The Stationmaster

A lot of 30 Kitmaster coach kits, including sufficient Pullmans to make up a Midland Pullman set (but probably not all the correct type of cars? - I didn't check through quite that far) went at auction a couple of weeks back for a total cost of a few quid short of £300. I bet they'll be going for a lot more than a tenner each when they come up on Ebay

I regret I have to report a small problem. When I was (officially) given my NBL worksplate at Old Oak I was told that it had come off a D63XX. Having finally dug it out yesterday I have duly had a wander round the 'net and found that it is not a D63XX works number but is in fact off one of those grotty NBL built 'Warships' (no, not a D6XX before you all get excited). But it still has blue paint on it B) .

I don't think it's a rant to be honest. We don't do Ebay at present but Mrs Stationmaster was a big, and regular, seller until we moved house a couple of years back. At that time I think EBay gave sellers a fair deal but the more I read and see the greater the impression I form that it has turned rather one-sided in its overall approach with far greater emphasis on the 'rights' of the buyer. This is very different from what I have become well accustomed to as the way in which auctioneers should discharge their business - offering what might best be termed a 'fair deal' to both buyer and seller (although some, I know, don't respect that convention). I don't do much in the way of model railway selling or buying nowadays as a most of what I had to dispose of has gone already but I think either direct sale via RMWeb, or through a respectable auction house (albeit with a commission to pay), is now far more attractive than the ever increasingly restrictive practices attributed to Ebay.

Ebay watchers might like to keep an eye out for Kitmaster kits - a lot went at auction last Saturday including at least 5 garratts and 2 BP power cars, an 'Evening Star' and a 'City of Truro' - 480 quid plus commission and VAT so no doubt the purchaser will be looking for 'a return on his investment'

The second station to carry the name 'Glossop' had the suffix 'Central' from 1922 to 1974 (and although it is indeed 'central' that seems a bit pointless as the first station named 'Glossop' was closed in 1847 )

Delicious

Latest Update from Swindon I had a 'phone call on Thursday to let me know that the GW Museum 'Castle' is suffering further delays and is not now expected this month (unofficially they are now hoping that it will arrive 'sometime towards the end of May'). I know the folk there have got my deposit under their belts but they really merit congratulations on the way in which they are keeping customers advised about the delays in delivery, excellent customer service in this respect.

My recollection is that was indeed what was said - that the route would be the main artery for freight traffic (with no doubt the mgr coal in mind as the backbone of that) plus the realisation no doubt that the Hope Valley route simply couldn't handle the total volume of passenger and freight flows at the time the Woodhead route closed for passenger traffic. The official - and to me entirely logical (in their time) - reasons given for ultimately closing Woodhead were the need to renew (even if only to rewire) the ohle and the approaching need to renew or refurbish the loco fleet. Set that against declining traffic levels with the question of coal flows already looking rather fickle due to changes in the colliery industry and the turn towards imports and the writing was very clearly on the wall. It is very easy to forget that period of stringency and the way the industry was shrinking (or in some cases - especially freight - being deliberately shrunk by rather stealthy Govt policy) in comparison with the increasingly allegedly overloaded network of today. Fortunately much of the footprint of the route survives, Sheffield Victoria could be recreated as much of the land remains waste ground or is car park but curving round to Midland might be difficult and the route offers little intermediate business (which might be an advantage). Anyway although I only ever did it in the small hours I reckon it's a much nicer route than the Hope Valley - and I can delve out my 1950s WTT and daydream B)

Gradient does indeed come into the question, as does curvature because it too will increase rolling resistance. As far as the Somerset stone trains are concerned both Merehead and Whatley have the haulage capacity to load out trains up to c.5,000 tonnes trailing load. I think the heaviest booked train out of Whatley then was about 4,800 tonnes but it was tested with 5,000 plus a dead loco (in case of problems) with no trouble and the Super Creep only came in as described in my post above. Merehead was at one time regularly loading one train up to 5,000 tonnes and not infrequently a bit over. The steepest gradient the train would encounter enroute to Acton was 1in70 just east of Woodlands but the road there is undulating so not all the train would be on the rising grade (it's also the area where the 12,000 tonne test train broke and that was mainly a consequence of the undulating road and cr*p British supplied material on the loco). But the real test is the climb up to Savernake out of the dip just west of Pewsey - basically 6 miles of rising gradient with shallowest bit being a very short piece of 1in669 and the steepest 1in106 (at just about the summit; I would think the ruling gradient is in the region of 1in200-220). And it's not much better over the 16 miles from Westbury to Woodborough with only 6 miles of that being level and the rest rising, including 6 miles at mainly 1in220 And 59s have run up that lot with 5,500 tonnes trailing with no problems - on any sort of rail condition - and in fact with loads like that it is far more likely that a coupling would break before the loco is overpowered. The 'big' Merehead - Acton train was worked by a pair of Class 37s before the 59s arrived but the load was considerably smaller (somewhere I have a copy of the paper I presented at an Institution of Mechanical Engineers symposium on heavy haul freight and I think the figure is in there but alas I can't find it and there doesn't appear to be a copy on the 'net either).

Indeed so - the effect of riding on a 59 when the Super Creep cuts in is rather like the experience you would probably get from riding on an angle grinder You can literally feel the wheels rotating and trying to 'dig-in' as they 'don't quite slip' and feel the power going down to the rail to keep the train going - very impressive when lifting getting on for 5,000 tonnes up 1in138 on a curve B) [ Could indeed be the case

Did the 200 series have 'Super Creep'? It definitely sorts the men from the boys in low adhesion situations so I wonder if it wasn't included on the National Power locos? One thing that does need to be borne in mind with Class 59s is that they can be very slow when moving high tonnage on steeper gradients. So I again wonder if someone is trying to be clever and feeding in more power, in an attempt to get more speed out of the loco, because they don't understand the driving technique?

As with others on here the only views I can so far find of 5053 do not include a mechanical lubricator and it definitely didn't have one in 1958 - by which time the tender had acquired the later style of emblem. Somehow I doubt that it was at some time 'backward modernised' and had the lubricator removed - but strange things did sometimes happen at Swindon. While there might have been exceptions the mechanical lubricators seem to have normally been fitted to higher superheat locos (logical when you think about it) and I'm not at all sure if 5053 ever had a three-row superheater. Nearest match for the Hornby version (without checking all the details) would appear to be 5050. So it boils down to renaming etc or chopping off the lubricator.

Only like that for a day or two Brian - first they were dumped on the upside at Taunton, mainly for initial forensic action and not much else. Then they were shunted over to the downside and into the old Lifting Shop where they stood for weeks being thoroughly cleared out by the BTP. I think one subsequently finished up outside the Lifting Shop and that might have led to moans. The official Inquiry conclusion was that a Linen Bag had been left adjacent to a vestibule heater which cause a smouldering burn to start and that passing through Whiteball Tunnel caused that to turn into a fire which then spread. That was a conclusion very much driven by a Fire Service senior officer although I must admit I have always been sceptical about it as it wasn't anything like the first time a Linen Bag had been left like that. But I'm no fire expert and I only know what I saw - that the damage was at its greatest in the centre of that particular vehicle and that the compartment wall next to the alleged seat of the fire was intact because some days after the fire I had to go into that compartment to recover an item of the young lady occupant's property (slightly outwith the normal property procedures and done in order to avoid somebody facing the divorce court - well that was the bloke's story, but both a BTP Sergeant and I reckoned the diamond in the ring I 'recovered' was worth a good thousand quid; left me wondering how much he spent on his wife if that was what he spent on 'a friend' ). That was the Maidenhead one (the second of the two I referred to - the first was at Scours Lane, Reading) and a male passenger panicked and, instead of doing what he had been told to do, climbed out of a door on the offside and duly had a personal interface with an HST going past on the Up Main, as that line had not by then been closed.

On original renaming (from 'Shooting Star') in January 1936 the loco was - as the OP said. named 'Lloyds' and given the number 'A1' - which was Lloyds highest insurance classification when applied to ships (I understand various of the GWR ships were classified A1 by Lloyds and I think that includes those brought into service earlier in the 1930s). Presumably the idea of 'A1' as a running number wasn't thought very clever and additional plates bearing the number '100' were added on the cabsides, above the 'A1' plates, in February 1936 - or perhaps the idea was to get all the publicity shots out of the way before adding the other plates? The loco was known as '100' for ordinary operating purposes but the bufferbeam carried '100A1' although the BR smokebox numberplate was plain '100'. Interestingly - having seen some of them a good ten years after the loco itself had gone - the driving wheelsets were also stamped '100A1'.

To be perfectly honest if you had seen those sleeping cars 'the morning after', or had to venture inside one a day or so later (which I did), you wouldn't find any of it in the least bit inspirational - and to capture the full atmosphere you'd need to model a lot more than the vehicle itself; there tends to be a lot of mess around it as material is taken out by investigators etc. As far as the vehicles involved in the Taunton fire were concerned after the Fire Service investigators had finished it took a BT Police team several weeks to go through them removing material, including luggage etc, as all of it was potential evidence and in any case all property had to be accounted for. As a consequence of the Taunton fire the introduction of then almost complete Mk3 Sleeping Cars was delayed in order to fit massively increased fire protection including sophisticated detection systems and changes of materials etc to reduce flammability so the chances of one them suffering noticeable fire damage is fairly remote (unless they happen to be in a carriage shed which burns down or they're involved in a Ladbroke Grove type collision) As Ian has said, train fires involving Mk3s have been pretty rare - there was Ladbroke Grove (which wasn't a fire but an aftermath of collision as already noted) and I witnessed one of the other two I know about - both of which were largely external fires due to ruptured and ignited fuel tanks. These latter sort of fires are quite spectacular and leave everything covered in black/with scorched paint but tend, fortuantely not to lead to much beyond a bad scare for passengers and possible imjury during train evacuation. Strangely the only train fire I have ever had to 'fight' was an underframe fire on an SR demu - and as it turned out it was just as well the local vounteer Fire Brigade wasn't on strike with their full-time colleagues. But with the help of Kernow/Bachmann you'll soon be able to reproduce that and you even substitute a Green Goddess as a 'strike-breaking' fire engine in attendance.

SoundS like EMD's spare parts distribution has gone to pot. The system they used to operate was that anything destined for the UK up to and including the size of a traction motor was despatched by air freight on the day they received the order. It was quite common for Merehead to fax an order for a part on one day and go up to Heathrow to collect it on the following day, technical queries were normally answered on the day they were received and ARC received a similar service (as did CIE so I was told by someone then working at ARC).

Ah, so their previous estimate was on track then - good stuff. I now await my 'phone call in antiucpation of a nice little trip down to Swindon to pay the balance and collect (mind you I'm running out of places to hide 'em).

Something amiss there methinks - a 59 correctly handled should be able to easily start more than 4,000 tons trailing on a rising gradient on a curve, after all they have been doing that (and more) on stone trains for a very long time. Sounds almost as if the Super Creep is not working, or not working correctly - I wonder if there are some maintenance shortcomings nowadays and/or some shortcomings in Driver training.

Interesting observations above from Ron and Nidge - making, I think, most of the salient points - EMD locos work straight out of the box, the Class 60s very definitely did not and needed a lot of development work plus a massive amount of TLC once in traffic to make them work. In their first 6 months or so the Yeoman 59s suffered - if I recall correctly - only two failures which rated as 'casualties' under the BR recording system work, and one of those was defective AWS (kit supplied by BR Crewe works). In user terms the EMD locos have always had higher availability figures and lower casualty rates and that is what matters to operators, planners, account executives, and accountants. It's just a shame that the 66s were built down to a price and suffer lots of faults from the Driver comfort viewpoint and there seems to be a persistent niggling accessibility problem with the translation of US design practice to UK loading gauge constraints and something not being easy to get at when the loco first goes into traffic. As for seeing new large diesel locos of British design I think we can forget it - we've more or less sold our loco building industry down the river although perhaps British factories might one day get a chance to assemble something designed, and engined, from overseas. As far as the Class 60s are concerned I think the answer is simple - they will last as long as their operating and maintenance cost justifies their continued existence; assuming there is traffic which needs their capability of course. They certainly won't remain in traffic on the basis of sentiment or because they were 'made in England' because if rail operators follow that sort of line they're as good as writing their suicide note.

The sound will certainly be interesting but I bet they won't manage to get that well known 'roll' as the engine starts and then settles down Or indeed capture the way the power cars rolled at speed in traffic - a trip from Reading to Pompey Harbour in one of these was an 'interesting experience'

Brian???? - I'll forgive you Pix as your little green loco looks rather nice, albeit an amazingly 'fresh' looking green and remarkably clean despite the dirtying . I can't really remember them being anything other than 'faded and jaded' unless they happened to have been repainted in the preceding couple of weeks, even in their early years they always looked grubby.

Talking of D6346 here it is - at Laira in 1964

We have been here before (on the previous incarnation of RMWeb) but I'm not sure if I could accurately date it then although I did a lot of delving. I think the use of limewash as a disinfectant for cattle vehicles was banned c.1927 but can definitely state that it was post 1923 and I'm reasonably sure that it was pre 1930. The limewash was not used to clean out cattle wagons but waqs used after cleaning to disinfect the vehicles. It was banned because it could injure animals, particularly if it was incorrectly mixed, and was replaced by the use of a liquid disinfectant.

Niggling in the back of my mind is something about potatoes having to be loaded in vans for some reason. Mind you that would in any case have been in the times not long after the demise of most cattle wagons - and I can't find a reference anywhere in any of the Loading Guides I can easily lay hands on so it might just be a 'niggle' or have come from an evening class on terminal working back in the 1960s. Cattle wagons were apparently always regarded as 'good' for broccoli as they apparently allowed air to circulate (to some extent) round the boxes of produce thus helping to keep it looking fresh. PS The 'background' to the pic at the head of this thread looks as tempting as the wagon :icon_drool:

It might be dangerous to say this - because it means I'll have to try to find it - but somewhere I just happen to have a little piece of a D63XX. An NBL worksplate to be precise with some damage because of the way the Old Oak fitters removed them but the useful feature of having remained on the loco while it received at least two repaints (or touch-up efforts), and I know that because it has traces of both green and blue paint on it. What I also know is that the blue is not at all like Swindon's early efforts (e.g D1030) and I think there is only one shade of blue on it. No - I can't give you the loco's running number and I certainly can't recall the works number although that is (obviously) on the plate.