Boris

20 hours ago, Market65 said:

Good evening, everyone, and thinking of smokeless rules, my grandmother, in Market Weighton, had a coal fire until she died in 1995. And, at Beverley station, the goods yard had coal cells until it closed in 1985. 

 

Ditto for a couple of places down the Esk Valley Line.

interestingly enough the last stationmaster at Grosmont Richard Cana left the railway and started a coal business which is still going today, his son sold the business fairly recently, but its roots are in the coal cells that used to be at Grosmont station

That parcels consist is interesting, looks like a Southern BY, a fish van (ex) and a Thompson suburban brake.  Any advances?

On 31/01/2023 at 14:12, papagolfjuliet said:

 

Not only that. The latest Moors Line reveals that whereas the NYMR previously paid around £100k per annum for its electricty, its bill for 2023 will be close to half a million quid.

Considering the rapidly expanding number of managers  I think the electricity bill is they least of their problems.

3 hours ago, JeffP said:

I wonder why the crane had to come from Shirebrook?

Surely Doncaster, or York are closer?

Unless they were on another job or engineering work?

Seen this time and again, buy a house next to a working railway some highlights include:

1) The station lights are only off for 3 hours a night at keep us awake - the station only sees no trains 3 hours a night

2) The whole Depot saga at Scarborough

3) Buy a house next to a steam railway and realise that steam trains are noisy and dirty

4) Build a house within 15 feet of a siding, complain stored vehicles block the light - they've been there for years and probably wouldn't move, but apparently only appeared once the house was built

Couple of snippets on the WSR facebook page today with them having to rearrange and cancel services due to infrastructure damage caused by heavy rain/snow melt/Flooding.  A video on their page shows deep silt, track at a jaunty angle and some really nasty embankment movement, hope its easy enough to recover.

https://fb.watch/hxGmnA66LN/

4 hours ago, Bucoops said:

 

I'm not certain but they did show photos of vac cylinders on a pallet so potentially.

I think its the mounting point for a DA valve (near a vac cylinder).

A couple of random photos from the past few weeks, the first is Lealholm one day last week walking down to collect the car from the garage which has been built on the old goods yard.

The second one is a random Sunday at Seamer in November when we had a full house after a couple of random things.  From left to right, the Road Railer and trailer were collecting scrap from a recent possession where the track between Seamer West and Seamer South Junctions is gradually being relayed on the Down, the Stoneblower was really at Driffield (!) or it was supposed to be for a different possession but there was an issue at Driffield meaning is sat at Seamer for a few days.  I think the 170 on the Up is about 10 minutes late which is why its passing the 158 at Seamer (usually they pass between Hunmanby and Royal Oak Monday to Saturday and at Filey on a Sunday) so the 158 was dropped down the hill first.

Luton does not seem to be a logical destination from Scarbados

Aged, but surprisingly modern, I like those.

On 19/11/2022 at 18:58, Market65 said:

Good evening, everyone. This evening we go to South Howden, on the former H&BR, thanks to John Law on Flickr. We see 2423 shunting the yard. It is stated to be from c1935. No other information is available.

 

humb - lner 2423 shunting south howden goods yard by John Law, on Flickr
 

Best regards,

 

 Rob.

Love the details in this photo, and the wagon porn on offer. I'll also show this to the next person who tells me that goods yards weren't allowed to be overgrown!

I mean there's the whole war thing between the Allies and Japan formally ending too....

20 hours ago, Market65 said:

Now, today there was trouble on the line between Bridlington and Scarborough, owing to a track circuit failure, with trains having to terminate at Bridlington instead of running through to Scarborough. I got caught up in this, but took some photo’s of which, this of two class 170’s in Bridlington station was one. 
170457 formed the 16.39 to Hull, terminating there instead of running through to Sheffield owing to a shortage of train crew.

I took over Seamer at 1850 and trust me when I say it got worse before it got better!  We ended up with the Hunmany-Filey double track section seeing 3 trains in each direction within an hour, it was like Filey Holiday camp was still there!

I fancy getting those under the roof tomorrow....

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Why have they blamed something on the railway which is clearly not their fault?

I'm not entirely sure to be honest, the rant on facebook was extremely long and attracted a load of replies.  I think the supposition was that the NYMR was going to open its coffers and still pay for a large part of the weekend even though it would only benefit the town rather than the railway, and unsurprisingly the NYMR politely declined which made the NYMR managers public enemy number 1 on the site in question, then of course a number of the more verbal reenactors jumped on the bandwagon ranting about a lack of Germans and then a lack of Pickering 40s weekend.  The thread was eventually deleted.

Funnily enough a large number of people regard the event as the PICKERING War Weekend rather than the NYMR war weekend and only a small minority actually pay to get on the trains which may also be a final nail in the coffin.  The bill for the whole thing was well into 5 figures when I used to be involved in organising it years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if that figure was approaching 6 figures now. 

Another issue was the lack of open space physically in Pickering (to benefit the shopkeepers etc) and the only other spot which has a decent open space is the cricket/recreation ground which has a limit of about 150 people on site, again the supposition being the NYMR and the former trout farm site owner would allow them to use their car parks as display space for free/minimal cost. 

The event on paper looked outstanding they had provisionally booked some of the better 40s singers and some of the larger and better WW2 reenactment societies, none of which are cheap but they suddenly realised even for a basic event the outlay was to be around £25k and nobody wanted to take the risk and fund the thing.  They might have been more successful if they started small and built it up but they wanted big and showy from the beginning and had an unfortunate reality check early this year.

22 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

I know the NYMR had to cancel some special events such as the Swinging 60s, Diesel gala and the one guest loco visit that happens not long after the start of the operating season.

 

The wartime weekend was cancelled due to what was going on in Ukraine but the town of Pickering (the terminus of the railway) are holding one anyway.

They've had to hire in diesels instead of steam this year which has been ace for the diesel neds, not so much for the travelling public.  Diesel gala is always a marginal one anyway, unless you get the right diesels people don't come and those diesels are generally from outside the 150 mile radius of the hosting railway.

Pickering aren't hosting a 40s weekend because they've seen how much it actually costs to run and realised what a hit the NYMR takes on it every year.  The organisers then blamed the inability to finance the weekend on the NYMR?!?!?!

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Some railways are experimenting with more eco-friendly coal. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is using something like this having trialled it with Standard 4 tank 80136. I think it was covered on the news. 

It's the artificial ovoids I've been using on my open fire at home for years, they're great on my fire but the results are very variable on steam locos, it's a totally different firing technique that some have struggled to adapt to.

It's not just passengers who are struggling with rising living costs, volunteers are in the same boat, I can think of a number who have cut their turns from 4 a month to 2 a month because of fuel costs and it may yet get worse.  The Wensleydale has had to cancel some days operation this year because of a lack of volunteers (sourced from their official facebook page) and I think some other railways have had to scale back things like shop opening or booking office hours for similar reasons.

It still blows my mind though that some preserved railways still can't get the basics right though, clean and warm trains aren't a big ask most of the time, getting the whole customer experience (yes I hate the term too) right is more important than ever now and too many places still haven't realised it!

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

With the increased cost of travel, even the NYMR have a challenge bringing enough new blood and compared to most railways; they need a LOT of staff. 

The NYMR has a cracking junior volunteer program that has produced good results but its taken 15 years to get up and running properly, but its something other preserved railways could learn from. 

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

My guess (based on what occasionally happens with 15Xs hitting things) is that it's gone underneath and taken some pipework out. It only needs to cause a crack the wrong side of an isolating cock. 

Absolutely, bearing in mind that it's potentially hitting the train at 70mph+ suddenly you get quite a bit of kinetic energy to dispose of.

10 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Aren't there any main line steam specials advertised ? 

They don't usually carry too many screaming ankle biters trying to poke you in the eye with candyfloss., and they don't always  originate in London.

 

https://www.railwide.co.uk/steamtraintrips.php

Anyone who gives a small child that much sugar deserves everything they get!

On 11/09/2022 at 08:16, Lacathedrale said:

Thank you all for the advice, again. Having parsed again, I think I'm looking at the following:

 

Taking a pram, with a changing mat/etc. included - shouldn't be a problem even if we need to change baby on the floor we can. In sequential order:

 

Start at Kidderminster - Breakfast at AJ’s under SVR offices,

Bewdley - Convenience stop if required, good for train watching

Highley - Engine shed/etc.

Arley - Convenience stop if required, good for picnicking

Bridgnorth - Up the hill, White Lion/Old Castle for a bite/beer

 

Return to Kidderminster - Some drinks or food at King & Castle (station) or Weavers (up road) and potentially pop into the museum/footplate.co.uk shop

 

There is a cafe in the Engine Shed which has decent food at a sensible prices and I think a baby change place in there too

It's great when you've a got an atmosphere like that, another great example was posted by Didcot on their Facebook feed a few days ago where 4 of their guards found themselves in uniform travelling their for their turns, and decided to take a group pic.  

Also encouraging to see that the people in the two photos aren't each 150 years old

3 hours ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

I didn't know that. 

I was the controlling signaller on duty that day so it's first hand information, in the scheme of things it was a pain in the butt rather than a major issue but the delay minutes rack up and get expensive quickly.  That's also why the set was sat in platform 1 longer than usual because dealing with the fire and affected trains became the priority rather than sorting them out for the excursion sidings, they weren't critical for water so nothing was spoiling at the time, I doubt any of the enthusiasts on the station complained about having it in the platform in the sun for a bit longer!

On 02/09/2022 at 21:01, Flying Pig said:

 

MODS! @Boris is running a sockpuppet!

Only the kind of sockpuppet you can't mention on this forum darling,  see my OnlyFans account for further details.

On 02/09/2022 at 20:40, rogerzilla said:

Booked for the steam gala in 2 weeks.  It's not the most exciting line up of guest locos (SNG and the S15 are hard to follow) but it will be good to see Hagley Hall.  My mate had a Hornby model of it in the 80s.

 

AIUI some bits of track are out of action so the diagrams have been unusually hard to work out.  They fitted a goods train in, though.  I wonder what's pulling that?  The mickey?

Are you sure some bits of track are closed?  They've been running the gold timetable all week.

You around on the Thursday?