Pennine MC

Always had the impression that banana vans ran as block trains to a limited number of destinations? Maybe made their way back empty in dribs and drabs/short rakes?

 

That was my angle John, the big firms having rail served distribution depots (not AFAIK at Hawick). I suppose spot loads elsewhere were possible, I've also seen short cuts of them - as you suggest - in WR freights (one such is on the cover of Robotham's Janes-format colour book, behind IIRC a V2), but it doesnt explain why they're trolling about in a local yard.

Yelland PS has always struck me as a fascinating 'might have been' as a traffic source, it did have rail access.

...I'd seen the Grainflow wagons on "the other bit" of Cyberheritage - but the Distillers one seems wonderfully out of place!

Without running upstairs to check, ISTR the DCL ones and the Grainflows were operated as a common fleet after a certain point.

Cracking site, though but

The first and last vans are of a style I can't place at this time on a Sunday, but the middle couple look like they could be Banana Vans!

All four are; good spot The first and last are early BR builds, LMS inspired (a la Ratio kit), and the other two are the BR standards based on the normal Vanfit. Not sure what they're doing in Hawick yard, unless they're maybe part of a train being cleared out. preparatory to closure

There were only a few 47/4s in green TOPS and they didn't last long. I think the last one, was the WR's 47494. This one, is probably one of the ER's bunch.

It probably would indeed, one from the ex-1101 - 11 batch. As you say they didnt last long: living in Hull and regularly being at Doncaster, York or elsewhere on the ECML, these machines were always around and yet I dont knowingly remember seeing one in green TOPS.

Here's another one of those "Emulsion Anomalies". Despite how it looks, 5147 IS green. I have no idea, WHY it was repainted/bulled up in green in 1974. ...

Crewe Works did a similar thing in the early '70s; a loco would enter for overhaul in green and it would exit after overhaul, looking for all the world, like it had been repainted green. Maybe 24147 had a minor O/H somewhere and they bulled up the paintwork as it wasn't TOO bad and sent her out again.

Despite Bob's preoccupation with this blue/green crossover business, I do believe it is almost always down to light/emulsion, combined with natural changes in the paint as it ages and weathers. If you think about it in general terms, dark green and dark blue are in any case colours which are very easily confused in poor light. I have slides of my own from this period which show this blueish tinge, yet I know the locos were indisputably green when I took them.

I dont personally think there's *too* much mystery about 24147 either - as you say, lots of 47s went through Crewe immediately pre-TOPS with patch painting, revarnishing and application of asymmetric numbers and yet looking as if they'd had a full repaint.

Did any of the 5114-5132 series ever carry Green with Full Yellow Ends livery? All the pics posted on here so far, suggest not, but surely ONE of them lasted long enough....

 

Lasted long enough in theory, yes, but I'm inclined to suggest that the ScR was quite ambivalent (or at least inconsistent) about applying FYEs. A while ago somebody was asking for pics of any ScR 20s in GFYE and I dont think anything came up - most if not all of the native locos went from GSYE straight to blue, or were transferred to the LMR during that period. The Claytons and 27s probably go against this (which is why I say inconsistent) and yet only one or possibly two 26s are known to have been done - further evidence perhaps that Inverness at least wasnt in too much of a hurry about it.

Trick of the light or dodgy film emulsion, and yet look at the blue loco in the second shot at Ferryhill.

Has to be one or both of those reasons, despite the comparison with the 26 I really don't believe it's green. 26011 is interesting in itself though, another TOPSed early blue with cabside arrows - think that one's been mentioned before

. I do wonder if there were "specials" just for UKF as this image on cyberheritage shows a rake of 7 or 8 PWA palvans - which I would have thought would be too much for other traffic as well... Seems a good excuse to me anyway

Wouldnt surprise me if that happened at times of peak demand - Speedlink in its heyday was essentially a flexible operation and could cater for spot' loads

Here's an interesting shot of 24132, probably at her final resting place.

 

http://i46.photobuck...2-22Feb1976.jpg

 

Where have the headlights gone? Would they have bothered sealing up the holes if it was (and we know it WAS) going for scrap,

Hard to tell for definite from that shot, but some machines had the holes plated quite neatly (with round plate rather than just square patches over); I suspect that's one of them

Skinhead HBS exile 24112 at Kyle is beautiful, unusual place for double arrows again!

Almost certainly the remnants of an early blue repaint, when it would have had arrows on each cab and numbers somewhere aft of the doors

. I'm pretty sure that the problem with the Heljan Western was shape issues with the cab roofs.

Cab roof was the most significant, yes; various other bits of the nose and nose furniture are a bit out in their disposition to each other, a bit like the first Bachmann 37/0s

It's not particularly brave IMO, the tooling costs will probably be written off by now and Heljan probably judge they can keep shifting a few - just look at the 47 reruns. A lot of buyers won't even know of the Dapol model, those that do could well be thinking 'better the devil you know'

Point of procedure here - I've seen images of the Mallaig "mixed" in the 1980s with oil tanks behind coaching stock - but no goods brake, so must be fully fitted. Still a mixed train though I assume as the tanks wouldn't be passenger rated (unlike the Vanfits mentioned above)?

That's an interesting point and I thought it might come up. Goodnight

Seriously, in some aspects a 45T tank could qualify as XP rated - in principle anyway. They were vac fitted (early builds, before air braking was specced) and they were 15ft wheelbase. Whether the *type* of vac brake made any difference, I'm not sure (I'm fairly sure some had the AFI brake, which worked differently and could have led to special measures when combined with passenger stock).

Having said that, at the time these tanks were being built in the mid '60s, the XP rating was probably lapsing into disuse due to generally increased train speeds on the network generally and speed restrictions on SWB stock like Vanfits; with the tanks being intended very much as as block train animals, I doubt anybody ever considered a need arising for mixing them into passenger trains.

That second really should make Pennine's day, ... she's entrusted with a passenger working to boot!

'Tis nice

During that summer of '76 my main recollection is of a few of them lined up at Haymarket but we did see a pair bring an Aberdeen train into Waverley, I have a poor b/w print of it.

 

5/66 Drummuir http://www.gnsra.org...comotives40.htm

5/68 Cairnie http://www.gnsra.org...comotives40.htm

Bob, those two link to the same pic, which they didnt earlier - plus I think it's the same train so one of the dates is wrong, with the blue/grey coach in formation I reckon it's '68 rather than '66

Sorry, back to the polishing

...but your post was low key, you picked something that was not too far fetched and could happen...

Yeah, it's not like they said the brakegear would be set for EM or anything

Great work! Here's the link to 24116, as your caption says - unusual positioning of the TOPS number, but even more radical departure (possibly unique) for the double-arrow.

That number is about as central as it's possible to get

Nice to see 24113 in that last link giving the lie to my earlier observation about the extent of yellow down the corners...

Without surveying other shots, I would guess that was a St Rollox idiosyncracy rather than being connected to the type of headcode

The state of the loco here does kinda sum up the way the class was binned en masse in late '76, one assumes there was a BR edict to eliminate the 24 completely.

...

 

In the Millerhill shots, the locos' condition really does give the impression of their being switched off as part of a planned class rundown. Seems a shame, they had only reached the half-life mark, but by then with the national decline in freight I suppose they would be the natural choice for next to go.

As Bob suggests, their weaknesses had been identified by the National Traction Plan (although there must also have been some thinking at one time to eliminate the 1160hp engines, as the 26s were also once included for early withdrawal). By the time of the mass 24 withdrawals c1976, the freight scene was changing - higher capacity air braked wagons in longer trains, 56s on the horizon... I went on a '24 Farewell' tour in '77 which suggests that the few that lasted past that date were on borrowed time.

That middle link of Ron's, 24129 with its patched headlight apertures, actually reminds me of my favourite interlude for the HBS, during the few months they worked off Haymarket having been exchanged for 26/0s

...

D5122 at Perth MPD...

 

Unfortunately I have to note another misident (though it's still one of the HBS) - that loco has a '4' as last digit so it's either '14 or '24

...- I think that 99% of the "I give up" comments are just hyperbole.

I'd think so, otherwise it infers that folk are only in the hobby to be the 'best', over and above all competition. IMO all that's necessary is to do the best that (preferably) you are able, or alternatively that you wish to.

... D5122, which would be destroyed four months later on September 9th at Castlecary. And which I am in the process of commemorating.

Honourable mention here, in another connection

But if it's a 'Mixed Train', then it's no longer a 'Passenger Train'...

Well, it's still a 'train on which passengers are conveyed', but having found this post by Stationmaster Mike I'm going to STFU

The train endorsed 'mixed' in the WTT

Mmm, interesting

Curious that milk is listed as 'not permitted' as part of the train formation for these...

Had Milk traffic been "temporarily suspended" by June 1980? Could that be why?

At the risk of talking out of my @r$e again, I'd suspect that's got something to do with 6-wheelers not being permitted as part of passenger trains. There's been a recent thread on that

So in 1980 at least, it was a true mixed train...

 

EDIT _ or do Vanfits count as passenger "XP" stock ? Unsure of the nomenclature here...

I cant see what the TT says Rich cos the link doesnt work, but my understanding of a 'true mixed' is one including unfitted vehicles and thus requiring a goods brake in rear of said vehicles.

As you correctly surmise, Vanfits were XP-rated - hence there's no significant difference in that sense to a longer NPCCS-rated van like a CCT. I think such short wheelbase stock would have necessitated a speed restriction, though.

Rail Blue as befitted their NPCCS status. Well, somewhere under the muck they would have been at any rate. This is the point I'd normally link to Paul Bartlett's site, but I don't think that he's put those back up yet.

 

I dont know if Paul has pics of those particular ones, but the Fruit Ds I saw used to Barnstaple in the late 70s were TDB-numbered but with a 'traffic' TOPS code

A bit earlier, around 1975, I saw about 20(!) TRESTROLs in Barnstaple yard (steel for Appledore shipyard), which shows that some country branchlines could see some interesting special traffic wagons.

I've always thought the North Devon line was in a class of its own as regards freight interest. The pics on Ken Baker's site (sadly not currently available, as mentioned earlier) are nothing short of fantastic, revealing amongst other things that Barnstaple still warranted an 08 pilot until at least 1970

I *think* you could only serve Lapford headed towards Barnstaple, so that would imply there was fertiliser traffic to Barnstaple as well....or maybe something went wrong that day!

 

I can never definitively remember this despite having operated both of Ken's renditions of the place, but I think it is indeed that way round. I will make a point of checking with him.

The machine with the arrows on the cab doors ib D5125 by the way.

Not sure that's the same one Grahame - the one in Chard's link also has a central bodyside arrow. I would guess that it's a 'standard' (sic) blue one that's acquired a door off another, possibly the early withdrawal 5068 which was an early repaint with arrows on the doors

... the 33/0 had major problems, many were happy to buy them, however, look at how quickly they were sold off cheap. Most of my fleet of 33/0s, 33/1s and 33/2s were obtained for no more than £50.00 each (many for far less) so they didn't make a huge hit with the market.

 

I'm afraid I just do not buy this standard argument that gets trotted out, that sales of a particular model have been held back solely by some heinous error. Peaks going cheap? - oh, it's because they havent got the nose seam. Mk2 coaches not selling? - oh, it'll be the error in the grey. It might put a few off, but the reasons are IMO usually more complex than that - only now are folk realising that the Mk2 vehicles slow to move are the excess of brakes produced.

Lots of the current crop of higher spec models - since the Hornby Q1 and possibly before - have ended up being sold cheaply due to diminished demand for one reason or another; it's just the way the market goes. In a lot of cases I believe it may even be factored in at the start; retailing is bursting with examples of overstocks, line-ends and less popular colours or whatever being liquidated to make room for new stocks, just as I could probably walk into Burtons today and buy a shirt for £15 or so that would have been nearer £30 in the autumn.

TBH Paul, by mentioning the 33/1 and 33/2 in the same breath here I think you even defeat your own argument, because the /1 and /2 subclasses didnt have the incorrect cant profile that's caused so much angst. Admittedly they might not be as *popular* as the standard machines, but that's a different issue and is only to be expected given their smaller numbers. The stablemate 26 and 27 can also be found cheaply, and yet nobody has yet illustrated that they have some fatal flaw that's responsible for this. In fact the Bachmann 24/25 range is surely a good illustration of all these points - widely regarded as the least satisfactory of 'current spec' diesels, only occasionally to be found on clearance and yet new batches are regularly introduced - it still sells...

I thought Mr Sutton was employed by Heljan as UK consultant on the original 33/0 model, so he surely must take some responsibility for the flawed model.

There were certainly rumours to that effect, do you have any evidence though?

But I simply don't understand the statements that these will be the only models produced using the Rail Exclusive tooling. Making such a declaration now does not make economic sense unless it is to persuade us to buy now.

 

I think, as Martin observed earlier, that you have a definite talent for answering your own questions

 

The decision process is easy.

 

...

 

Do I want them?

No

Then you probably should'nt be reading this thread

 

Well, I am