Artless Bodger

Looking at the previous photo on flickr, a contributor states it's a side tip. Looking at the lever close up I think it's just a link on the end of the safety chain, with an L shaped pin you draw to release the end of the chain prior to tipping. The L shaped pin is on a light keeper chain. There is also a loop handle (pull out?) to the left and further left a catch of some sort. Would be interesting to know how the whole lot worked.

There is a photo on Paul Bartlett's site in the internal user private section showing a similar wagon. Also some photos on web of similar wagons at Esholt sewage works, though they are captioned hopper. 

1 hour ago, montyburns56 said:

"23-ton bogie hopper wagon, No 19154, built by Charles Roberts & Co, Wakefield, 1962 for City of Sheffield Sewage Department to run between Ickles Sidings and Thryberg Tip." 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, bogie? Hopper? Looks more like a side tip wagon, a large version of the Rugga tipper skip? The curved segments at the end look a giveaway, and to tip it you'd put a crane hook in that handle like fitting on the side and lift. The safety chain looks a bit delicat though. There's a photo of several somewhere else on RMWeb - in the industrial steam topics perhaps, used for coal mine waste iirc - one has odd wheels too - maybe prototype for anything? 

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

This would've surprised you as much as it did me !

 

Ashford : 25/7/98 ............................... love that dogleg !

 

Trying to place that view, is it on the line from Maidstone, approaching the junction, the 58 in the original LCDR Ashford station area? Having behind the photographer the army depot, that always had what looked like a Centurion hull parked close to the railway line, and having just passed an interesting looking metal door built into the side of the cutting? The CEP(?) in the distance being on the SER main line to Tonbridge (or Chart Leacon depot)?

On buses, two things stick in the memory; being mystified by the upstairs layout on a low bridge type, I think they were used normally on the 3 to Sittingbourne and Faversham, this was off route as we had it on a 33 to Tunbridge Wells. And on holiday in Margate, the lovely dark red East Kent double deckers with power operated sliding doors, occasionally got them in Maidstone on the 10 from Folkestone. 

Generally trips to see relatives in Kent was by bus as few lived near stations.

Good luck with that repair, it looks like watchmaker's work.

Not really given to going spotting, except a couple of trips to London to do the main termini with a school friend, so Deltics at Kings Cross, Westerns at Paddington. Living in Maidstone it was otherwise a diet of emus in green or blue.

Early sightings that stick with me were:

A family wedding reception in Ilford, the venue overlooked the railway, strange to see trains like at home but powered by overhead wires.

First trip to Margate by train (we'd used the M&D coach before - cheaper, until I got travel sick) and seeing Maunsell and Wainwright at Ashford (check the Observers book when we got back home).

A holiday at Bracklesham Bay holiday camp, we went to Portsmouth one day for the Victory, waiting for the train back to Chichester at Portsmouth and Southsea HL a dark green dmu came through on a service, I recall the racket the exhausts up the end of the carriages made compared to our quiet emus. Next birthday I got the Triang Met Cam dmu (rather than the Triang emu - looked too old fashioned). (Some years later, a holiday in Hastings introduced me to the much nicer sound of a Hastings unit, or two).

A holiday in Weymouth area, 1968 I think, seeing a maroon warship in the sidings at Waterloo, in my ignorance I thought it must be a Midland region loco. Later on the return from holiday, saw a blue one at Basingstoke (Greyhound iirc but I wouldn't put money on it). 

Later in life, returning from work in Maidenhead one misty evening, walking from platform 6 at Reading, saw ahead along 8 a class 58, which departed westwards as I approached, so only really saw the end, they were new at the time and I only knew about them from magazines. Didn't see any more 58s until the Fertis (?) ones parked at OOC.

Seeing the APT at Carlisle on my first trip to Scotland.

Discovering thumpers still lived (just) in NI when my wife got a job over there. We could hear them across Belfast Loch sometimes on services to Larne.

When APM to had adapt its siding and unloading gantry to accomodate the bogie tank wagons, the drawing of the wagon supplied for reference was lettered for Murgatroyds. I saw a Triang one in a charity shop window in Wokingham years ago - it was unfortunately a Sunday evening so I couldn't buy it.

Speaking of larger drums - on a visit to Townsend Hook papermill at Snodland in early 1980s we saw liquid chlorine in yellow 1 ton cylinders - laid flat, would fit nicely in thoe cradles. Used for water treatment (anti microbial) - bigger mills like APM took liquid chlorine in tank wagons (4w then bogie like the Triang Murgatroyd ones).

I recall seeing mobile muffler devices used at airports ( in the days of turbojet rather than turbofan engines?) - park it up so the jet exhaust went through it so the engines could be run up and tested during the night - something similar over the track for locos (a sund absorbing version of a smoke hood in a steam shed).

Found on Reddit r/aviation - duncan_D_sorderly

6 hours ago, KeithHC said:

ps. One just wonders how noisy the replacement supermarket carpark is at night.

Depends if the car moders use it for meets like some of our local supermarket carparks, can hear the squeal of tyres and reving engines even where we live at least 2 miles away.

9 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Oh but they are!  One issue with EMD locos fitted with what they call HEP (Head End Power) is that the prime mover has to run at practically full power to supply the train. 

Interesting, I remember the locos on the Enterprise in Belfast Central station making a similar racket  - I think they were a version of EMD loco (similar to a 59?) - you couldn't hear the station announcements and even the Thumpers couldn't compete.

The choice of colours and stripes reminds me of Old English Spangles. Give it a few years and we'll wonder what all the kerfufle was about. Does anyone still bemoan the loss of Gillespie Road?

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

In my time there were Up and Down spurs at East Putney enabling Windsor Lines BR trains to access Wimbledon Park depot. There was a sudden panic in the late '80s when the bridge on the Up spur crossing the Windsor Lines was found to be in unsafe condition and the Up spur was closed at short notice. 

I didn't realise the bridge was taken out so late, I saw the ramps when travelling on the train to Reading in the 70s but never noticed the bridge.

13 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Indeed.  I guess the pipe would have to be gapped, so the train would have to detach from the piston and connect to a new one on the other side of the gap.  Someone would then have to remove the piston from the dead end of the pipe and re-position it for the next train.  If it failed to detach then the piston would slam into the end of the pipe and almost certainly break something.  

According to Charles Hadfield in his book Atmospheric Railways the pipe gaps had self acting valves at the ends which would admit a piston to enter or leave without destroying the vacuum, the pistons remained attached to the piston carriages. On the South Devon there was an auxiliary 8" tube alongside the track to pull the train forward so its piston entered the main pipe on starting from stations. Gaps had bypass pipes so engines could exhaust either length of pipe.

Thank you to Nick Holliday and Compound2632 for your information, correcting my misconceptions.

Were not some E1s originally fitted with Westinghouse pumps and painted IEG rather than goods green and used for passenger work on som eof the more steeply graded lines? Cuckoo Line?

I do like the EMU view - shades of the Ardingly line. That and the O gauge progress induce pangs of longing in me. BUT, must get on with the project in hand, no side tracking!

I used to refer to the Gospel Oak - Barking as the GoBar line, until someone told me it was the Hindi word for cowdung.

Less likely to entrain loose livestock roaming at large?

A member of the old Reed's club showed us some film he'd taken in Germany (early 1980s) in a marshalling yard where loose shunting was taking place, men were employed (he said Gastarbeiter) to drop metal sledges onto the railhead just before a wagon passed, to slow and stop them. He said life expectancy was short.

C576, a nice short freight. Looking closely at the brake van - not something I've done much before - I did not see the side lamps at first as they blend in, were side lamps always black bodied? Showing white light to front and rear? Sorry, showing my ignorance of basic railway operation here.

J596 - prototype for my ballasting, sleepers well covered! Presumably it has still to be tamped?

4 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

I had to look up what a Q1 was. 

J

A colour plate illustration was used in the 1960 edition of the Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives* to indicate all the "Points to look for when identifying locomotives' For many years I thought it was a made up loco, the penny dropped eventually when I discovered that it was the Thompson rebuild of a GC 0-8-0.

*It was a favourite bedtime read - I was about 4 and steam was just about to disappear from Kent.

The inner track on your last photo looks a bit precarious - not modelling the Dawlish washout are you?

Nice to see SR EMUs.

The last car we had that was easy to change a headlight bulb was the Y reg metro. Peugeot 205 diesel, had an electrical box over one lamp, which needed a spanner to remove it, then the wires were not long enough to lay it sensibly aside so you needed an extra hand to hold it out of the way. The 306 and 309 were no better in their own sweet ways. Our current Jazz is a bit of a nuisance as you can't actually see what you are doing and have to do it all by feel. 

To cap it all, the headlight ususally fails in the dark in winter, so, unpleasantly cold to do anything and have hold a torch in your mouth to see. I changed one in the 306 by driving to the local supermarket car park so I could get some light on the job.

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

high, and often very dirty, ballast,

Something I noticed one very wet night at Bearsted station (I'd gone to meet my wife off her train) soon after some reballasting, there was a hissing sound and a small spark arcing from the bottom of the 3rd rail to a prominent piece of ballast.

Rather more exciting was one morning waiting at Maidstone Barracks - someone emerged from the bothy at the end of the emu sidings there and, as far as I could make out, tossed the contents of the teapot across the tracks causing a momentary and very bright arc. Took a while for my eyes to recover.