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I was back in Hawick today and for comparison took the photo below from the same spot as the 1970 photo. You can just make out the bricks of the wall on the left: I had no idea that nature had taken over this small stretch to such an extent. The one below is the bridge and entrance to Lochpark Industrial Estate where the works were formerly. (Almost exactly where the shunter is.) There was a (very) low bridge over Lochpark Road. A home signal post stood - I think - just to the north end of the bridge protecting the Up line where there was a ground frame for the entrance. This signal was always "off" and only went to "on" when the train entered the sidings. In the early sixties this was around lunch-time. My friend had an AJS 350 single cylinder with a compression release lever. Coming down Lochpark Road and pulling the lever spoiled the compression; letting the lever go back just as he entered under the bridge usually resulted in an explosion of unburnt petrol vapour: the noise reverberating in the confined space was very satisfying. (All the more so if there was a pedestrian under the bridge as well.) He got his comeuppance as one evening he overdid things and the silencer parted company with the exhaust pipe to the amusement of his companion on his old, but very quiet, Velocette. What though her lads are wild a wee... And ill tae keep in order...

and again http://www.collectingbids.com/auction_details.php?name=HARWICK-MPD-July-1961--PandP-Disc&auction_id=127173

I've had a visitor this morning who used a school train. From what he said there was one (school pupils and mill workers) starting at Newcastleton to Hawick in the mornings, picking up at Steele Road, Riccarton, Shankend and Stobs, with a return on an Edinburgh - Carlisle train after school. (... so when did the coaches get back to the Holm? Was there a mill-workers' train later?) He thinks that the train was replaced by a bus in winter term 1962 which coincided with Newcastleton School becoming a primary only with all the secondary pupils being bussed to Hawick. Bruce Later . . . The actual train starting at Newcastleton was withdrawn and I understand that, as in the posts above, a coach was attached to a freight ex-Carlisle in the mornings. Also was told this evening that there was a school train to St Boswells which was latterly extended to Melrose from Hawick after school. I'd three class mates from Melrose who used the train to come to the High School. They used a regular ex-Edinburgh train to get to Hawick in the morning. What a real can of worms ... and I don't think they've all wriggled out yet!

One or two interesting locations in this clip. Bruce

Is this a 26? http://www.railbrit....te.php?id=22883 same loco leaving Hawick http://www.railbrit....te.php?id=22753 Cryptic entries from "Remarks" column of UP line from signal box register: Friday 17 Jan 69: 9 on Monday 20 Jan: 9 coal Saturday 25 Jan: engine 279 Wed 28 Jan: 8614-8606 Wed 12 Feb: eng 5306 Thursday 13: (7) Mon 17 Feb: from Gala (referring to bell code 2-3 then 2-2) [looks like the arrival of two light engines] 8578 and 8577 Wed 19 Feb: LE 8612 arrived at 09.08 and further E10 arrived 1215 6 empties 1 load 27 Feb: c/o pilot and nothing else until Mon 22 Mar: 3 coal the DOWN line "Remarks" entries: Tues 11 Feb: 5V45 9ED (best I can decipher) Monday 17 Feb: to Gala (referring to bell code 2-3 then 2-2) [looks like the departure of two light engines] 8577 and 8612 (these numbers are pretty clear as is the UP line entry) Friday 21 Feb: 17 (referring I think to a light engine movement) Mon 24 Feb: (whole entry) E 10 depart 1610 E & V D 295 failure to work this (not distinct) There are no further entries in the DOWN "Remarks" column at all. It looks like the detail of the entry in the register has been very much at the whim of the travelling signalman, and what I've posted might raise more questions than answer 'Chard's query about Lothian 26s.

And Melrose station urinal at Bewdley. I understand that Health and Safety now precludes its use as intended.

Yes.

Checked the Signalbox Register starting 23 December 1968 ending November 30 1969 and none of these appear in it. Bruce

Ah! It's the second loco in the Flickr photo, not the first one. DOH! D5347 D5356 D5364 D5383 D5354 D5358 D5365 Have been noted on the WR. You'll need to go over my photos with me sometime, Matt.

Is this the loco type? Bruce

Sorry Matt, I have to pass. All I have seen of the content are the proofs of what I've submitted. I have no knowledge of the rest of the book which is entitled "Tales of Britain's Railways." Bruce.

Watch out for a book to be published next year by the AA (the motoring organisation, not the other AA) and complied by Julian Holland. There's two tales about Shankend and strange happenings there. Bruce

OK, no trains, rails or coaches but tradition involving the railways in the Borders. Many exiles return to Langholm for the Common Riding on the last Friday in July. The late train on a Thursday night to Langholm was withdrawn in the 1950s but on Summer Fair Night, the Thursday before Langholm Common Riding, the absence of coaches, then rails and even the station building itself has never deterred returnees. Somehow, perhaps mysteriously, every year exiles always appear off ‘the last train’. By tradition, Langholm Flute Band meets these returning exiles off the last train and parades them through the streets of the town. The parade now starts in the middle of the A7 (Trunk) road along side Station Buildings on the right of the photo which was taken just a few seconds after the parade started at 9.00 pm on 28 July 2011. I’m sure that Langholm is unique in having both a memorial cairn and an information board about the railway. Dumfries and Galloway Council have thoughtfully provided a waste bin next to these for the none-too-silent tears that may be shed into a paper hankie.

Nothing like "Flash the Sheepdog" for a wet Saturday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyOZFUzuFPE About 30s in and it gets interesting. Bruce

Not quite what you wanted, but a Miss Friel was the holder of a season ticket from Riddings to Carlisle in 1960. The identity of lady has proved most elusive as none of the present day Friels in Langholm can place this lady and are quite intrigued. There were a few passengers (mill workers) from Hawick to Langholm in the early 60s, I remember sharing a compartment with someone who got off at Riddings. Bruce

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350472983378&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1100 and http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350472983859&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1100 Maybe someone with a better knowledge of the route might know where these were taken ~ they both beat me. Bruce

It's a typo. Year is 1958. From Robin's log, (this was his first 35mm film) photo 21 aperture f5.6. 1/200 sec focus 40 feet 4pm sunny.

Didn't the odd train from/to Langholm call at Longtown? If the closure notice was Riddings to Langholm only, this wouldn't cover Longtown trains. Bruce.

Is this the same class? Bruce

And another from the bridge. Presumably in view of the heavy use and huge number of trains, single line working was out of the question? Bruce

Sorry, not me, but the assistant librarian at Hawick doing the soft shoe shuffle down the slippery shoolgie footbridge! Now he would have some cracking photos of that day - he'd a camera streets ahead of my Ilford Sportsman and a real eye for dramatic shots. He took many later including one lying down in the six-foot at Steele Road looking up towards Riccarton ... where is he now? However - and almost worthy of a mention in the structures group - I helped put up the TV aerial on the station house. Must have been around 1962 as the apprentice with the firm had just got a signed autograph of Helen Shapiro. The occupier of the house said that the new diesels "Straightened out the track, unlike the steam engines" which I thought an odd remark at the time - and it's stuck almost 50 years. Bruce

As in propelling a rowing boat: to rhyme with Roland. Would you believe that there was someone in my primary class at school in Hawick whose family took the train to Bowland station to visit relatives? Local pronunciation is a nightmare and I'm not going to get (too) involved. Also local names, I was at a meeting in Edinburgh recently and used "The Holm" instead of "Newcastleton" to be met by a blank look. (Also "Copshaw", or "Copshaw Holm" or the one I smile at, courtesy of our daughter who had several Copshaw mates in her class at school, "The Zone".) These names are all interchangeable in everyday speech round here. Sorry, this is a bit off-topic. Bruce

Another signal box on Waverley Route. Which one? When? Bruce

It housed water pumping engines for WW1 munitions works. There was a dam in the Esk the other side of the railway. Information from an old lad whose father was transferred from Roxburgh to Longtown before WW1 to work on the railway. Bruce