geoffers

Sorry - I don't how they moved them. My father would have known, having worked at the Creamery, but he is long gone as is my uncle who also worked there. I wonder if they "jemmied" them along.

Know the feeling of a base closing - saw the last Jaguar out of Coltishall. Now a prison, housing in one wing sex offenders. Trouble is the wing overlooks a school so the windows have been blocked off. Ironic punishemnt for sex offenders, perhaps, in that they can hear children playing but cannot see them.

From memory - think the rear may well have been horizontal planking. The front and sides were. In Jeffrey Grayer's new hardback book:- Sabotaged and Defeated Revisited Imprint: Noodle Books there is a post-closure colour photo of the front of Bailey Gate Signal Box (apologies if you have already come across this).

Funny you should say that - but I've a vague recollection of seeing one on the Emergency Timetable between 3/1/66 and 6/3/66 probably on one of the trains that terminated at Blandford (late Saturday afternoon jobbie?). Thing is that it is recollection so vague that I'm not sure if it actually happened and I've seen no documentary evidence for this (or can't remember any - oh the joys of getting old!) It is a possbility but that where I suggest it remains until proof is shown and anyway it's my model railway!

According to literature I have read the Class 6 Clans were often expected to carry out Class 7 work because they were a Pacific and as they struggled a wee bit were consequently seen as weak and steam-shy. Yet some of the Scottish crews thought highly of them and got some excellent work out of them. The S&D had a reputation for sorting out good and bad designs. Would the Clans had been successful? We'll never know but S&D enginemen had a good reputation for getting work out of iffy locos. The 2p 4-4-0s were not held in particularly high esteem in many parts of the system but between the wars they hauled the Pines Express (albeit mostly a 6-coach version) unaided over the Mendips.

Likewise no bag of coal or rear vac piupe. Thought it was just me. Obviously not. Now a Clan on the S&D - well just for testing purposes of course given that the SR batch of 72010 to 72014 (never built) was rumoured to be heading for Bath Green Park.