Penrhos1920

This is a Liverpool St bound service. I’m not sure whether it’s come from Harwich or Lowestoft. If my memory is right Harwich services had a pair of BGs at the London end and a RBR somewhere in the middle. Behind 37118 are 5 Mk1s and a Mk2 TSO.

Johann, thanks. Looks like the head codes shown in both of those photos I posted don’t relate to the actual service as I was never trainspotting at Chelmsford that early in the morning. I’m starting to think that my memory is wrong and that all of these b&w photos are from a Saturday afternoon.

I think that all of my B&W photos were taken on the same day. So what time did the Up 1F35 pass through and the Down 2F7x to Colchester?

Looks like it. Thanks

The photo was definitely March 1982. Thinking about then I would have been at school during the week and nowhere near Chelmsford station, so it would have been a Saturday.

I don’t know what length was most common, but considering that the lengths were 14’6, 15’, 15’6 and even 16’ and heights varied between 2’10 and about 4’ there were so many possibilities that I doubt any particular size was a stand-out most common. And you also need to consider location. By 1912 several South Wales collieries were buying 12 ton, 16’ x 4’ tall wagons. But at the same time small independent coal merchants were buying smaller wagons. So near a colliery you might think larger wagons were the most common size, but in East Anglia or Cornwall a smaller size would appear to be more common.

Hm, do I foresee 6 railmotors with American bogies on eBay soon...

I’m thinking about exchange sidings or yards that were on the boundary of two railway companies where neither company had running powers beyond the “other end” of the yard. So a train enters the yard from company A hauled by a loco of company A with a brake van also of company A. Before it continues, both the locomotive and brake van have to be changed for company B stock. But how is the dosido performed? Then company A loco and van swap over to the other side of the yard to attach to a train going in the opposite direction. Do any operating instructions survive? If there’s only one crossover at one end of the yard then there could be a lot of back and forth just to get the van off the back of the incoming train and on to back of a train going in the opposite direction.

Cut oversized with your jigsaw and use a sander or a flapper wheel in an angle grinder to get the smooth curve.

Yes, I’ve always assumed that they went just east of the old Mile End station to the Regent’s Canal. But the old maps show that yard as a coal yard, not aa sand terminal.

A month or two later and I moved onto colour slide film and the first photo was of my second favourite train. I can still remember how the whole station used to rumble and shake as the train itself rattled and squealed. I’m fairly certain that it was bound for Felixstowe but where it had come from I don’t know. The locomotives were a pair of Stratford 37s and this instance, very clean. Disclaimer: not all Stratford 37s were this clean all the time. So had there been a loco change at Temple Mills? Unfortunately I didn’t get to photograph my favourite train. It’s the south bound sand train hauled by a pair of 31s. If I remember correctly the reason I never took a photo was that I was always on the wrong platform. In the morning there was a gap between the last commuter train which cost full price and the first train for the cheap day returns to the smoke. So I only ever saw it if we were going up to town for the day. Incidentally, what was the name of the sidings it went to?

With Bill Bedford w-irons I cut a short section of the swan neck lever out and solder both bits to the fixed part of the w-iron.

That must have been taken late afternoon. The 315 is waiting to form the 4pm most stations the Liverpool St having arrived a little earlier ECS. It was the only time a 315 would be seen at Chelmsford as they were mostly confined to the Smoke side of Shenfield. Previously I commented that it was rare to see the down loop being used. What I meant was it was rare to see it being used for a rake of coaches without a loco.

I remember a Sunday morning at about that time when I went to Eastleigh open day and a horrible boggie just like that turned up to take us to Liverpool St. It was so so slow and we switched over to the slow line and then back. The only good thing about that journey was that the driver had to blind up so I got to see more. Thanks for rekindling the memories.

I don’t think I ever got that train, anyway it would have been a 307 or similar em; not the Mk1s I photographed and that photo was that morning. I did once get a refurbished 302 that started from the down platform at about 8:12, that would have been in 1989. It seemed odd to sit in the down platform in a half empty train as other commuters packed into a sardine tin that ran 3 minutes ahead of us! But my normal train was just after 7am off Margaretting.

Every week day morning, sometime around 11 - 11:30, there was a north bound postal train that stopped for 5 minutes. I’ve always thought that it was from Liverpool St, but recently I had a search through a GE coach working program and I couldn’t find it. So maybe it started somewhere else? Here is a bog standard GUV, NJV W86370 hauled by 47051. My favourite modern image stock has always been the 309 Clacton units. I remember getting on them in the early evening at Liverpool St and enjoying the buffet car (I think it was officially called a Griddle Car, but why?). Every time we traveled home in the evening I would start the stopwatch as we left the smoke. Sub 28 minutes to Chelmsford was possible, even with a stop an Shenfield. Most unusual is the rake of Mk1s in the down loop. I think it was the only time I ever saw coaches in the loop, which was rarely used to store stock, but it was used daily for EMUs to turn before forming a southbound service.

Opposite the bus station? You must have been rich!

As a kid I used to go train spotting at my local station. By the age of 16 I had my first SLR and was mainly taking train photos. But the cost of film and processing stopped me being prolific. First off is a bog stand (for the Liverpool St GE service) 312 unit. They were used almost exclusively on the services to Braintree, Witham and Colchester. The morning and evening commuter trains were nearly always 12 coaches (3 unit joined together), but the day serviec was normally only 8 coaches. The Norwich servies was loco hauled, being almost exclusively class 47/4s. In earlier years when it was steam heated coaches I remember 47/0s. Several went off for conversion to ETH and came back renumbered. Especially County of Esses which had had a union jack on the side in 1977. This is as Mk 2D BSO 9495 behind 47577 with a silver roof in March 1982.

@petethemole are you a business seller? You take credit cards

Where's the "relisting box"? I can't see it on this screen which I get on both my PC & ipad. It's all very well trying to end an auction early, but when you've got 200 of them it takes a bit of time and effort. It's the upto 8 times bit that gets me. I listed some magaziners in May and they are still listed. I listed some tickets and they were not relisted after 3 weeks. There is no logic to what ebay does.

Ooh rah. How much? That’ll burn a nice hole

eBay now relists unsold items “up to 8 times”. Is there any way I control exactly how many times an item is relisted ? I’ve had some items only relisted 3 times, whilst others seem to be relisted forever. If I try to cancel a listing eBay says that I might be charged a fee, so I’m reluctant to take them down.

I hope you’ve swept them on the road for the big council sucky thing to take away

But the N6 & N13 are so different. You’d be better off trying to make a profit

What strikes me is that the brakes are lever brakes, whereas the GWR diagrams show DCII. Tourett mentions that the first 70 to diagram N10 actually had lever brakes. So the right hand hopper is an early N10, height 3’2. But the taller pair on the left don’t seem to get a mention in Tourett which is a bit odd as they ought to be younger- later N26 were 9.5” taller than N10. Alternately, the left hand pair are the early N10 and the right hand one is only 2’4 - a one off built in 1886. But on the N10, N26 & P6/7 designs, 2’4 is only just above the flare of the hopper so there isn’t any straight side, not like the wagon in the photo. Quandary