Morello Cherry

There's a wiff of 'in my day this was all fields' Anyway, if anyone really has a craving for steam and the ability to stand by the doors then I recommend a trip to Romania. (Clip from this weekend and older photo) - This is the Sibiu Agnita line. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1543974269513567

There was a backtrack article recently (within the last 5 years I reckon) on them but i can't remember more. Hamilton (1967) has a couple of pages on them and the routings and some stuff on the wagons. He also says that pressure of demands on GWR locos meant that later on some were routed away from the GWR. He also has a lot about the trains for trains for navy personel. There is a photo on (p.81) of a Jellicoe Special which is reportedly the only one of one. It shows a 0-8-0 Webb compound being banked up Shap. Sadly the Quintinshill report is as far as i can tell silent on what was hauling the empty wagon train.

when you have a small diorama of a small rural station and yard but just couldn't resist the new model class 24 or the new sleepers, let alone deciding whether you want the maroon or the blue grey model and go mad in the shop instead. I am pretty sure no one at an exhibition is buying the preservation society special from London story either.

Yeah, I find it really weird that on a discussion forum dedicated to discussing preservation topics that people would spend their time discussing at length issues affecting one of the biggest operators and preservation in general.

I'd suggest that the 'golden era' is at the root of the problems the industry is seeing now. During that period we saw a lot of expansion but that expansion was only possible by playing fast and loose with safety and in the end this culminated in Wootton Bassett. You can run lots of charters if you cut costs and corners such as getting rid of traction inspectors. Beyond Wootton Bassett we've seen the SDR, GCR, NYMR, WSR all come under scrutiny over safety issues, paperwork and taking responsibility, in some cases we've seen not just ORR but also the CPS. At the same time, the clowns by the trackside during Flying Scotsman's return to steam as well brought unwanted attention to the sector (videos such as the guy at the level crossing as well). (I did find it ironic that someone was complaining about parents not taking responsibility for their children when I've seen plenty of irresponsible train spotters and photographs on the railway - including people going off the end of the ramp on a 3rd rail station to get that all important photograph. It did make me wonder who the real 'brutes' who need a responsible adult to supervise them really are in all of this). You reap what you sow. The result of Wootton Bassett, etc means that the authorities are paying a lot more attention to what goes on in the heritage sector. Whether that is WCR or WSR. The days when people could treat a line as their own private fiefdom are going and what we are seeing in WCR is the last kick of a dying regime. But more importantly, scrutiny means costs are pushed up (as they should be) and what this means is that essentially only the very wealthy can afford to play trains - either essentially paying up, or being wealthy enough to think that the rules don't apply to them (hello lockdown trips to the Scottish highlands to test the toilets). The smaller operating groups are unfortunately the collatoral damage caused by the sloppy, unsafe practices of others during the 'golden era' of rail tours. When it comes to some connected with railways I am constantly reminded of Orwell's comment that nothing short of dynamite will convince some people which century they are living in.

That just isn't true and is misty eyed romaticism. If anything the reverse is true. How many times in your childhood did you play unsupervised? How often do you see children playing unsupervised today? It is weird, in a era of helicopter parents, media led scare stories about what will happen if you take your eyes off your child for 10 seconds, the tutting disapproval of mumsnet, and apparently a younger generation that is so molly-coddled as to be unable to do anything such as open a slamdoor, simultaneously parental responsibility is getting weaker. Schrödinger's parent - both overly protective and wantonly irresponsible at the same time.

The problem is that this isn't what the report says. The report says the opposite: No one mentions a train passing in the other direction. Caudle's statement clearly says that he went left to right and was on the left hand side in the tunnel. He is on the left hand side of the engine when in the tunnel... with the smoke and the engine working hard at 30mph (if my maths is correct a train going at 30mph takes about 29 seconds to go through 428 yard long tunnel). He moves across the smokebox to the right hand side once outside the tunnel. He is on the off side when passing the signal on the nearside which can be seen after about 500 yards. He is still outside the engine when passing the signal (approx 72 seconds after leaving the tunnel exit) Birkett Tunnel from the south (428 yards) Pringle has this to say about the issue. Again, emphasis here is mine. @Jim Martin - re crew falling off (The notice that Pringle mentions above from the appendix II in the report (p55)) All this discussion about whether or not it is safe or not, or why can't we do what we've always done because I've never had an accident so it is fine sounds eerily familiar. I am just shocked to see that no one has accused Major Pringle of being a namby pamby woke snowflake health and safety killjoy.

Is that not this accident - Manors Junction on 7th August 1926 with some embroidery?

I seem to recall a couple of accidents where there were run away engines after drivers fell off their engines. TBH the expectation seems to have been that if the driver died/was injured during the journey the fireman would takeover. There is one story i read of a driver being decapitated by a bridge and the fireman taking over to complete the journey. I'm pretty sure I read one accident report where a driver 'went missing' over the side of an engine when in motion and the fireman didn't notice for a while. (I have in my mind it was in Ireland). I suspect it happened more often than we imagine but would probably only show up as the sort of thing a fireman would have been commended for rather than the sort thing that would induce a visit from a Major.

Probably when you play fast and loose with safety and fail to provide sufficient stewards as per your exemption with the ORR.

As someone who has also fired Prince (maybe there should be a Prince firemans support group?) this is part of what drives my question. My abiding memory is that even when plodding along well, it was not a very smooth ride. If Prince was like that I am struggling to think what 30 mph on a MR 4-4-0 in the middle of the night would have been like. I am glad that I wasn't imagining it. It was one of those ones where I wondered if it was something I'd imagined. My guess is that on the occassions when people were handsanding when the train came into Tanybwlch the weather was so awful that the photographers decided not to waste precious film in the gloom. I don't disagree but doesn't Hawes Jnc show the same important parallels? Just as the signalman forgot that the locos were in front of the signal box and got distracted by other things, Caudle forgot where he was/to look out for the signals because he was distracted by oiling, the injectors, watching the fireman. There is also a piece in Fellows evidence that suggests they were lulled into a false sense of security that all was fine ahead of them. His evidence also suggests a driver who was a bit distracted: Caudle wasn't the first and won't be the last person to become so focussed on task A that they forget to carry out task B until they are shaken out of their tunnel vision, in this case the fireman shouting the warning. Doesn't it boil down to that if he hadn't left the cab to oil around he wouldn't have missed the signals, because even if he'd still had to help with the injector and monitor the firing, there would have been plenty of opportunities to see the various signals at danger. The impact of oiling around in motion does seem to be very much downplayed in the evidence in quite a concerted way - ie it was normal, it was expected, it only takes 2-3 minutes, they only do it between block posts when there are no signals to watch for.

Although in this case the fireman wasn't because of the injector issue. The estimate of 2-3 minutes to make your way all the way around in the dark and stopping to oil twice seems a bit optimistic to me. Here is the full quote: That reads to me to as left hand side in direction of travel to right hand side round the front. It says 'He kept the regulator and reversing lever in the same position and continued to-run forward" He gets back into the cab and he set to work on the injector and then he watched Fellows putting some coal on the fire, then finally Fellows saw the red tail lights. It reads to me like a driver who was so focused on the little tasks (oiling, getting the injector working and watching his fireman rather than paying attention to the signals). I guess he thought that he'd never been stopped there before so why would he be stopped there this time... Looking photos of the later 2P and the Midland Compound there is not much room around the cab - barely enough to put a foot down - but clearly a handrail along the cabside to hold onto and there is no reason for it to be there unless you needed to get out onto the front via the cab. I might be imagining it but I think I saw someone hand sanding from the front on a welsh narrow gauge railway in the very early 1980s on a very wet trip up through some woods. But I am probably misremembering what happened.

FWIW - I was reading up on Samuel Caudle on SteamIndex and I came across another entry for a driver which has some relevance here in response to the 'it was all fine in the 1960s people these days are babies' crowd: https://steamindex.com/nbrsg/j40.htm#40-25 CDL not only helps protect passengers but also staff, it says something about WCR that they don't really seem to care about their own staff being injured by open doors.

But writing 'here here' instead of 'hear hear' when saying don't be anal about minutiae is not ironic. It'd only have been ironic if he'd been being anal about minutiae, or spelling. Something being unfortunate does not make it ironic.

The report says he got out on the 'near side to oil the left auxiliary box' working his way round to the off-side. p.6 of the report. I guess it all boils down to how big the running place is. I don't know what form 446 was in in 1913. In the images of the class 2's I've seen there really doesn't look to be much room around the cab side plates or the splashers. On the 156 you can see clearly how they would get to the front, the running plate is right back to the cab steps but I'm struggling to see for the class 2. FYI - The report also dismisses low steam pressure for the second express highlighting that it had run to scheduled time p.9. I am trying to workout how you would get out of a hardworking 4-4-0 at 30mph at 3am in the pitch dark with an oil can and lamp. The men claim it would normally only take them 2 or 3 minutes to do this which seems very fast considering what they were doing. p.10

All the reports and most of the articles about the accident make mention that Driver Caudle left his engine while in motion to oil around the engine. Much is made that this was something didn't need to be done due to the fact that the engine had lubricators but it was tradition for drivers to do this. He goes out on the left hand side, works his way round the framing and ends up back in the cab on the fireman's side. It is said that the weather meant he was away from his cab for longer than expected and when he came back the fireman was struggling with injector and he was distracted by this. The combination of the two actions meant he missed the signals and the signalman waving a red lamp. Now what puzzles me is how did the 59 year old Caudle leave the cab while the train was in motion, climbing and in Birkett tunnel and at 2.51am? How would you get out and how and what would you be oiling? When the accident happens the train is estimated to be going about 30mph? I am unclear if 446 had been rebuilt or not but the images of the MR class 2 show it as this: Given the splashers - how the hell do you get round the framing at 30mph? The second thing is if the fireman is firing and dealing with the injector what is happening with the regulator/cut off. Would he just have it full fwd or near enough and left the regulator wide open?

This smacks of rivet counters punching down. It is easy to mock but local journalism has been cut to the bone. Almost all local news stories carried by the BBC use stock photos (there is another story about an assault in Hull which uses google streetview...). Almost certainly someone has gone onto Getty or one of the other photolibrary resources and put 'railway tracks' into the search box and this as a 'indicates it is a railway but not of an identifable place'. Having used these search engines for work they are something of a blunt instrument and no doubt this was a 30 second search and select for the story to get it out by a harrassed, overworked, underpaid and under-staffed local journalist (they certainly won't have a researcher working for them). The story doesn't live or die on the image, no one is going to be misled or misinformed so why care that it is a generic shot of some track that probably isn't in the UK.

This Dutch film popped up in my youtube feed. I thought I'd share it as it might be of interest.

The photo also answers my 'how were they fixed on'. It looks like it is hooked over the handrail. Is Brylcream man wearing a black mac? The phone makes me wonder how they communicated with the other testers in earlier times ie the LBSCR image.

I'd assume that there was at one point a turntable at Mallaig. It surprises me, given that there have been steam services running on the WHL every summer for the last 40 years, that one has not been re-installed at Mallaig

It looks like it has an extended mouthpiece and earpiece. Ideal for bellowing instructions. I can't begin to imagine what their hearing would have been like at the end of the day. I also like the fact that the chap on the phone has brylcreamed his hair in place so that not even working in the indicating shelter at speed is going to ruin it. It looks like the chap nearest to us must be sitting down as well which makes me wonder how that was fixed down. I'd assume in the cab looking through the spectacle window?

Thank you. A fascinating photo. A weird mix of not much room, but a stool for when talking on the phone. The heat shield looks like a sheet of plywood (a step up on cyclists using newspaper as weather protection). All I can say is not a gig I'd be volunteering for.

I think this is a rather poor effort. The interior-less Ratio kit that has been half painted. Ridiculously flat background but after having gone to the effort of weathering the 76 it is let down by the heavy Triang bogies, and then to cap it all off, the straight out of the box 16T wagon. Is that old Hornby Dublo track? My grandad used to have some of that? Nice work on the grass though.

That doesn't have anything to do with it. The point is that the critique of Haig pre-dates the 1960s which was what was being claimed. I am familiar with Malins work and well, let's put it this way, like others within this genre, she is to history what Nock is to railway writing. Prolific but works to a lower standard of evidence than other experts in the field. For example if I were highlight that when it comes to Richard I we have the first known use in English of the word holocaust to refer to antisemitic violence, I would caveat that the source is Simon Schama and the claim should be treated with caution, for the pure and simple reason is there is no source cited. Hence it is a questionable claim due to the lack of supporting evidence. To go back to the claims about Cromwell at Sidney Sussex it is variously claimed to be that a curtain is drawn when toast to the King/Queen is made, however, if you look at the portrait there is no evidence of any curtain. Nor is there any mention of it being done when the Queen or the then Prince of Wales visited the college. So something a bit more robust is needed to support Malins' claims.

That just isn't true. He was being criticised in the 1930s. Whatever you may think of them - Lloyd George's memoirs were 1936, Liddell Hart's was developing his critique from 1930 onwards.