jonny777

I remember a lot of artic twins being used in summer extra sets to Skegness and Mablethorpe via Sleaford, while Belgrave Road station was open in the early 1960s, although the services probably originated from Nott Vic and Derby Friargate as well.

The front car of that class 113 Cravens unit appears to be one where the FYE has been carried all the way over the driver's doors. That is another class to add to the list of units having this variation.

What wonderful photos; I am off down memory lane again. The weathering on 60117 is superb.

Thanks mali, although that is not really the reason I wanted to see as it means they would be less likely to wander further afield. Still, I can always invoke Rule 1.

Looking at the K1s allocations in the 1960s, I notice that a few were moved to Frodingham in 1960. I have seen a photo of one on a coal train at Gainsborough, but I am perplexed as to why Frodingham would need these locos when the shed had ample WDs and RODs for the heavy trains worked to/from there. Does anyone know how the 36C K1s were employed on a regular basis?

My K1 running plate has a very small rise over the valve gear fixing, but its not something that I am going to lose sleep over, and I am certainly not going to send it back with all the unpredictability that involves.

There is nothing wrong with photos from the 80s railsquid. They are now just a memory for everyone and are just as fascinating for livery variations as the green/blue transition era. You upload away. I, for one, will be looking.

Thanks very much great central, that is absolutely superb.

I can vouch for that, especially in winter months. My mother liked Nottingham shops and I loved the trains and the trolleybuses, so we used to travel there from Lincolnshire on a regular basis. Sometimes the entire city would become engulfed in this thick yellow/orange blanket (I am not sure if the fog was actually a yellow colour, or whether it was just the effect of the street lamps), so I had a good excuse to stay on the station. I think the trolleybuses were taken out of service in the mid-60s which was almost as sad event as the demise of Victoria station.

Those Cravens 3-car units were regulars at Nottingham Midland in the 1960s, and I saw all but one set during that time. The trailer cars in the number series M59307 to M59325 were very early casualties and were all withdrawn by the early 1970s, I think, leaving the units as power twins. Therefore that photo must be a rare colour shot of a complete unit, showing a composite trailer, but a few trailers were all 2nd class.

I have tried it again with a much more complex rotation method, which merely takes more time for the computer to perform, and the result is a big improvement.

I tried a live rotation until the part to be cropped was vertical, and then rotated it back again. However, the double rotation upsets the picture content on my cheap and nasty graphics package, but it is a start. Maybe someone with a degree in Photoshop techniques could try something similar with that software?

Yes, add me too for the above idea. I always thought that, instead of lavishing hundreds of millions on the Dome, the government should have spent some on a Millennium project to record all manner of retired people talking about their early years and their work, school and home experiences, and put all the recordings online (or a transcription of their memories) with access for a small yearly fee to anyone who was interested. It would have been a goldmine of information for future historians.

Two-tone green 31s with a single bodyside double arrow were quite common in the late 1960s, but what was very, very rare was a green 31 with arrows under the cab windows and numbers behind the doors. A variation seen here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwf2009/5537346883/in/set-72157626169910951 Does anyone have any idea which loco this is?

Has anyone actually received one yet? A photo (or two) would be appreciated.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "loads of holiday extras from 'foreign parts'. Are you referring to summer dated timetabled services, or the non-timetabled excursion trains? If it is the latter, as a random example the excursions arriving at Cleethorpes on Tuesday Aug 5th 1958 were:- 2 from Sheffield 2 from Doncaster 2 from Leeds Nottingham Gainsborough Lincoln 2 from Wadsley Bridge Castleford Woodhouse Staveley and they all went back that evening.

Oh my..... A white Mini Traveller at Sowerby Bridge. I used to have one of those (and in white), although mine had more primer than original paint, where I had sanded down and filled the rust patches. I gave it an "acceleration test" one Sunday morning, and it managed to do 0-60 mph in just under a minute.

Some of the East coast resorts in the 1950s had "land trains", which basically were ex-military Land Rovers underneath a very basic steam engine outline, probably constructed out of plywood. These would tow a couple of trailers with rows of seats bolted to them. They would run either along the promenade or up and down the beach at low tide where the sand was hard. Also present on the beach, in addition to donkeys, were "ducks" or more accurately DUKWs, which were ex-military amphibious craft which would take tourists on trips down the beach and into the shallow areas of the sea.

Yes, I had the same feeling after visiting Carnforth in 1970. 46441 was in steam and running up and down one of the tracks alongside the shed area, giving brake van rides - but its red paint and LMS insignia somehow put me off going again. It was as if steam had suddenly become a quirky novelty, which was not how I saw it.

I'll turn a blind eye to the imperfections at the moment, and wait for the production locos. At least they capture the look of the engines that used to pass my parents house on the High Dyke - Frodingham workings when I was a boy.

I know that feeling. I think many of us now wish we had taken far more notice of the EMUs and DMUs that were everyday fare in those now far off days, and photographed them.

Being devil's advocate again, maybe Hornby do not want to sort their retailer allocation policy? Maybe they wish to maximise the amount of money they make on each item by selling them direct at RRP, rather than allow retailers to take a cut? Just a thought.

I hope it is not a 3-car 115, because they were 4-car units.

Excellent nostalgia as always. I know what it is like to be a youngster in seventh heaven during August 1964, Chris. That same month I was enjoying the delights of Bournemouth Central while my mother mooched around the shops. Sadly, no camera for me in those days, but I could have sat for weeks at the far end of the very long down platform, watching the activity at the shed across the tracks.

Excellent detective work. I wonder when D253 went blue? Maybe it kept the ladder until then?