going to be one of those. That left A4 or A1, as I already have 52A's only A2. and we weren't looking at Thompson locos this time.

 

 A1s are very nice, but of course in the end it was always going to be another A4. In my book there are just two candidates, Silver King and Guillemot. The latter was very dirty whenever I saw it, and other contemporary photos tell the same story, so I wasn't keen on it. My photo of Silver King in summer of 58 showed it to be in middling condition, not pristine, but not really dirty either, so that was the challenge I set for Tim. As usual, he rose to the occasion, and I really am delighted with the result.

 

 

 

 

 

Agaqin the low light perhaps doesn't fully do it justice, but this is exactly as I remember the condition of probably the majority of Pacifics in the late 50s. You could see they were green, but a muted green through lack of regular cleaning, and Tim has captured the subtleties really well.

 

One loco of this standard would have been great, but to have two on the same day is really something. I needed a boost, and I got one.

Even Gateshead-mucky, Silver King had star quality. Proof. 1963, I'm six rising seven, we are at Newcastle Central fairly late at night to see my Uncle and family off on a motorail to either Fort William or Inverness. Station is rammed - Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton there, I imagine to do with filming 'Becket' at Bamburgh. I don't remember them at all - I DO remember Silver King in the Sunderland platforms with a parcels (my earliest datable memory of a Streak). Who needs Hollywood when you can have an A4?

20 hours ago, bécasse said:

The Haywards Heath - Horsted Keynes line did see at least one regular steam service until May 1955, a mid afternoon northbound service which continued to East Grinstead and beyond, typically hauled by a K.

Many through electrified lines on the Southern continued to see one early morning steam train bringing newspapers down from London, most included nominal passenger accommodation.

In similar vein, could the OP allow himself a daily steam service with the potential to run 'mixed' against the possible need to move livestock (which can't be left lying around to wait for the weekly pick-up goods)? Or perhaps there is a daily milk van? which again doesn't want to sit in the sun while shunting takes place at leisure.

8 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hello Tony

 

I am normally impressed by 0 Gauge diesels but that one looks like a big plastic toy.

I think we have just hit on two conflicting problems. Modelling steam locomotives it has been rightly observed that we need to convey the impression of mass and heft and solidity and so on. But with diesels, on the prototype all that sheet metalwork isn't beautifully smooth like the plastic model, but dimpled and stretched and warped and looking much like Bacofoil stretched over chicken wire. I submit that it is a sight harder to convey that, whether scratchbuilt or RTR, than it is to show the solidity of steam. (Has anyone tried to get the effect by creating a body frame and then stretching thin sheet over it, a la prototype? It might rule out the Hand of God, though!)

Is it just me, but does the lazy stroke of that outside con-rod onto the eight foot driver just ooze the effortless superiority to which late Victorians must aspire? I can almost make out a thesis for the late revival of singles for express work being more a cultural statement than anything boring about steam sanding gear. 

On 18/06/2019 at 10:34, woodenhead said:

Or maybe so close to the end of steam they thought people may confuse the preserved railways with BR who wanted to project a modern efficient railway.

Not just BR. When Lambton numbers 5 and 29 left Philadelphia, they had to have 'NCB' painted out on the side tanks. That would be 1969 I think.

May I ask a really silly question? On the picture (previous page) from the top of Stoke Tunnel, the line of telegraph posts runs around half way up the bank. Was there any good reason for putting them in the least practicable position possible? I can see you may not want them at rail level if you don't want to run them through the bore of the tunnel (corrosion I suppose) but wouldn't you put them up at the top of the bank so that in the predictable case of maintenance or replacement being required, you've got some sort of a flat surface to work  from (not to mention, some cutting sides have been known to exhibit slippage on occasion which ain't too good for the old poles).

Sorry to interrupt - just asking!

Sorry folks, this intervention is a little wordy!

Clearly, Beeching was tasked with modelling a railway system that would at least come somewhere to breaking even, GIVEN CURRENT CONDITIONS. That is really all he could be expected to do - the forward view is why we have politicians, rather than bureaucrats, in charge  (OK, allegedly).

The political classes (of both major parties) failed totally here. Bear in mind that although Beeching was commissioned by the Tories, almost all of its application, plus quite a few of the closures that weren't in Beeching, plus the failure to go through with some of his more positive proposals, were under the Labour government of 1964-1970. That nice Mrs Castle's DoT did indeed bring in the concept of social payments for otherwise unviable routes, but only after most of the likely candidates had already been closed. (oh, and while we are talking about the crook Marples, there was certainly something 'crooked' about the Humber Bridge, wasn't there? A vital link now, but it took several decades to justify itself - certainly didn't have the transformative impact on Humberside that voters were promised).

But I digress. Political failings fall into two classes as I see it - there are economic developments that nobody saw coming - the men in white coats would have been round - which while disastrous (for the railway were perhaps forgiveable or at least understandable; and those which really should have been predicted because they were to a greater or lesser extent the results or desired outcomes of other government policies.

In the first category, it is interesting to note that government (of either shade) clearly did not believe in its ability to deliver the stuff they had promised voters. Pre Beeching, 'Supermac' famously said that 'most of our people have never had it so good' but the often-missed subtext was 'and if we don't pull our fingers out, we'll never have it so good again'. This sort of thing was seen by the people as a promise of ever-increasing growth and prosperity (which is, actually and give-or-take, what most of us got) but:

No-one predicted not only that private motoring would rapidly become so ubiquitous and affordable (to the point that now, having a problem running a family's SECOND car is for some a definition of poverty). Actually, no-one saw that the availability of a used car market might be significant. Doh!

No-one predicted that leisure time (and the cash to exploit it) would grow so rapidly, or if they did:

no-one predicted that flights to the Costas etc would become so affordable (although of course, when they did, government fought tooth and nail to defeat the likes of Freddy Laker). These points have opposing consequences: Beeching was more right than he could have known in suggesting that a lot of 'seaside branches' were only going to get even less viable (although oddly I don't think either Ilfracombe or Hunstanton were on the original hit list), but equally the general pressure on transport on what are now crowded areas such as the Lakes, Peak District, Dartmoor and Exmoor, which now would love to have some relief through railway service, could not have been predicted.

The idea that folks with or without cars would be prepared to commute a couple of hours each way each day, regardless more or less of price, is definte looney bin time.

AS is the idea that most people would live as far away (rather than as close as possible) to their factory/place of work

And more importantly, although of course business and industry was expected to get more efficient, no-pne could allow themselves to believe that the traditional major industries for which the railways were created - coal, steel, shipbuilding, textiles etc would be so decimated (effect on freight) or even where they survived, would have such a reduced need for workers (effect on passengers). 

No-one would have foreseen quite what a revolution containerisation would bring to both international and internal freight, and particularly which ports needed better rail facilities (and in fairness, Beeching I think DID have some feel for this). But the current desirability of boosting service to for example Felixstowe and Southampton, rather than London Docks and Liverpool, would not have been apparent then.

So, to honour a 50th anniversary, we were promised the moon, but when we actually got it, no-one was more surprised than the folks who had bought our vote.

All that is kind of understandable, Predictions are hard, especially about the future, to quote Yogi Berri. But there is a lot of other stuff that Westminster should have factored in to 'moderate' the Beeching conclusions, because they were the foreseeable consequence of existing government policy. I give just a few examples.

The New Towns programme appears to have been completely ignored from a rail point of view. OK there was Milton Keynes Central, but did anyone really think about ways of serving Peterlee, Cumbernauld, Skelmersdale - and is anyone surprised that these were not, shall I say, quite as great an improvement on the old slums as might have been hoped.

I mentioned containerisation above, but in the Beeching era it was the country's intention to join the Common Market - did no one think that this might change dramatically the pattern of freight flows and the relative importance of different ports?

Governments rightly put a lot of money into promoting industrial investment in declining industrial areas - how often were rail linkages, even to major sites like car plants, considered? (Pre War trading estates, like Trafford Park or Team Valley, often did have rail facilities - but it kind of helps if your customers have as well).

BR, NCB, and CEGB were all under state ownership (fairly uncontroversially at the time). Remind me, how long did it take for any movement on the MGR concept? (Again, Beeching, read properly, is supportive here).

And, still ongoing, the policy of building big new hospitals in areas almost devoid of public transport, despite an ageing population of users who can't (or shouldn't) drive. (That, incidentally, is a lovely example of achieving local efficiencies at the expense of system efficiencies, and is theefore in the same category as policies of closing feedee branch lines that do't technically wash their face but contribute to the viability of the greater network).

So, let's hear it for joined up Government! None of the above is Beeching's fault - it is the politicians failing to believe in, think through, and act on, the consequences of their own policies (which may themselves be entirely virtuous).

If I can allow myself a final observation, which is still relevant. The Green Belts. These started as a concept pre War when it seemed a real possibility that the Great West Road out of London (and others) would soon have ribbon development all the way to Bath or Bristol. 'Clearly' we need to ring fence towns and communities to preserve their character etc etc.

But suppose, in the light of what we now know about the environment and transport and where and how people choose to live, we had chose instead positively to encourage MOST development onto those established radial (from a London perspective -other cities are available) transport corridors, and preserve the fingers and slivers of 'countryside' that still went quite deep into many conurbations. There would have been two consequences:

1) many more people would be on or close to the 'town/country' edge, in other words have ready acccess to green fields (a ring by contrast is the most effective way of minimising the numbers on that edge).

2) concentrating most freight and passenger traffic onto linear routes is exactly what railways, and buses, and some styles of road freighting, are designed to be good at. With the random dispersion of new industries and new housing into the 'non green belt' countryside, sensible and effective transport systems or networks, of whatever mode, are rendered almost impossible. Look at the location of Distribution Centres, out in the country near motorway intersections, which makes some sense in trucking terms, but is not too good if you want a young labour force that probably can't afford even to insure a banger on minimum wage.

But I guess it's too late now.

Any one who's still with me, sorry for wasting your time. But the point is, Beeching actually got a lot more right than the subsequent implementation (which wasn't his doing) can give him credit for. 

Whatever, his point was: to the Locomotive Superintendent, Locomotives. 

Ah, yeh, well, but. It's no coincidence that around this time a lot of 'Locomotive Superintendents' got rebranded as 'Chief Mechanical Engineers'. Note that the differential is mechanical as against civil - electrical engineering as a discipline/profession was still developing. CMEs were responsible for a lot of stuff that wasn't strictly locomotive - structural stuff on carriage and wagon work, for example (a number of CMEs including Gresley had C&W in their CVs). as well as static installations such as cranes, and perhaps (I don't know) they new-fangled infernal combustion vehicles, on road and rail.

Off the main line, my great grandfather was Chief Engineer for the Lambton Hetton and Joicey Collieries, 1897-1935. Certainly his responsibilities included locomotives. But Lambton Engine Works made and mended a lot of stuff for the pits beyond over and under ground rail systems - aside from mech eng for underground (although this was increasingly bought in as technology advanced) and stationary winding etc engines, there was maritime-related work for the collier fleet. My ancestor was well in to electrification - Lambton had its own power station - and was involved in developing underground electrification, and of course converting/replacing steam winding engines etc to electric. All very advanced for the time, and chiming with the views of near contemporaries such as Raven.

BUT - the Lambton rail system remained steam-powered until very near the end, essentially for economic rather than engineering reasons.

CME's on the major pre-group railways were expected to handle a much wider brief than the old Locomotive Superintendents - whether or not they were designing there own engines (or alternatively going to the trade for a standard design). And of course the various works had capabilities well beyond the fettling of engines - as was demonstrated in both wars.

I thought that was Spam in Alum?

 

Indigestible I know, but things were difficult in Tudor times.

 

Railway modelling was a bit primitive too...

 

Bavarian Mine Tub.png

I may have got this wrong, but I think that the long beam to which everything else was attached was the original meaning of the word 'tram', from which all the other more modern usages derive, somewhat indirectly.

Thanks very much everyone for your really helpful responses.

 

I'm not trying to recreate a slavishly perfect copy of any one place, but rather the "flavour" of what may have existed in my fictional part of the North East, so all your inputs have value.  I was especially glad to see the comments about the sheep breeds, for instance, as I have already have some fields that appear a little naked, and was planning to stock them.  Blackface sheep are such a novelty here in Australia, I won't be able to resist using those!

 

To illustrate the sort of thinking I've been using, I *had* thought about planting a small orchard of apple trees on one of the nearby hills... till I did some research and found there were no references to apples being grown in the North East.  So that was easy to rule out.  I've got approximately 15" square to play with - but that can be tweaked if I need to by using some of the field that has already been grassed.

 

post-8688-0-96492500-1537763162.jpg

 

I'll spend some time going through all the links and see what inspiration results.

 

Again, much appreciated, chaps.

 

Regards

 

Scott

A crop you might consider, if you get tired of all-over green for your fields, is mustard. This used to be widely grown on the Northumberland coastal plain (Mustard 'flour' was actually 'invented' by a Mrs Clements in Durham in 1720, so irts got a good North East connection). Used to see fields of it certainly into the 60s from the ECML between Newcastle and Edinburgh. I don't know if it gave rise to any rail traffic (Colmans at Norwich?) or whether there were more local producers. Bright yellow, like rape to which it is related, but a 'warmer' less artificial sort of yellow. 

Not sure how 'modern' the 'so...' thing is? I first noticed it in the early Eighties in the context of working for a number of people who had previously been officers in BAOR. I think it may at least partly mirror a German speech pattern, but I suspect that it is also a more recent usage by our younger friends (where it makes a refreshing change from the random introduction of 'like'). 

Yep, perhaps those who currently mangle the language will be similarly revered in 300 years time.

So, for me, it's the modern fad for starting almost every sentence with 'so' that wrangles.

G

Stop me if this is a silly idea (reference books in storage etc) but would a model of Lambton no 29 (Kitson 0-6-2T), with an alternative cab, widen its appeal by also helping  Hull & Barnsley, and LDECR/GCR modellers? LNER N6 and N11 - originally the same as LDECR sold to H&BR the ones it couldn't pay for. They look superficially quite close to No 29, or am I missing some insuperable problem?

And a bit more - a start on the ballasting! I’ve used a blend of woodlands scenic fine cinders and gaugemaster ash, to get a blend of colours and textures. So on it goes, spray it with glue (woodland scenics scenic cement) and dust on a little turf whilst wet. With a few bits plonked down (knight wing portacabin, refugee from Teeside coil, carama cars and unknown pallet of junk) I reckon it’s starting to get somewhere...

 

Owain

RE ballast - as far as memory serves the ballast on the running lines on the Sedbergh line, after lifting, was largely Shap granite (the pink stuff, which figures) and mostly quite new at that - it was certainly quite lively to walk on, on the five mile trek to Low Gill for an afternoon's spotting - indeed it may have been the condition of the ballast that allowed my Housemaster to recognise my trainspotting as a physical recreation on a par with fellrunning or at the other extreme, having a little lie down at Deep Mid Wicket. Like all the best schoolmasters, he was a swine but a fair-minded swine! . How far your preservationists would have been able to reuse that, or whether local farmers etc had 'acquired' most of it (if the memory wasn't fading I could name some who certainly did) I leave to your reconstructed history.

Will there be sheep? There must be sheep (from memory, Swaledales, Scottish Blackface, and perhaps a few surviving Rough Fell although I think they were more or less gone even in the Seventies. Not many Herdwicks as you might suppose, although I doubt anyone will tell the difference in 4mm scale).

Botanic Crossing Hull, c1900

1 Botanic c1900 actual print.jpg

Can you just remind us of No 53's details - (presumably Fletcher from the square cab windows, but all my references are in storage while I'm camped out with the mother in law).

On another tack, is it just me or did NER footbridges look really quite 'modern' compared to those of some other companies? (some of which tend to look like the 'Bridges of Madison County' if that was the film I'm thinking of, or that timber thing in Lucerne) Apart from the lack of wheelchair access, you could imagine something similar being built today. Or was there a big replacement programme in late Victorian times?

R6161 is well known for this mistake, you are correct that the white diagonal stripe is supposed to be at the door end to mark which end the door is but Hornby made a balls up on one batch.

 

Not sure about the K suffix on the number though.

Just curious but is there any evidence that this sort of balls up ever occurred in real life? I don't imagine wagon painters were the best paid, skilled or supervised of railway workers and one end of a wagon looks much like another from the side, at the end of a shift. And after all, there are I believe verified accounts of much more valuable assets such as locomotives being renumbered erroneously and so forth. 

Everyone was allocated a napkin with a silver ring for the week. You had to get it from a pigeon hole before each meal, then fold and roll it up and replace it afterwards. After a dozen or so meals some of the napkins were getting decidedly manky.

 

Oh, and everybody had to stand when the Principal entered the dining room...

 

19750630-0711 EMT-A Diesel Traction Course, School of Transport Derby.jpg

This is the official photograph of the Engineering Management Trainees' Diesel Traction Course, taken outside the School of Transport in July 1975. Weren't 70s fashions (and haircuts) wonderful?

Fessing up, in my case I think it's the lack of haircut that's significant. (As St Enodoc knows, I 'disappeared' from the BREL realm only a week or so later -  'letting me go' is still believed to be one of BR's best decisions in the whole of the 1970's).

Weird thing is, I still talk about the railway as 'we'. I suppose it's a bit like being a lapsed Jesuit - they get you early and they get you for life.

I am not sure when the more Dionysiac, not to say positively Neolithic, aspects of the rites were suppressed, but surely the cultural life of the Achings retains some vestiges of the ancient traditions associated with Flint Knapping. I fully accept that in this brave new Century actual human sacrifice may be considered a tad de trop, but I suspect various deeply symbolic practices survive. Indeed do I not recall that upon the new line of railway being opened, the ribbon was severed by means of a polished axe-head of improbable antiquity?