Cowley 47521

Chilly and claustrophobic jacuzzi though…

Yes they’ve definitely been out and about on the main line: edit - Actually where have the coaches come from? Are they from the Bluebell Railway maybe?

With Bulleid coaches too. Must be a long time since any of those were on the main line?

I thought this was rather cleverly done.

I was in the right place at the right time and actually got 50149 and 50042 from Dawlish Warren to Dawlish that day. Being a (wet) summer Saturday it was absolutely rammed with bashers! There’s a photo of them at Dawlish which has appeared in at least one magazine on the Dawlish Trains (Colin Marsden?) site: And this rather cool shot on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aderoberts/8589659417

Someone add that to the list of liveries!

I have a massive soft spot for early Network Southeast. I know it’s not a great livery really, but it appeared on the scene when I was around 14 years old and when I started going down to Exeter St David’s after school in 1986. The usual thing was to walk onto platform 1 and see whatever was loudly ticking over (and filling the general area up with acrid blue smoke) on the 16:18 Waterloo departure before walking over the footbridge to platform 6 to see what was on shed (lots of lovely banger blue stuff usually). This particular day though I could see a set of white window surrounds on the other side of the station, and in the days where you had to wait until a monthly magazine came out to find out what was happening on the railways the only possible thing I could think of with white window surrounds was a Hymek… It wasn’t a Hymek though. It was 50017 Royal Oak absolutely gleaming in a livery that I’d never seen before and didn’t know even existed, just a day or two after Network Southeast was launched in June 1986… Great memories (and all hail the livery froth)!

Yeah they looked a little anonymous in banger blue, whereas they kind of lit up the western region in large logo somehow. It suited them really well.

A seriously good way of clearing much of the surviving class members for haulage in one go!

There’s an outside chance that I may be able to come along to this as I’m in the area (ish) that weekend. I’d really love to see it in the flesh I must say.

That’s the caption I would have gone for!

That’s a great photo.

Ah brilliant. That’s exactly what I remember. Nice to see a bit of the Exeter spare set lurking next to the goods shed too! Thinking about it, was that the one that got stuck on the low loader at the bottom of Holloway Street when they removed it?

Thanks Simon

And was a bit of a surprise one as it had been in original NSE for a while. There was a Laira blue one dumped around the back of the goods shed at Exeter st David’s for a while, can anyone remember if that was Illustrious or was it 50019 maybe?

That’s a fantastic video Simon. It shows what N gauge is really good at. I can only imagine how long that took to edit having lost many hours trying to do the same thing! Nick

That’s a very interesting photo.

Fantastically modellable train though (especially as I’ve got an NSE version of that 50).

Not from the 1970s but when D200 came to Exeter on a railtour in 1987 my stepbrother and I were able to cab it just after it arrived on platform 3 at St David’s. Then a few years ago I made friends with a chap from Stockport who was on said tour and he’s given me a photo of us teenage lads standing by the loco waiting to look in the cab.