Morello Cherry

Not that this changes your point about them being 3rd rail vehicles but if they are blue-grey I think they are more likely to be REP or 4TC carriages as I think most CIGs, CEPs, VEPs, BIGs and BEPs survived into privatisation era and were scrapped in every colour scheme other than blue-grey.

Having reminded myself I went back and found Night Mail on the net to rewatch the Crewe section again. It captures this well. It is the Post Office who ask for it to be held for 4 minutes and then control agree - and hold it for the Holyhead.

Appropos of nothing, I just rewatched Night Mail and at 19.40 the fireman appears to be firing the loco which is lhd from the lefthand side. I am assuming that is his normal firing stance and he hasn't moved across to accommodate the camera man. (As the loco is being fired leaving Crewe earlier in the film it is fired from the right hand side) A slight disgression allegedly according to Wikipedia Auden claimed that a guard in the Crewe shots keeled over and died 30 seconds after they finished filming him. I couldn't see many/any guards in the Crewe shots though.

There was an article in Modern Railways a few years back that was an anatomy of a signal check somewhere on the south of the wcml early in the morning. It showed that it had knock on effects because of missed paths etc and delays stemming from that, which went from Inverness to penzance to Felixstowe and it finally worked itself out of the system around 11.30 at night.

There is the scene in Night Mail at Crewe where the train from Holyhead is late. (It sticks in my memory because the person shouting 'Where's that Holyhead?' sounds like my grandfather did.) But my question is how long would the postal be held for a connection such as the train from Holyhead and what would have happened to mail if the connection was missed since I'm assuming mail from Holyhead and Ireland would be quite high priority.

Was there ever any traffic connected with Westland in Yeovil? A good collection of images of traffic on the line from 1974 can be found here http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/bridport-branch.html

The problem is that articles like that are only interested in the clicks and relinks. But back to the question - I wonder what kind of provision there was (if there was any) on the morning Hereford-Paddington service. I am going from memory here but I recall a comment in the CLPG newsletter around the time that FGW was reducing the amount of first class in its HSTs to the effect that the Cotswold line had always had the highest proportion of first class passengers (I assume as a proportion of all passengers), it would seem to me that they might be the kind of people who might want a meal. (I am going off memory and of course the Cotswold line in the 70s and 80s wasn't exactly well used).

Szia :) As someone who has spent time in Hungary, Canada, California and Somerset I can see the appeal of all those locations. I reckon a couple of good places to start might be Maggs' Somerset Railways and also Branchlines of Somerset Another place that is nice to look at and a bit interesting is Cheddar - although this closed a bit earlier it did have diesels. And of course most people will have heard of it :)

Farnborough North can only be crossed across the crossing on the flat which is/was manned. There are 4 trains ph through the station. The road beyond the crossing goes nowhere and isn't used. Attempts to provide a bridge resulted in howls of outrage. https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/plans-new-bridge-farnborough-north-14260445 Better shots of the crossing

Depending on where you choose to look I would recommend as a good starting point anything by Vic Mitchell. So for example if you are interested in Yeovil then - https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/books/railways/great-railway-eras/yeovil.html 30+ photos of Yeovil PM. The series covers a huge number of lines and the search feature is pretty good for find the right book. Colin Maggs is good for anything on Somerset/Dorset. Generally, I would say that the more well known a line is the more books there are on it. There is a lot more on Bristol to Bournemouth via Bath and Templecombe than there is on Bristol to Weymouth via Castle Cary. I guess my question would be what interests you most of all and what do you want? Do you want variation in rolling stock reflecting the transition era? Do you want to faithfully recreate a specific place (even if say there was not much variety of stock) or do you want to use real locations as a springboard to create an imagined place that allows you to combine all the things you want?

Just a thought. Is there anything in Haresnape about the front end design of BR diesels. I had some modern railway articles from c1964 - I think it was a three or four part series and he was looking at the improvements made by the BR design board. I seem to remember a lot about the 52s but there was a lot of discussion of design ideas in the articles. Maybe there is something in there or something in his other writings on diesel design.

I did say that the RS11 had a new engine and this is why it had a high hood and I am well aware that they came in various optional formats, however, I think the majority of units took the forms that I referred to, which shows the evolutionary rather than revolutionary nature of changes. The key point is that the shift from the low hood of the RS1 to the high hood of the RS 11 was due to the need to accommodate equipment, while the original off centre cab and subsequent move to low short hood forward were driven by demands to improve visibility. Little to do with hitting cows etc. But we're still no closer to working out why the 37s had a bonnet and the 33s didn't.

It's worth looking at the evolution of ALCOs road switchers which go from low hood to high hood to low front hood as the locos have to become more powerful and as I assume more equipment is added. I am happy to be corrected. RS 1 (1940) - the Rock Island specifically asked for a loco that was powerful enough to haul trains on the mainline but also provided good vision when switching. The Long hood was considered the front. RS 11 - 1956 - More HP, turbocharged and new engine to compete with the GP9. The short hood is the front. RS27 - 1961 built to compete with the GP20. Short low hood is the front. So in a relatively short period of time (20 years) - HP doubles from 1000HP in the RS1 to 2000HP in the RS27 and front ends and cabs evolve equally fast but largely for practical concerns about visibility when switching and running.

I don't buy it especially when you look at the evolution of north american diesel design. The first locos are very boxy. The first switchers follow the same basic structure as UK shunters - cab at the back and engine in front with cab looking over the bonnet (like an 03). The early E and F series units had the nose but more for styling reasons and the GP series units were a reaction to the difficulties of shunting with a F or E unit (no view back because of the car body). The first GP units GP7s had steam heat generators in the short end hood. It was quickly discovered that running short hood forward (shf) gave better visibility than than running long hood forward (lhf). Also, as passenger traffic declined it was no longer necessary to have steam heating capacity so the short hood became a low hood. It should be noted that some lines, significantly those in the south (southern and n&w) favoured lhf for quite a long period of time but this appears to be because there was a belief that in the event of a grade crossing accident this afforded the crews better protection. Those two lines also carried a lot of coal traffic on steeply grades lines down the Appalachians and I assume the view was that in the event of a runaway lhf afforded the crew a slight degree more protection than shf. Cowl units cabs ie FP45 onwards are a development of the F9s with a new styling, that type of cab then gets adopted by CN for their freight locos (GP40-2w) which ultimately has become the dominant style. (The distinction between a spartan cab and a comfort (wide) cab). NS was still ordering spartan cabbed locos until the mid 1990s. But it is effectively a combination of a cowl body cab with a hood unit. The best of both worlds, wide cab with good visibility in all directions. Still none of which tells us why UK locos had bonnets, but I can see nothing in the history of North American diesel design that makes the risk of hitting an animal on the prairies or in the rockies a reason for there to be a bonnet in front of the cab

For what it is worth people might find this brief article about early Canadian diesels interesting. The early designs were very boxy. http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/Various/early_diesels.htm It seems that the noses emerge in North America with Union Pacifics M10000 Streamliners - but it looks to me as if this was more for technical reasons but also styling and to mimic the modern cars with which it was competing. Later designs it appears to be for style rather than because there was necessary equipment. There is an article about their evolution here - annoyingly for an article about loco noses there are no photos of what is inside the nose. Considering the discussion about corridor connections, the inability to get out of the front of an F unit is central to the plot of 'Runaway Train' (if you like prison escape films set on trains in Alaska then I highly recommend it) obviously you have to accept that apparently there is no such thing as a deadman's pedal. The discussion of number 2s in the number 2 end reminded me of this bizarre video tour of the toilet in a Dash 9 None of which tells us anything about why British locos had noses.

Didn't some have a toilet in the number 2 end (and I assume a urinal in the number 1 end).

What about Kingsway tram subway? Last used 1952 - tracks still in situ and in the middle of London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsway_tramway_subway

I am not sure if this should be a separate topic or not, but it is related to signal sighting but also route knowledge. I was re-reading Nock and he mentions an accident at Ashchurch where the driver 'lost his way' and that he knew the driver involved who was killed. Nock mentions that he knew the driver from St Pancras. When I dug into the accident report, the driver was on a turn/link at Derby which was Derby-Manchester-Bristol-London. It describes the turn as Derby to Gloucester 4 weeks in 13. My question is two-fold - to me it strikes me as a huge amount of route to know and maintain knowledge of, especially considering the complexity of approaches into places like London, Manchester and Bristol as well having to know a huge number of intermediate signals at places like Ashchurch, Charfield etc. Was this a 'normal' amount of route knowledge for a passenger driver in this era? the second thing is how does this compare to the amount of route knowledge for a modern driver - for example would a midlands based driver in the 1980s have covered a similar trackage, or even a post-privatisation driver? If anyone is interested - the link is here - https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/doclisting.php?location=199&acctype=all&&event=261 The engine was rhd compound (1060) and there is some discussion in the report about how the driver normally would move to the fireman's side to observe the signals but did not on this occasion. It is interesting that Harrow has been mentioned and other accidents involving signal sighting have been mentioned, isn't one of the hypotheses about the accident that the driver of the southbound express missed a signal in patchy fog but continued to look for it and ended up missing the next signal which was at a different height.

There is an interesting reference at the end which when you chase it up gives more Patchway shots from what looks like the same series https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2927190

If you zoom on these pictures it looks like Patchway to me as well https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/253565311481 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262905958474?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338722076&customid=&toolid=10050 Signals tick Bridge tick building on rhs tick

As someone who is left handed but who throws and bats right handed I find RHD easier than LHD. On a LHD it is easier for me to operate the brake, blower etc with my right hand and on RHD I find it easier to do it with my left. I'm not going across myself. To check that I wasn't going crazy, I watched one of the Watercress line videos on youtube and the driver on the Ivatt tank which is LHD did everything right handed, if he had been left handed he'd have had to have twisted. That said, it may well be that 100 years of LHD locomotives the layout progressed to suit right handed drivers and that if you were to drive an LHD from the 1850s it would not be so conducive to a right hander. I just find it strange that ease of firing is given as a reason when what is easiest for the fireman would surely be among the lowest considerations when deciding LHD or RHD

But if you are a right handed driver isn't it easier to drive from the left hand side? I find it hard to imagine that when they were laying out the cabs in the very early days that they were thinking 'hmmm, what is easiest for the right handed fireman'. Also, given the hostility towards left handers, I wonder how many left handed firemen there actually were. (My grandmothers were not allowed to write with their natural left hand when at school in the 1920s)

If you have access then the following might be of interest. The Role of Coastal Shipping in UK Transport: An Estimate of Comparative Traffic Movements in 1910 John Armstrong First Published Sep 1, 1987; pp. 164–178 https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jthc/8/2 There are some interesting tables in it comparing coastal and rail traffic and also where coal was coming from in 1910. It is also worth noting that not all the coal was down the East Coast and there were some interesting journeys to get the coal to the ports - Simmons in the Oxford Companion highlights that some Erewash Valley coal was shipped from Morecambe. The GSWR carried in 1867 carried 900,000 tons to west coast ports. At the same time, he also highlights that the Highland and GNoSR moved coal that was landed at Scottish east coast ports. (The SER coal traffic from Whitstable is also mentioned). The references included by Simmons make for some interesting further reading.

Trawsfynydd Branch?

Thanks. Interesting, in the 2D53 page on the goods yard, the author reckons that there is a large slate block in a wagon to be transported, do you think he is wrong in his interpretation of the load