roythebus1

On that matter, I had an 8-car 455 several times where the brake left something to be desired shall we say. One unit was poor. I kept reporting it but no action was ever taken until one morning I'd worked the train from Waterloo to Guildford via the New Line. I had a bit of time to spare so looked through the unit with it shut down. One of the coaches had one bar of brake when shut down, it should have 3 bar. I phoned the inspector at Waterloo and he told me to take it back to Waterloo empty and he would meet me there. He had a look and agreed it was defective. But I was labelled a trouble maker for reporting such things.

Yes I noticed that with the NLS map, drawn in something like 1865 and not published until 1873. Around WW2 time maps could I suppose vary by the hour depending on the actions of the other side. Somewhere like Addison Road (Olympia) had a number of track alterations over the early 1900s which are not noted accurately on the big scale maps.

There used to be no such thing as a static brake test. It was a brake continuity test which proved that the air or vacuum pipe was "continuous" from the loco or leading driving cab to the rearmost vehicle. That was done by the guard opening the air brake valve or pulling the vac pipe off the dummy. A rush of air out or air in would prove the continuity from the front vehicle. The guard would then have to look at the brake shoes on the rearmost vehicle to make sure they were toughing the wheels. With the advent of the Westcode brake that put paid to the air brake pipe, continuity is now proved by a wire running from front to back and back to the front. Having left the railway industry in 1988 I don't know what the present arrangements are, but do know that there's been a number of "incidents" including some where a train has been prepared with loco on train and left overnight as "fully prepared" and "somebody" has been along during the night and interfered with brake cocks between wagons.

That tallies up with my understanding of it. The NSL maps are usually quite accurate. There were other services from Paddington via the WLL and LSWR Grove Road curve to Richmond and Hounslow and some that ran through from the city. Lots of odd bits, no broad gauge, and there's a few timetables from the 1880s and 1890s that have been shared on here and various FB groups.

Interesting stuff there Mike. This help date a couple of "undated" photos that have been published on here and other social media recently, one of a BG train at Victoria, another at Hammersmith and the BG lines at Clapham Junction. I was born in Parsons Green within the sound of the District Line station and I had a cousin who lived round the back of the old Fulham & Chelsea Station. We'd sit there for what seemed ages waiting to see a train go by but rarely saw one! I went to grammar school in Battersea hence my interest in the West London Line. I recently found my paternal grandfather worked as a carter in the Whiteleys furniture depository by the WLL where the District Line branches off. Pity I didn't really take more of an interest at that young age.

Some interesting things there. I've just started experimenting with Hunt couplings, I got a mixed bag of them online recently. I too hate the huge gaps between coaches. I'd already experimented with the Kean Coupling system which is basically a copy of the "standard" European coach close-coupling with NEM pocket. Kean provided flat bar couplings with holes and spigot which seem to work but they gave problems. To fit the Kean units, some can be glued straight under the coach floor, others need a hole cut in the floor which makes additional work. On my parcels stock and goods wagons I use Kadees, a mixture of the NEM couplers and box-mounted for older stock and NEM/Roco KKs on coaches. The Kadees work well with the Kean coupler units, but are a trifle expensive since the B word has made importing them more expensive. So the last couple of days I've been experimenting with some old Lima and Mainline Siphons, BGs and the like, also some Big four coaches from the same era. The advantage of the Kean mountings is that the coupler face moves out as the coach goes round a curve, so eliminates the problem of buffer locking. I use a minimum of about 30" radius on hand-built Templot-based track, so won't really have the train set track problem with sharp reverse curves. I found all the Hunt couplings in the trial pack were too long, a look through their catalogue shows they do some a 6.6mm, I'll order some of those and see how I get on. I've found that putting the Hunt magnets on the Kean units I get a corridor connection gap down to 0.5mm using an LMS open first and an Airfix Hawksworth Super Saloon. No buffer locking on curves either. Nice close buffers on the Siphons and BG with 1mm between buffers and no buffer locking. With the Kean units working out at about £3 coach, it's a bit expensive but worth it for the visual effect of seeing a train going along with no gaps between the coaches. One of the lads at the Folkestone MRC has used Hunt couplings and found a problem is that if they are mounted too rigidly there is no twist or sideways "give" and that can cause derailments on uneven track.

Have a look at the NLS map, you'll see the broad gauge lines are marked by 3 rails on the 25" to the mile map of 1868. I'd reckon the furthest the BG got towards CP was New Wandsworth goods depot at the top of the bank. Until NLS find the adjacent sheets, I doubt we'll know the answer. But then the adjacent area is on the border with Surrey and London, so may not have been mapped at 25" there wasn't much to map. But having said that, I bumped into a Waterloo driver in the model shop at Kings Cross one day, he'd just been to the British Museum with an old map his grandfather had left him. It was IIRC a 1828 Bartholomews coloured map of south west London. He said it's a rarity, the BM had never seen that edition in colour. He said there would be no railways on it either. I proved him wrong as it showed the Surrey Iron Railway on it. That made his day.

I'm not particularly interested in GW broad gauge, but there's been a bit of discussion on one of the other threads on here on a question of BR small goods yards in London. This somehow mentioned GW Broad Gauge.. I know the West London Railway was mixed gauge as it was jointly owned by various companies and the track spacings were to accommodate BG trains. A search of NLS for 25 inch to the mile maps of the area threw up some definite answers but still leave some unanswered! The Metropolitan Railway was built to dual gauge and operated by the GWR for a short period using BG trains until the Met had enough of its own stock to run the service. When the Hammersmith & City was opened that too was built to dual gauge as far as Hammersmith. The stonework in the current Hammersmith H&S station says Metropolitan and Great Western Railway. The spur from Latimer Road onto the West London towards Addison Road was dual gauge as was the West London Railway. The dual gauge continued south of the river to Latchmere Junction and the labyrinth of lines in the area around Clapham Junction and Stewarts Lane. There the WLL splits 3 ways, right to the "Windsor" side of Clapham Junction. The broad gauge extended a short way round the corner and according to NLS maps stopped by the first signal beyond the junction. Going straight on from Latchmere there's another double junction. the right branches off under the LSWR main line and round to the "Brighton" side of Clapham Junction to where the current platforms 16 and 17 are. Photos show those lines were dual gauge, but here is the mystery. The pics show the broad gauge stopping just beyond the platform end. Unfortunately the 25" NLS map ends at the overbridge! Just beyond that bridge is "New Wandsworth Station" with a small goods yard at the top of the cutting which on later maps was marked as a GW goods depot. The later25" maps don't go back to the 1870s at the moment, so whether the goods yard was BG is not known. The "other route" from south of Latchmere curves round under the LBSCR to Victoria to join the south side of the LCDR lines into Victoria. There's been a photo published fairly recently that shows a GWR BG train in Victoria on the LCDR side. It would appear that only 2 platforms were built dual gauge. Again the map stops just short of the overall roof so we can't see the track plan under the roof! Again, BG services didn't last too long into Victoria. The GW did however run standard gauge service from Paddington to Crystal Palace for a period. Was that ever a BG service? I'd say probably not, but until the adjoining 25" to the mile maps are found or if indeed they exist I wouldn't like to say Also in the Stewarts Lane area were a couple of short dual gauge tracks, again disappearing off the edge of the map! Here's the link to the NLS map: https://maps.nls.uk/view/103313105

It may also capture the likes of my partner's ex-hairdresser who worked from home who always had a room full of new clothes she'd sell on ebay. I suspect the clothes had shall we say fallen off a lorry as there was so many of them. she lived a lavish lifestyle as well, tea at the posh hotel on The Strand, 3 holidays a year in spain...

I'd say not, back in the 1970s I ran a mobile disco as well as working, taxman decided I owed tax on £25k disco income. Until the accountant listed the records that depreciate to zero the minute they're played, the stage clothes, special hairstyles, glitter shoes, phone bills, use of home..I got a good tax refund that year via my employer.

The advantage of airline pilots over train drivers is that airline pilots don't have to know the road! LHR closed? We'll follow the maps to LGW. That's fogbound too? Lydd just down the road, we've got the charts for that inout Ian Allan book of European Airports to help us. As for having a road tunnel, one of the crackpot suggestions was for a joint road/rail tunnel, close the road for 10 minutes every hour to let a train through. And have queues back to Maidstone every day along the M20 while people queue at the toll booths just like they do these days when there's a problem.

The reason airlines book you to a specific seat is in the event of "an incident", you are told to fasten your seat belt. when the rescue services pick up the remains of the passengers, it's easier to identify bodies strapped to numbered seats to put it in a nutshell. Many years back I had a day out from Waterloo to Brux. The chef du trein said we needed to get luggage labels and use them on our luggage. I asked him why and the reason was that they recently had an "incident" in the tunnel and passengers had to be detrained. The problem was the following few days trying to tie up passengers with their luggage. I thanked him and said I'm an ex railwayman, he sent me and the mrs along for a first class upgrade, very nice of him. :)

And at the same time the means of crossing said body of water was/is severely disrupted by 80 mph winds and for a few days border control staff going on strike. Dover couldn't cope with 20 road coaches turning up at more or less the same time thanks to the b word again...There's no easy answer to the problem.

Whilst management have enough on their plateaux, others talk a load of old bolleaux. :) I'd hate to be stuck at Ebbsfleet for any length of time, there's absolutely nothing there. At least Ashford has a town centre within walking distance. As for Stratford, why was it ever given "International" status? It's never had an international train stop there. Another idea that may just be feasible could be to divert some of the Javelin services from Ebbsfleet to Charing Cross, presumably the drivers have route knowledge into CX or are they exclusively on the HS1 all-stations trams as the E* drivers call them?

If it's the same Blossom I'm still in touch with him. He was my regular motorman when I was guard at Ricky in 1973/74. He retired to Ireland and has 11 children and 32 grand-children. His real name is Bill Byrne. his father was on the brake block gang at Neasden, his brothers were also on the Met. blossom is now about 76 I think.

Curse you, I was just about t say the same!!

SEF do an etched chassis for the F class.

Some interesting views there. Did nobody think of sending people stranded at STP down the Northern Line to Charing Cross or Waterloo then out to Ebbsfleet on local services? Or STP to Victoria? The latter was not possible that day as Victoria Eastern was closed as was a lot of the South Eastern. To expect to find 20 road coaches or buses at short notice at any time would be a major task. the bus and coach industry virtually closes down over the Christmas period as the schools close. And to then find the required number of Euro 6 coaches with drivers who have enough tacho hours would be difficult. Not so bad getting out to Ebbsfleet as tachos wouldn't be required. A good few years back almost every airport in the south was closed due to fog on the day before Christmas eve. I was running a private hire car and bus firm in New Romney at the time. The only airport fog-free was Lydd. That was ok for landing planes up to 737s. ISTR it took 49 planes of varying sizes that evening. I ran 2 private hire cars, there were only 6 other cars in the area at the time and no coaches or buses available at all. I have my contacts at Ensign and I think they sent 3 double deckers along, all they could manage. A few taxis turned u from Ashford. there were no local hotels to talk of, the nearest being in Ashford, Folkestone or Rye, all a 20 mile journey from Lydd. I took 3 lots of aircrew and that was all I could do. I don't know how many people remained at Lydd overnight, but the airport coped along with the help of local people. One of the aircrew I took had come from Switzerland. They wanted Southampton, closed; LHR, closed, Gatwick, closed, Stansted closed, Luton closed. Southend was open, but by then they were too low on fuel. It was then they found Lydd was clear. Quite how the rest of the airline industry coped I don't know. But like every other transport undertaking in the country, the railways have been cut back to the bone with privytisation cutting back on train crew route knowledge, traction knowledge and the like and no rolling stock reserves at all, apart from engineering spares and accident spares. Much the same in the bus industry, very few spare buses and a massive driver shortage. There is little that anybody can do when the poo hits the fan. airlines are more able to cope as it seems to happen more to then and they usually have lots of hotels round airports. In an earlier life I was involved with costing for a London Transport rail replacement bus fleet. 20 buses with staff 24/7/365. It was a horrendous annual cost. The nearest anyone got to that was Connex with their own rail replacement bus fleet in Croydon, and that worked out to be as useful as a handbrake on a canoe. The thing that sticks in my mind was being stuck in Calais about 6 years ago at ET. Cars were queued back onto the motorway, it was night and the only facility was the small snack bar in the terminal, but once we moved into the lans for boarding there was absolutely nothing for about 5 hours, nothing. all I got in comp was the offer of a 50% off a full-price journey within 3 months. Not worth the paper it was written on. The more annoying bit was that when we eventually boarded a train they only loaded it to 50%!! I was told by a crew member that was happening on all the trains that night.there was a lot of very angry people that night, myself included.

How about Hammersmith for a London terminus? OS maps show broad gauge rails there until about 1884. It still has the engine shed which I suspect was there in BG days, a goods yard with lots of wagon turntables. But from what I've read the Met and GW fell out at a fairly early stage so the BG trains didn't last very long there. Remember too it also stretched along the West London line to Clapham Junction and round to Victoria!

He must have been a name I remember from the tickets at Ricky. A lot of the drivers there were ex loco men.

I sold my patterns to SEF quite a while back, it was after they'd introduced their kit. There's minor differences, my patterns had a keyhole slot under the boiler front to take a proposed Kemilway chassis, but Kemilway never got round to it so my kit never sold in vast amounts, maybe 100-150. I still have enough parts for another 20-25. My bodywork on the SEF etched chassis sits maybe 1mm high, I'm still making adjustments. I built one many years back on a Wills 0-6-0 chassis. The other difference is in the buffer beam lamp brackets, the SEF has square brackets, presumably fitted by the Met for destination boards as seen on your sample above. There's also about 2mm difference in overall length which could be down to shrinkage in the casting process. Mine used etched brass masters in places with very fine rivet detail. That was a new process when that was made in the late 1970s.

Ha, the Wizard models version seem to be good value. I've got a couple of other Lima things that need the same buffers. I fit Keen Systems close-coupling mounts and use Kadees on my stock. I don't like tension locks! Thanks for the info.

Looking up the pagt to what I think is the LT photo of L52 without air tank, it has no air brake pipes either. Later photos show air tanks, the Westinghouse pump and air brake pipes. I must admit when I produce my own whitemetal kit in the late 1970s I provided the Westinghouse pump and one air tank as that what what we had phots of at the time. I seem to have mislaid a few of my official phot collection over the years. Was Ray Wood a driver at Rickmansworth in 1973? I'm sure I remember the name from when I was a guard there.

To revive this topic a bit, we've just seen "the tunnel" flooded. the tunnel under the Thames, not under the channel! No E* or Javelin services for a day, 32,000 people stranded in St.Pancras for over a day! STP has very limited passenger capacity compared to the purpose-built emporium at Waterloo, another waste of public money. Along with high winds in the channel over the holida saw the M20 used as a lorry park, the multi-million brexit barriers that were installed over the last 5 years for use in such instances were not used. why spend so much money on something that is useless. But look on the brightside, no "small boat crossings" reported on Christmas Day! I mentioned earleir lengthy delay on ET a couple of years ago, over 8 hours at Calais. when we eventually got loaded on the train, it left with about 2/3rds of it space empty, despite Calais terminl being gridlocked. A recent trip by DFDS was about half the price of the cheapest ET ticket, £68 each way. Cheapest ET was about £120 each way at some unearthly hour. an I suspect there were few takers for the ET services even at those prices.

Other roles that need DBS checks are taxi and private hire drivers, school bus drivers to name a few that I've been involved with. One of my local railways stopped having "Thomas" days after the owners of the "Thomas" brand insisted everyone at the railway had a DBS check Those who didn't have one were in effect prohibited from certain areas of the railway on Thomas days. It was impractical so they no longer have Thomas days. DBS checks are only of any value for those who have been caught wrong-doing. For those like my former colleague who hadn't been caught he was merrily driving school buses with clean DBS checks before he had his computer repaired. You can have volunteer managers i.e. people who manage things that are unpaid, or volunteer managers may or may not be paid to manage volunteers! Most heritage railway paid managers that I've met also feel obliged to do voluntary work at the railway as well, but then of course statutory rest periods ought to come into the equation. It seems that a lot of railways still have these "stakeholder" groups who own a certain asset which I find a bit unsettling at times.