62613

Only if the wagon was common user, IIRC. If not, then 'foriegn' wagons had to be returned to the nearest exchange point on the owning company's system as soon as possible. Would a loaded wagon from Southampton going north on this line not have LSWR on its side (before any common user agreements were put in place). A loaded wagon going to Southampton could belong to any company of course, depending on the origin of the load.

Godley Junction Correct!

Most of the front row.

C4431; I was born about 40 years too late! Wasn't J.G. Robinson responsible for some good - looking locos?

A great deal; again; should our governments be bothered about the fates of various run - down towns in the area likely to be served by NPR?

Hence my comments about proposals from some politicians pre - WW2 about leaving the heavy industrial areas to their fate; these industries were in actual decline from well before then; The Rossendale was in decline from before The Great War

When a heating engineer (my dad's original job title) is the one who repairs your central heating boiler, enginners are in trouble. Today, he would be a building services' engineer; a totally different game.

Yes, in the places you mentioned, there are islands with problems in a sea of relative prosperity. The other side of the line, there are islands of relative prosperity in a sea of problems

Yes, but private capital was easy to obtain in Britain then; from the end of the 18th century, if not earlier, there was untold wealth flowing back to the mother country, first from the American Colonies, and then from India. Those with the money needed to do something with it to make more. A large part of the financial system was in the hands of The Quakers (see the Pease family of Darlington). After the end of the Great War, sources of private capital seemed to dry up; only government, with its seemingly infinite resources, had the ability to pay for, or guarantee, the investment required to keep Britain going. It's what's happening now with stuff like HS2 and if it ever happens, Northern Powerhouse Rail. My opinion

OK, let's redefine; I think most people think only of "The North" when they talk about deprived areas, perhaps forgetting that the South - West of England, parts of Wales and parts of the East Midlands, also haven't done well at all for years. My definition of "South" would be the area enclosed inside a line, roughly, North Sea/Peterborough/Milton Keynes/Oxford/Swindon/Southampton. The area inside this line has prospered mightily, whereas thos area outside of it haven't to a large degree. It might be worth noting that politicians have been advocating abandoning the old heavy industrial areas since the 1930s, as too far gone to rescue, and concentrating resources within the area definined by my arbitrary line.

Wasn't that Mike Sarne, or Lance Percival?

The city mayor, not the regional one, I think.

There's a junction (with the A576 Chaddock Lane) on the East Lancs Road in Tyldesley similar to this

I think the 2/O mentioned that on my 3rd or 4th trip, in 1975!

I believe that, in the 1930s, the LNER modified the 6 - wheelers used on the Cambridge - Mildenhall branch train with gangways to allow for conductor - guard operation.

A closer look shows it as a common or garden 7 - plank wagon with wooden solebar.

No. 2512; lovely Midland bracket on the left, with lower quadrant signals, except for the fixed distant on the middle doll.

I wasn't specifically referring to the railways, but government deprtments in general.

I think the railways were coming under increasing pressure from the MoT to improve the crashworthiness of passenger coaches as well. Thought that Thompson was disrict loco superintendent at Stratford in the 1930s; he was responsible for the rebuilds of the Clauds to D16/3, and the B12s to B12/3, wasn't he?

One of the main reasons, IIRC

"Not made here" syndrome; very rife in the UK!

Or were they a compromise between the CME and his C & W department, after a series of meetings and rough sketches in daybooks?; Doubtless Stanier had ideas on what he wanted, but the C & W would surely advise him on what was possible with the available workshops and plant.

I think the GNR changed to all- steel underframes and, on the gangwayed stock at least, Pullman gangways and buckeye couplers, when Gresley became C & W superintendent in 1906. He had a large interest in the ECJS stock as well, so the NER and NBR would have been building similar from then as well, surely?

You seem to want to leave things as they are; why?

To take another; the first diesel - driven merchant ship was launched before WW1; the Imperial German Navy made provision to install a diesel engine on one shaft of their dreadnoughts in WW1; all submarines built after about 1910 were diesel powered; about 40% of the UK deep sea merchant navy was diesel driven before WW2.