Steamysandy

This is a bit late but a Happy New Year. The Scottish photos on the 30th can be linked by me as follows.Dunbar was my local station,Millerhill and Princes Street Gardens were well known spotting places.Finally I spent a Caravan Holiday just along from Elliot Junction in 1963 and it was very wet and muddy! Keep em coming!!

It may have also been it which I saw parked in a bay platform at Edinburgh Waverley on one occasion sporting a broken spring!

I'm not at present in the market for British Trains and that's unlikely to change very much so the problems between Bachmann and Hattons don't bother me.But over the last Eighteen months I have picked up a selection of Secondhand Kato trains in what I would term the prestigious end of things. On Friday morning I ordered an eight coach add on set for a Shinkansen Bullet train and by about 2 pm I'd had a message saying it was on its way The Postman was at the door with it at 8-30 am this morning!

I also like the Northumberland photos.The HST at Alnmouth is a well remembered scene from my days down that way many years ago

This wouldn't surprise me.After all the management have got to show who's in charge no matter how incompetent they are.My own experience with a certain very large Telecom company led to me deciding that the promotion system worked on incompetence.

Lybster and Mid Clyth - I was able to follow the route of the line in 1999 from a bus on the adjacent A9 en route from Orkney via John o Groats to Inverness

I believe initially it wasn't intended to electrify Newcastle - Edinburgh but to use the class 50s for this section.Trials carried out at Newcastle showed that there were going to be problems with loco changes and the idea was dropped.Subsequently it was realised that Edinburgh to Carstairs was no great mileage and it was added to the programme but was completed first,before the Newcastle line was done by several months.I was at a meeting (Through my work at BT!! )when the Carstairs plan was revealed by a BR manager. Subsequently the North Berwick line was added. And this in turn led to the current wiring set ups between Edinburgh and Glasgow

Memories of Cologne on three occasions over ten years.103s on nearly all expresses and in 1976 railbuses and 6 wheel rebuild coaches on local services! 1984 still 103s but 403s on Lufthansa Airport Express services and orange and white 111s on local train so also saw what I think was an early City Bahn working 1986 was similar Happy times

On 1 June 1968,it was shunting parcels fans at Manchester Victoria while Oliver Cromwell paused en route to Guide Bridge on Scottish Region Grand Tour No 5 which appeared on the cover of a Roger Siviter Book while Ayrshire Yeomanry was inside.I was on the Scottish Region Train!

Many of the B R prototype shots were filmed in Scotland.The double headed black 5 (44997) and A4 (60009)was Scottish Grand Tour No1 on 25 March 1967 which I was on board

There was a lovely story about a Patricroft Caprotti Standard 5 turning up at Stranraer and being used for a few days on Glasgow services.I think it was Derek Cross who wrote about it.

Dave The photo J3992 is of the Uddingston to Cliffs cement empties.The site of this photo and 3993 is close to what was known as the Pease Lye,an unstaffed siding on the up side for agricultural traffic.Penmanshiel woods upper slopes are on the left of J3993 The Ayrshire Coast photos recall spending a week in a Caravan at what had been Dipple Siding North of Girvan,near Turnberry in 1967! Alex

End of October 1954, Carlisle was flooded and some trains were diverted via Edinburgh and Newcastle.WJV Anderson photographed 46221 passing Polmont on the up Royal Scot. Personally I remember seeing a Duchess passing Longniddry very slowly on an up train

When is the comedy item going to be sent to Teresa May ,Boris Johnson and Esther McVey?

It was definitely an ex BR one because it had the S xxxxx number on it .Somewhere I've got a slide of it!

In March 1979 there was a grounded ex Southern planked van body on the quayside at the old Naval Base at Lyness (Scapa Flow)in Orkney.It must have been the furthest grounded body from its railway of origin! The Area was cleaned up when a roll on roll off Ferry Terminal was created and by 1999 it was gone

The very first blue stripe unit was a Haymarket 101.I can't remember the numbers but it also had the Motor Composite totally refitted with a unique interior. I travelled on it on my daily commute on the North Berwick line.It was incinerated at Snailwell on withdrawal

Dave. Thanks for publishing the Scottish photos today.I lived about a couple of miles from the Beltonford crossing for nearly 20 years and once got off a late running excursion train nearby one Saturday night after it has near miss with a lorry on the crossing! It was either that or a 25 mile walk home from Edinburgh Waverley! Dunbar and Cockburnspath were all familiar to me years ago Very nice Actually the siding at Beltonford was out of shot on the right of the picture

I've become hooked on Japanese trains since I got a tablet and what started as a fill in for a Hornby collection has now taken over! It was planned to have 4 trains -- I've now reached 32 of all kinds! Without Google and YouTube I would never have collected it. If it moves on JR then it will appear on YouTube seems to be the way of it. In one word--- BRILLIANT!

I was on the 18 coach Scottish Grand Tour in March 1967 and later visited Lochty on at least a couple of occasions. I later went to Aberdeen twice behind 60009 and met Mr Cameron on another occasion. I personally think that sooner or later allsteam locos will have to be retired because the cost of maintaining them and declining interest as the generations pass not to mention technology being used on the mainline will make them incompatible Putting them in a museum now is going a long way to ensuring their preservation for the future. How many locos do you think we'll be able to maintain in future?And what will become fate of those unfortunate enough to drop out? Incidentally there's a DVD of a well known Scottish Dance Band of yore playing at a New Year Party and JC can be seen doing a fair job at the dancing!

I was born in 1948 in a farm cottage close to the ECML where we stayed till I was about 2.My mother had a cousin who's son had a Hornby Dublo Sir Nigel Gresley electric set which I saw when I was about 4.Age8 I got a Hornby clockwork no 101 set but when I was about 11 I was given a Graham Farish King by a friendly teacher at school.We didn't understand how it worked so it was substituted with a Triang Jinty in short order My two highlights prior to my present packaway Kato N set up were a gifted Exley O gauge Duchess and coaches and a Fleischmann set up which became a proper layout on an 8 by 4 with a Faller village in 1980 Sadly all had to be sold but in 1992 I started again with Athearn 2002 saw a return to Hornby and 2013 to Kato.But the later Hornby and Athearn are all still here!

One of the ex M&GN 4-4-0 tanks ended up working at a colliery near Ormiston,East Lothian about 1929 but it had a short life thereafter.

I've said for years that all that was missing from the Hornby Top Grade A4 was the contents of the crews snap boxes!

J3263 appears to be 1624 which would be more likely for a working off the West Coast route especially if working through Carstairs from the Carlisle direction.(Through from Manchester?)