jonny777

Oh my, I seem to have died and gone to b/w heaven. Thanks very much.

Lovely, thanks very much for the link. Nostalgia time.

Going back another 10 years, I found this rather dull photo from the corporate BR blue days. I remember visiting Knottingley in the mid 70s when the depot was full of 47/3s. I don't suppose anyone has a photo of those years? Sorry Jeff, hope you don't mind me hi-jacking your thread for a moment. I kick myself for not taking any myself.

There is also some excellent footage of the 3hr expresses on this dvd - http://www.transportdiversions.com/publicationshow.asp?pubid=8111 No doubt available from many other stockists, but that was the first link to appear. .... and also some of these dvds would include relevant footage - http://railwayrecollections.com/products-page/railway-recollections-guest-dvds-cinerail-railways-of-scotland/

I presume that you have the Shrewsbury volume in the Marsden Rail video series? It has some footage from the early 60s and can be stepped through frame by frame on modern dvd players these days.

Excellent photos. The 'noise' on the signalbox shot may just be light being reflected off raindrops if you say it was a wet evening. Mentioning the fact that you could hear the 47 coming from a mile away, reminds me of the late 60s, when single class 25s were put in charge of Skegness to Nottingham/Derby/Leicester excursions on some weekends. They really struggled with 10 or 11 coaches and also could be heard thrashing away in the distance long before they reached the station. What may not be apparent is that the gradient is uphill between Swineshead Bridge and just to the west of Heckington. Not quite of Lickey proportions, I admit, but the line does rise from 4 metres amsl to around 15 metres just west of Burton Road crossing. Not a lot, but enough to make a type 2 with a full train of holidaymakers do some hard work for a couple of miles. The 47 was not the only loco to find the "gradient" rather more than it bargained for with a steel train from the docks, here is a recording that I made of 20060+20164 with a similar train just west of the station on an August evening in 1978. 20064+20160.aiff.mp3 Hope this works, as luckily the mp3 file size is just below 1mb.

Excellent. I have never seen a 91 running blunt end first, but I have not spent too much time on the ECML. It is strange to think that the locos were designed to haul overnight freight services in between daytime duties, originally. Eric Treacy, yes. I have most of his books. I love his photos, although the one frustrating thing is that he rarely recorded the date.

More excellent photos. Carlisle station became a worthwhile place to visit once the avoiding lines were closed. I agree about certain trainspotting types and wives. I took mine to Kings Cross for an hour or so after a few hours trudging around the Oxford Street shops. I thought it would be quite a reasonable destination with lots of activity, and indeed it was, but there was one chap at the platform end who became almost orgasmic every time a Deltic moved, mainly because of the thick plume of exhaust that appeared as the engine was revved (they were moving around the stabling point on one engine). Maybe it was the same person? I really thought he was going to pass out, or need a change of underwear, or both, when one Deltic parked on a loco spur by the tunnel mouth suddenly burst into life with an enormous cloud of blue smoke, but that was enough for the wife and she has tended to avoid railway events ever since (and that "experience" was 35 years ago). It is a shame because 95% of railway enthusiasts are really nice people.

47145 and 47328 at Didcot on a dull Nov day in 1996. Also present are 58050 and 37140. 47204 at Newport. In the background is 37229. Not sure of the date, late 1990s I think. 47381 in the snow at Eastleigh Feb 1991. 47428 Glasgow Central in 1986.

I don't think that is a Cravens parcels unit, probably a Gloucester one of class 128.

Some excellent photos there, although the scrap lines are a very sad sight. Thanks for sharing them though, it is always good to see pictures of hydraulics taken 40-50 years ago.

I have visited Streetview, and from the Burton Road crossing, the current eastbound distant is a complete replacement to the one that used to be at that location. The current one is on a tubular post with a white sighting board. There are so few photos of that area from 50 years ago, that I have yet to find one with the original signal showing, but it was a cast concrete post and a bracket doll, almost like a junction signal, but with the left hand side missing, if my memory is working properly. The right side protruding out towards the track made the signal more prominent, and all Heckington's signals were somersault 50 years ago. Just to show how things have changed since then, this link should show how the level crossing and signal box looked from the west in 1963 - http://www.railphotolibrary.com/static2/preview2/stock-photo-m99600024-13044.jpg As you can see, the station appears to be very isolated in that photo, although the station hotel - which was then a pub is just out of shot on the left and the windmill on the right, so it is not quite as it looks there. A school friend of mine lived in the station hotel for a while and going O/T it was fun to be invited to his place for tea and eat spaghetti on toast at the bar on stools (opening time was 7pm - 10pm in those days). If you look very hard you can see the westbound outer home above the first carriage of the train. The westbound distant was a similar height and almost identical post/spectacle plate configuration, but another few hundred yards towards Swineshead Bridge.

If the signal is a distant, it could only be the one from the westbound side (not sure which is up and down on that route), because the distant by Burton road crossing was on a concrete bracket post to make it more visible. I always meant to take a close-up photo of it while still a somersault, but never did - mainly because I really wanted it to be in the 'off' position, which it rarely was. It must have been a hefty pull from Heckington box as it must have been nearly a mile away, and only the summer holiday excursions may have been given that privilege. My favourite train in those days was a WD hauled train of oil tankers. After the closure of the direct Boston-Lincoln line in 1963, and due to complaints about the extra time it would take the regular passengers travelling between these two stations, BR added some services running via Sleaford. These did not stop at any intermediate stations, apart from Sleaford, and one used to pass Heckington at just after 9pm. I have no idea what the WD train was, as I have yet to find the right WTT, unless it was a 'runs as required' train, but it used to clank by at just before 9pm. Some days it would continue on its way east, but most evenings it would stop just east of the station and reverse the train over the crossover onto the opposite running line and continue reversing until it was clear of the crossing gates. There it would wait for the 2-car 114 unit to race by, and then continue its journey. The whole process could take 15-20 minutes and was usually in the dark. It was a marvellous combination of hissing steam, that metallic 'ringing' sound WDs made, clanking coupling rods and the regular clanking of buffers along the length of the train (and often back again) as the loco either stopped or re-started. I don't think the train was fitted; it certainly did not sound like it, and I presume the tanks were empty bound for Immingham, but where they originated I have no idea. If someone can shed any light on this working - which may have only been for a year or so, 63/64, I would be most grateful. Sorry Sean, I am not trying to hi-jack your photo thread.

Excellent photos here again Jeff, thanks for posting them. Don't apologise for the quality, they are all priceless these days. The withdrawn steam locos at York are especially poignant, and the dark nature of the photos only emphasises the sense of despair that we spotters felt when we saw them in such a state. Yes, it was nice to cop a few that were needed but that feeling was overwhelmed by sadness and anger that such capable engines were just being allowed to rot.

Thanks Shaun, I'm glad that something of the original still survives. The Pea Room was still operational in my day, and there were two long sidings that ran alongside the front of it, usually filled with covered vans awaiting loading. There was also a short siding to a weighbridge much closer to the platform and another off that which went into the goods shed. I remember walking across some complex track at the east end of the station, which I think must have been a single slip, (I doubt that a double slip was necessary), but I am not sure how it was worked - as it was a good way from the station box. There was a long headshunt which went all the way to the home signal, which presumably was interlocked with the Fen level crossing status. There used to be a third home signal in the Sleaford direction, just before the foot crossing that was a continuation of the path from Banks Lane. It was removed around 1964, which we found most inconvenient as we used it as advance warning of trains heading west in our spotting days. I remember my worst Saturday ever was around that time, as my Dad had made me go for a hair cut, and while I was at the barbers an A1 pacific went through on a railtour, or excursion of some kind. Of course, everyone had seen it apart from me, and when I got back home I was furious (and the butt of jokes for weeks afterwards).

Wow, Heckington. It has changed somewhat since I lived there. In fact I had difficulty believing it was actually the same place because the trees have grown up so much. Only the electricity pylon and the Great Hale Fen level crossing in the distance convinced me I was looking at the same station where as kids we used to play around in the goods yard when we could get away with it. Mind you, that was 50 years ago and the staple loco for freight haulage had just been changed from Gresley O2s to Brush Type 2s (or class 30s as they would have been if TOPS had been invented a few years earlier). In "my day" all the signals were ex-GNR somersaults, and the distant and outer home from the Swineshead Bridge direction, were very tall with signal arms mounted at the top of the posts and spectacle plates much lower down. This was to enable engine crews to see the signal setting well in advance, presumably because other structures behind them (probably the windmill) would make a normal height arm difficult to spot.

I know that I was taken to see the Gamages layout, and probably the Hamleys one, more than once because my parents used to remind me about it in later years. However, I don't remember anything about them. The two that I do remember most from my childhood were the Gainsborough 0 gauge layout of the ECML (which still absorbs me now), and one that was somewhere just off the main traffic centre in Bournemouth and was a 'must see' every time we visited the town in the 1960's.

Excellent photos again. I managed to pester my parents to allow me to visit London stations (a 220 mile round trip from where I lived) on my own in 1967, but not until August and although I did visit Waterloo, steam had ended a couple of months earlier.

An excellent set of photos Jeff, thanks. An area that was overlooked in the 60s/70s by many photographers, including myself I am ashamed to add; so your images are showing me exactly what I missed. I would have loved to have been at Barnetby in steam/diesel transition days, as well.

I love that photo of the D16 at the south end of the station. It has made my day.

Whisper this quietly as well, but there is no such thing as having more than enough 2-8-0s on an ex-GNR/LNER layout. You must have at least half a dozen WDs. Bankruptcy is the only option for the ER modeller.

A very true statement about the enthusiasm of GNR area modellers, but maybe just a small underestimation of the madness of our enthusiasm - I have already pre-ordered five.

Are you sure? 61113 did not have a name.

Lovely. Thankyou.

Being both a meteorologist and a nerd; the skies on certain photos fascinate me almost as much as the subject, and especially the 9F at Leeds. I have been looking back through the historical synoptic charts, and there are only a couple of days in April 1967 when that sky is likely to have occurred. The 9th or the 22nd look to be the best fit, although the 12th is a possibility as well. As for the snow, I think only the 21st April really fits the bill. However, trying to date photographs in this way is rather hit and miss.