Rivercider

Last week when visiting the lovely South Devon Railway I noticed this little collection on the up platform while changing trains at Totnes.

Totnes  24/7/2023

And of course although the Atmospheric Railway was never commissioned beyond Newton Abbot the buildings of the pumping station still remain at Totnes,

Totnes 24/7/2023

cheers

21 minutes ago, Right Away said:

The “Railways Archive” website is worth a trawl.

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk

 

Thanks for that, I see some incidents I had not picked up before.

I see there was an accident in May 1859 on the Cornwall Railway at Grove Viaduct with three fatalities where two carriages fell from the viaduct,

cheers

4 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

 

I did a quick search on Railways Archive for LSWR. It will give you all the accidents involving the LSWR and their location. When I looked where there were fatalities they were crew.

 

I have in my memory that there is an accident involving an M7 (?) on a Plymouth to Exeter service that derails but I can't seem to find that one again.

 

There seem to be a fair number of accidents around Exeter and Yelverton.

My only conclusion is that the LSWR in Devon and Cornwall didn't go fast enough to have fatal accidents.

Thanks.

The M7 derailment at Tavistock in 1898 was one that I had thought of, but fortunately there were no fatalities, M7s were no longer used on Plymouth to Exeter fast services after that incident.

cheers 

6 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway_accidents

Thanks for that link.

Looking through quickly it seems all fatalities in Devon and Cornwall were of train crew, or railway workmen

cheers

29 minutes ago, The Pilotman said:

Try this Kevin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_in_the_United_Kingdom

Thanks for that link.

The Menheniot incident ('alright Dickey') involved two goods trains with one fatality, so no passengers involved.

The only incident involving passenger fatalities I can see was the unfortunate incident at Bere Ferrers involving a troop train in 1917. Ten members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force were run down and killed after leaving the train believing in error that they had reached Exeter.

edit - There was also the bombing of Newton Abbot station in August 1940 with ten members of the public killed (in addition to railway staff), I think they were all passengers on a local train stood in the station at the time

cheers

Have there ever been any passenger train fatalities in Devon or Cornwall, (excluding passengers falling from trains, or suicides)?

I am guessing there must have been a passenger train incident resulting in fatalities at some point in history, though I can't think of one myself.

Any ideas?

cheers

19 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

A friend of mine who was depot manager at Tinsley always maintained that the difference between the UK ones and the Romanian ones was that the UK ones could, just about, pull the skin off a rice pudding.

According to the Freight Train Load books they could haul the same as the British built ones, which for many routes was 36 MGR wagons full of rice pudding, - the same as class 58s, (and six more wagons than a class 47)

cheers

I first remember Gloucester from around 1971 when passing through there on trips from Somerset heading north.

Gloucester Old Yard is the name of the sidings to the north of the station, I remember there usually being  a good selection of parcels stock there as well.

Good luck with the project, I will be interested to see that.

cheers

3 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

I particularly remember a trip with double-headed Class 37s from Penallta Colliery (I think) to Aberthaw, when doing my graduate management training course with BR in the early 1980s. That was a most interesting and memorable trip!

 

Yes, during my time in Freight Train Planning in WR HQ Swindon 1985-86 I remember Penallta was one of the forwarding points for coal to Aberthaw, I wish I had retained even just one weekly freight train notice from those days.

cheers

Hi Rob.

I had a good day out at Larkrail yesterday, it was a good show.

I enjoyed Sheep Dip, it is very atmospheric, and as others mentioned at the time 

the trees and bushes look really good.

I see you have a lot of followers

cheers

17 hours ago, 37114 said:

Thanks for the reminder Jerry, cash usually goes missing in our house (generally into Mrs O's purse) so will make sure I visit a cash dispenser on the way...

In previous years I have found that the Larkhall Inn acts as a perfectly satisfactory change dispenser,

mind you as I am not driving to the exhibition I will not be ordering black coffee at the Larkhall Inn, - edit - it will be something stronger...

cheers

Back in the late 1970s, early on in my railway career, I was given some generally good natured stick about my trainspotting and railway photography. However on the occasions when I took some of my photos in to work

it was surprising how many of my colleagues took an interest. To be fair most of the old hand supervisors that 

worked in the Bristol Area Freight Centre with us were very supportive and encouraging to me.

Towards the end of my railway career in the early 2000s there did seem to be more railway enthusiast railway colleagues that I became aware of.

Thinking about my personal views as an (ex) railwayman about other enthusiasts, I think it depends on the specific interest of the enthusiast(s) concerned, and how they carry it out. Railways in general is a huge subject, so the interest may be in numbertaking, photography, haulage or route 'bashing', preservation, railway history etc etc.  I have a lot of time for those who are generally 'enthusiastic' about railways. Occasionally find it tiresome to hear or read some of the repetitive banter about the relative merits of certain loco classes over others, especially when they seem to have no understanding of the practical reason why operationally one class of loco might be preferred over another.

cheers 

My interests lie further west.

The book 'London and South Western Railway - Engine Sheds Western District' by Hawkins and Reeve is excellent. It has depot plans, allocations, and also notes the duties the locos worked and the drivers links and their route knowledge. Is there another another similar book covering the London District?

cheers 

10 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Folks might like to see this video from Geoof Marshall of the Press Day, one day before the official opening.

 

 

 

I enjoyed that

cheers

After many years of good intention I finally managed to  get to see the Penarth exhibition

for the first time yesterday. I thought it was a good show, some layouts I had enjoyed before,

and a number that were new to me.

It was a friendly show, I enjoyed lengthy conversations with several operators,

and it was good to catch up with a few people I have met before.

Thank you to the organisers and exhibitors.

cheers

This is an interesting thread, with a lot of useful contributions. It is relevant to me and Mrs Rivercider

as I am intending to fully retire from my part time job in October, hopefully concurrent with a house move.

We do try to keep a watch on our finances (Mrs R in particular), but are able to eat out from time to time, and take short hotel breaks several times a year. I think we could describe our lifestyle as being moderate, the quoted figure of £34,000 for a moderate lifestyle seems pretty accurate I would say.

Our income had been somewhat lower than that, but Mrs R made some voluntary additional NI contributions 

to increase her State Pension, just as the rate increased earlier this year. 

We were both made redundant from full time work back in 2007 co-incidentally within 4 months of each other,

but both of us had seen the redundancy coming from some years ahead. We had already increased our mortgage repayments to the max, and used some of her redundancy lump sum to pay off the remainder of our modest mortgage. 

She had the benefit from work (DWP) of a day of financial advice, and access to a financial advisor who has since been invaluable, also advising me when I left EWS.

Since 2007 we have both enjoyed part time working, and were both able to draw our respective occupation pensions from age 50 (though at a reduced rate). We both reduced our part time weekly hours over the years, which I think has been a good way to go, rather than a sudden move from a 5-6 day week to a full retirement stop. When we can we both like to do some walking, (coast path or similar), and I intend to do more of that if I can.

I think that most of my friends,  (now aged 55 - 70) do not have such good pension arrangements even though

many of them were probably on a much higher salary back in the 1980s/90s/2000s.  I count myself lucky to have been born into a railway family in that respect - basic pay was not great, but I worked many unsocial shifts over the years and made addition contributions to BRASS, which has helped put us where we are now.

cheers

2 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Yes, GWR have released 3 PCs for scrap and they’ll go to SIMS at Newport .

 

The nominated locomotives are apparently 43005 43041 & 43171

 

from reports elsewhere, it was 041 moving by road today

 

a couple of power door fitted MK3s made the same, final, journey last week

From Facebook, the transporter hauling 43041 broke down on Haldon Hill east of Exeter,

cheers

12 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Shame there isn't a railway line between Bristol and Worksop!

 

Mike.

A friend of mine went down to Portbury and photographed it coming out of the dock gates.

We were discussing the class 93s at last nights railway society meeting. He thinks the other members

of the class will also come through Portbury. Perhaps once the first one has been assessed and accepted

the others might be able to travel by rail on arrival?

cheers 

Me and Mrs Rivercider have returned from a long weekend stay down in Cornwall, we travelled throughout by train.

Our four hour journey down from Weston to Hayle was in a 5-car IET, which now seems to be the diagrammed traction for that service. 5-car IETs having taken over a number of these long distance workings many of which are more than five and a half hours total duration. Our return through service back up from Hayle on Monday was in a Castle Class HST which was good. 

The services we most often use when travelling from Weston to and from Devon or Cornwall are normally the 

through GWR services from Cardiff/Bristol/Gloucester to/from Penzance. (Cross Country seldom service Weston, and seem to have largely given up on Cornwall). Sadly there is no catering on these domestic semi-fast services, but fortunately class 150s and 158s now seem to be rare on such lengthy journeys,

cheers 

2 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

On Saturday last, by Road. Just been told by a friend who happened to see it. 

I didn't even know they existed!

Phil

By road from Royal Portbury Dock

cheers

Like The Pilotman I knew the WR in the late 1970s and 1980s. I would agree that an engineering train

working in a possession would be unlikely to have more than one piece of on-track plant, and therefore only one staff coach. However a midweek transit move might include more than one staff coach, these might take place on a vacuum braked wagon load freight service, or an engineers midweek train.

At Gloucester 37189 runs through the station with a very mixed formation from the Severn Tunnel Junction direction, engineering equipment is formed ahead of freight stock and private owner freight vehicles, 10/7/85

Edit - I have just found another midweek freight train with more than one staff coach,

At Wakefield Kirkgate 31216 passes with a train including what appears to be a twin jib crane and a ballast cleaner each with a staff coach, 18/9/81

cheers.

11 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

For what it is worth. Colin G. Maggs 'Branchlines of Somerset' (Bath: Alan Sutton, 1993) p.106 has a photo from 1936 of an SR wagon being loaded with coal from a coaster at Watchet Harbour (in shot are GWR, SR wagons  and an LNWR wagon) and on p.111 a 1923 photo of Minehead Station and goods yard which includes LNWR, Midland wagons, a Cheshire Lines van and a Cannock and Rugeley colliery wagon.

In another of the books by Colin Maggs 'The Minehead Branch and the West Somerset Railway' by Oakwood Press he also mentions coal imports through Watchet. Coal arrived by sea and was distributed by rail, the peak tonnage being an annual average of 17,000 tons in 1934-36, then declining sharply,

cheers

I don't have time to type out the formations at the moment, but I have copied the Willesden simplifier

which might throw some light on the workings.

With effect from Monday 3rd June 2002

cheers

1 hour ago, slilley said:

I came across this when researching the Class 33s and as a rule of thumb the ploughs were removed during the summer months.

 

Staff at Bristol Temple Meads complained about plough fitted Class 33s and when they had to couple them to trains. The Southern was asked not to use plough fitted Class 33s on services into Bristol.

 

Simon

I do remember there were 'issues' concerning the station shunters at Temple Meads on occasions.

In June 1980 a class 31 still carrying part of a mini snow plough set was banished to Temple Meads High Level sidings after the station shunters refused to uncouple it. I think the problem was quickly solved, but they had made their point.

On the High Level sidings at Bristol Temple Meads, 31258 had arrived with 3B10 Premium Parcels from Paddington, photo taken from the TOPS office window, 24/6/80

cheers

6 hours ago, aictosphotos said:

 

Apologies for asking this again but do you have the arrivals for the above location at all please? Also the Q trains, what were the formations used for them please?

 

Many thanks and apologies for asking again.

The arrival times at Plymouth are those shown in brackets, eg 1C02 arr 04.04, dep 04.24.

I will try to list the 'Q' trains when I get the chance to dig out the booklet again,

cheers