drjcontroller

The traincrew and groundstaff exchange pleasantries at Warcop on the occasion of the last trip to uplift MOD supplies, 16/3/89.

Helm Tunnel heading north? Douglas

The unique 87101 passes Sedgewick on the WCML with a train of WIA car wagons returning to Bescot from Mossend, 8/6/96.

37703 departs Acton Yard with a loaded stone train on 2/5/95.

56079 passes Horden Colliery on the Durham Coast line with a loaded MGR heading to one of the Aire Valley power stations on 2/6/85. The pit closed less than 2 years later.

47583 at Stratford Open Day, 11/07/81

56100 shunts steel wagons at Tyne Dock on 28/10/99. The wagons were for a special working of imported steel for Wolverhampton Steel Terminal, which as far as I know was a one off working.

An unrecorded 37 on a parcels passing Stratford on the afternoon of 16/8/78.

Here's 37188 crossing Ouseburn Viaduct on 20/12/87 with the Sunday afternoon Heaton to Red Bank newspaper empties. 37's were pretty rare on this working, it's the only one I ever saw.

Amazing, thanks so much for that. I follow Ivan on Flickr (know him from when I worked for EWS/DB) and remember that picture being posted but didn't put 2 and 2 together. Don't know too much about the individual histories of the sites served, but looking at old maps, the amount of lines in the area was mind blowing! Thanks again, Douglas

I came across these remains whilst wandering around the south bank of the River Tyne on Sunday afternoon. The first shows a small section of track crossing West Holborn in High Shields which originally lead onto Harton High Staithes, part of the NCB Harton Railway. From what I have been able to find out, this branch led off from the St Hilda's Yard of the Harton Electric Railway, but I don’t know the date of closure or whether this section was electrified. The second picture shows a piece of track crossing the B1297 Wagonway Road. This branch came off the main Newcastle to South Shields line between Hebburn and Jarrow and served a number of riverside works and yards as well as Hebburn Colliery.

First of all, my apologies for the late response to all the replies, had to go away for a few days with no/minimal access to t'internet. Thanks for all your suggestions, especially MidlandRed for the confirmation of the exact location, my friend will be very pleased. The knowledge of the RMweb members is truly astonishing! Once again, many thanks Douglas

A friend has posted this image on Flickr which he acquired recently and is trying to identify the location. The headboard on the DMU reads "Dean Forest Railway Severnside Tour" but he can find no other details. He has another photo of the same tour at Sharpness. There is nothing on Six Bells and other online searches have drawn a blank. I would suggest it's probably some time in the 1970s. If anyone is able to assist, he would be very grateful. I have his permission to post the image here.

Amazing service from Railtec, ordered 5 sets of custom loco numbers at 13:00 on the 23rd, got an email less than 3 hours later saying they had been posted and they arrived the next day. Great stuff! Douglas

Just tried to pre-order some of the loads for these, they are showing as "sold out". Am I being too hasty? Douglas

Thank you both for your suggestions, I will get a set from each supplier and see which works out best for me. Hadn't come across EKM before, I'll certainly have a good look through their site as they seem very cheap for Bachmann spares. Thanks again. Douglas

I have an old Bachmann Class 24 which has a missing cabside handrail, does anyone have a spare one which I can purchase? Thanks in anticipation. Douglas

Bob, Thanks for that, but it didn't work for me. I have found another way, by "save a copy" in stead of "save as" I can now save it as an ordinary jpeg, then all I have to do is rename the file. Slightly more long winded than normal but it works. Still can't understand why the process has changed, but at least I have a solution. Thanks again, and to Nick for your help. Douglas

Nick, the options are; Photoshop, Large Document Format, Cineon, IFF format, JPEG2000, PNG, Portable Bit Map and TIFF. It does it for every image I've tried.

When I finish processing a TIF image in Photoshop, I always save it as a standard jpeg in order to upload it to Flickr. Yesterday when I went to do this, as normal I clicked on "save as" in Flickr which brought up the screen giving the option of "Save as type" with a drop down menu from which I would have around 20-25 options, including jpeg. Unfortunately the drop down menu now only has 8 options and the only jpeg option is "jpeg 2000" so something has changed, though I don't know how to return this to what it was. I've tried various on-line searches but am struggling to find the answer so am hoping that one of the experts on here might know? I'm pretty useless with IT so please be gentle. Douglas

Not the one you referred to, but here's one I took in Dublin Docks in 1994, posing alongside one of the Metropolitan Vickers "A" class locos on Alexandra Road tramway.

The first TOPS numbered locos I ever saw at Bescot, April 1973. Forgive the poor quality, scanned from an Instamatic print.

The short branch from Ponteland to Darras Hall (opened 1/10/1913, closed 17/6/1929) continued for another 7 ½ miles to Belsay Colliery and Waldridge. The colliery and branch were very short lived (1923 to 1930). In 1986, a friend took me to Limestone Lane, north west of Darras Hall to see the site of a level crossing where a small remnant of track remained either side of the road. The course of the line towards Darras Hall is visible and is now a public footpath. Amazingly, Google Earth shows these rails still in situ some 90 years after the branch closed!

37409 passes Craig Highland Farm near Plockton on 31/5/97 with the Royal Scotsman heading for Kyle of Localsh.

It's the west end of Loch Eilt, as you say just east of Lochailort station. Not sure it has an actual name. This is the view from the other side of the causeway.