RANGERS

The Corby RSH tanks had little in common with the Austerities, they became the standard locos on the minerals side at Corby. A near relative was S&L No 24 which was a Hunslet 50550, basically the prototype on which the Austerity was based. The main differences being deeper buffer beams, backhead injectors as opposed to underslung type and one or two minor details. 24 was the first of eight ordered for a project to link Islip Ironworks with the Corby system but the it never came to fruition and the remaining seven were cancelled by S&L. 24 remained unique at Corby and no Austerities ever worked followed it, the RSHs proving their worth with several added to stock in the post war years. After a very brief period on the minerals fleet, it was transferred to the works stock at Corby and worked the heavier duties, mainly coke ovens, iron ladles from the blast furnaces to the steelmaking plant and slag disposal. It escaped the cutter and after a period in the care of Corby Model Rly Club, is now on permanent loan to the Rutland Rly Museum.

Certainly a good number of summer dated trains used the Wensum curve, the Newcastle and Manchester trains as well as most excursions to Yarmouth but I don't think any of the Birminghams used it, all were booked Norwich stops. The Ely horseshoe curve was one part of the trip I'd forgotten about, you could get a good side on view of the loco from the third or fourth carriage back. I don't remember stopping at Ely on any loco hauled train but we did at least once on a DMU. I've found a couple of pics of 25s and one of a 47 on trains in the mid-70s. Normal sets look to have been five coaches, summer dated trains and maybe Saturday trains ran to 9 or 10.

Modern Railway Modelling carried a pic of 138 at Toton in Sept '71 in GFYE with the stripe, this corresponds with the works date of Dec '71 for it's repaint

I travelled Leicester to Norwich numerous times between 1977 and 1981, mostly on loco hauled sets. My recollection was that 31s came with the introduction of the summer timetable in 1977. Were the 31s released off the Western with the introduction of HSTs and arrival of the 50s from the LMR? (The steam heat 47s displaced then replaced 31s on the secondary services). Loco sets had had been used to fill in for DMU shortages before that. I believe initially there were 5 returns each day with the remainder still DMU operated and numerous short runs (Birmingham - Leicester, Leicester - Peterborough - Cambridge and Cambridge - Norwich) also DMUs. There were summer dated trains, Birmingham - Yarmouth for one, which pre-dated the wider introduction of loco hauled trains although these were generally hauled by pairs of 25s or type 4s, replaced at the Norwich reversal with local 31s or 37s for the last leg. I don't ever recall seeing a Gresley in any of the regular sets, as they were only 5 coaches, I doubt they had a buffet and the few pics I have in books don't show any but the summer dated trains might have done.

My colleague hasn't managed to find the pic yet but after checking some other events around the same time, he did come back and tell me he'd made a mistake with the date, it was July or August 1976. On another front I received a reply this morning from another friend of a friend who had been a former C&W examiner on the former NE region, he tells me that he understood the two Thompson vehicles had been stored at the end of the summer timetable in 1976, the ScR having withdrawn catering from a number of internal trains. He also was sure that the Thompson vehicles were not disposed of until 1979 but their whereabouts at that time wasn't known. Did either of these survive? As a the last of the LMS sleepers had gone by that time as well, It was his belief that the Gresleys were the last pre-BR designs in service.

Very nice, good to see this back again. It has all the atmosphere of West Wales on a dreary, rainsoaked day.

As well as being the last pre-nationalisation coaches in revenue service, they were also the last timber framed coaches and thus brought the curtain down on 150 years of coach design and construction.

A colleague of mine has a photo, which he's now trying to find, of one of the survivors in a Sheffield - Skegness rake in the summer of 1977, probably July or August> Although this would have been a service train, it would confirm Leopardml2341's recollections of them on Merrymakers from Sheffield. Presumably the same rakes would have been used for seasonal and special trains.

Superb looking model. The MkV was my own favourite, probably the best looking lorry ever built. My own route to one is an EFE cab on a scratchbuilt chassis and body which might see completion sometime in 2010!

I use double sided sellotape for diesel nameplates. Stick them to the sticky side and cut round, peel off the backing and stick to the body side.

I'm thinking of a conversion of a Hornby Gresley Buffet into the later life guise and I'm looking for info' on the workings of the remaining cars in the 1970s. I know at least one (W9135E) worked on the Western until withdrawl but did any remain on the Eastern? I seem to recall reading in Modern Railways at the time of their demise that one worked the Harwich-Manchester regularly but it's 30+ years and I wasn't taking too much notice at the time (more interested in what the latest 56s were up to!)

Walked a couple of miles of the former Shotley quarry branch of the BSC Corby Minerals system last Sunday and it occurred to me that the area was just right for modelling, a single track branch wending it's way through the Northamptonshire countryside. Of course I'd need two or three of these things, add some flashing orange beacons, renumber to the BSC numbers on the cabsides....hmmmm

D & M Models did a few kits a few years back, they turn up on Ebay from time to time although I did see one for sale in a lifeboat Station last year.

Useful pic that one, clay is pretty dense stuff though and I'd have thought that it would be eight wheeler and artic tankers to deal with the weight. If you're using a Bedford, I'd have thought the average TK with a max gross weight of 12-14 tonnes would be sinking on it's springs with a 20ft tank full of clay on it's back?