Rivercider

How about Vic and Bob. I am surprised Punch and Judy (Par Docks) has not been suggested, cheers

Prior to the 1985 re-signalling at Exeter St Davids there were eight tracks over that part of Red Cow Crossing. As well as the six platform lines there was the down through and also the goods shed line. As mentioned above there were another eight tracks (goods avoiders and sidings) crossing the road to the west of the station. 47140 light diesel 9/3/81. Avon Street in Bristol had a fan of six sidings crossing the road onto Avonside Wharf. By the 1980s though not much remained. 08949 at Avon Street 28/9/83 https://maps.nls.uk/view/109729990 cheers

When GWR services worked through to Ilfracombe they were at the mercy of the owning company, either LSWR or SR. Assisting engines were often required over the banks up to Mortehoe and Woolacombe especially during the summer. It seems to have been common practice for the GWR 43XX to be assisted front by a N class 2-6-0, or M7 class 0-4-4T, (running either chimney or tender/bunker first) cheers

The chance of something going badly wrong increases as soon as there is a move away from normal working. During my railway career I heard about two cases involving misunderstandings about a pilotman during single line working. In one the pilotman was wearing a jacket over his armband and other staff did not realise pilot working had been implemented. On the other the pilotman tried, unsuccessfully, to make permanent way staff aware that single line working was to be introduced. Fortunately there were no casualties or damage in either case. cheers

That is interesting. I travelled a lot on the 143s, commuting to Bristol, and thought the refurb to 2+2 seating was a great improvement which made me think other work had been done too. Later when the GWR 143s migrated west to Exeter I still travelled on them quite often on leisure journeys. For some time they worked alongside some 142s (with 2+3 seating) at Exeter and I felt the 143s were definitely a much superior riding experience, cheers

I have defended Pacers before. In a sense here we are mixing the model train world with the real railway. Less detailed model trains, and cheaper commuter/branch trains. At the time they were introduced Pacers were perhaps the only way replacement trains might have been procured within the budget available to keep lines open, and a service running. I used them regularly, and once refurbed with 2+2 seating found them pretty comfortable. As an occasional purchaser of model railway stock I am not looking for all whistles and bells, but something that 'looks' right, and runs well. To me a train, or yard, full of modestly detailed but appropriate stock looks right to me, cheers

I imagine the car has been driven up the (very) steep Beach Road from Carbis Bay - which is pretty posh. There is a private driveway parallel to the upside of the line, but if you go straight ahead at the junction, and split the difference as it were this is where you end up, Edit - this photo is taken off the bridge looking towards St Erth This is the view from the bridge looking east. The car driver has managed to miss an upright rail planted in the ground beside the bridge parapet, which might have better impeded progress. 150244 departs Carbis Bay for St Erth, 12/3/2013 cheers

Great work so far. As an Exonian I have been following this with interest. cheers

Good shout! John Dedman has a lots of photos on Flickr. I just searched his collection for 'Speedlink' and 'Willesden' for example, there are a lot of shots taken in your time frame, including 6M93 Eastleigh to Willesden Speedlink, and 6O57 ex Willesden hauled by class 73s. Edit - although I don't have a John Dedman book covering that part of the Southern I do have his /Rail Blue Western Region Book S & SW', and the 'Train Formations' book, both of which are very good with informative captions. cheers

Although there were quite a number of stone terminals around the Eastleigh area, and elsewhere in the South East I don't think the Mendip stone traffic would normally be seen on the Eastleigh -Basingstoke line except for diversions. Speedlink wise 6E30 was an Eastleigh to Tees or York or Haverton Hill service over the years. The southbound service 6O49 arrived in the early morning, so photos of that would be pretty rare. A bit earlier than your time frame here is 6E30 16.35 Eastleigh to Tees at Basingstoke behind 47367. Ford Transits as already mentioned were regular traffic. The white roof VDAs were empties from Eastleigh going back to Rowntrees at York. Empty HEAs had conveyed domestic coal, by around 1987 these would be on a Speedlink Coal Network service. 11/4/83 cheers

The National Carriers building in the background, 50017 has arrived on the 06.41 from Salisbury, 31260 is on the Old Oak Common empty news van service and has just picked up the empty GUV to attach. Re-signalling of the station area has recently seen the removal of the down through line, 9/7/85,

I remember that was a serious proposal at least as far back as about 1990. The idea has merits, it would be a much shorter journey between the major population centres of Newquay and St Austell, and would also serve St Dennis and Nanpean. I had not realised until recently that route has never had a passenger service. It is also steeply graded and also includes a number of severe curves, including the deviation at Carpalla around the 'Carpalla Gap' that was the object of a court case lost by the GWR. cheers

Like Mike (The Stationmaster) I have also had several short breaks in Cornwall each time travelling entirely by train or bus. Me and Mrs Rivercider stayed in the Wetherspoons in Camborne, about 7 minutes walk from the station. On each visit we then used the train on different days to visit Hayle, St Ives, and Penzance. Also a bus trip from Camborne to Portreath for a day trip and coast path walk. We chose Camborne because there is a basic 30 minute train service, and are planning to visit again later this year. I also noticed a significant amount of off peak local passenger traffic. I think Newquay definitely deserves a better train service, but here the legacy of the history of the building of the route, the Treffry Tramway, and Cornwall Minerals Railway mean the line was never engineered for speed. Some of the road crossings might be improved, but there are plenty of severe curves, and gradients, which means the journey time along the branch cannot be reduced by much. From an employment perspective hopefully South Crofty will be successful, and provide more employment opportunities for the area, cheers

I have just been reading about the St Blazey to Fowey china clay traffic in the steam era. From St Blazey the line climbs at 1 in 36 up through single track Pinnock Tunnel which at 1,173 yards long is the longest in Cornwall. From the tunnel there is a steep descent to Fowey. The GWR 2-8-0T or 2-8-2T tanks used on the line were run bunker first with loaded clay from St Blazey to make things more bearable for the crew going up through the tunnel. cheers

A new station for Okehampton Parkway is one of the grants, £13.5m for that should help to increase usage on the Okehampton line. I would hope that the more successful that line re-opening becomes the greater chance that Tavistock will follow at some point, cheers

We have stayed at Bugle a few times recently as a family member's flat is right beside the station. We have used the train for a day out on every visit, and last year the guard on the train spoke about the upgrade plans. The additional platform face at Newquay will require to take back some land from the supermarket next door, and I think the new loop will be at the site of St Dennis Junction. The improvements to the service should be useful, we did not make as many train trips as we would have liked due to the summer service where local branch stops are withdrawn during the day as the Newquay/Paddington services do not make intermediate calls. Edit - and this hourly service would potentially be useful for folk living at Bugle to commute to Newquay for college or work for example. We can see Bugle station from the flat and I note that passenger use although not busy is steady, and there is quite a lot of new build housing in the area. I would not think there would be many through journeys made between Falmouth and Newquay, and would agree that a two hourly Plymouth to Newquay service might have made some sense, cheers

My main interest in the railways is freight traffic. So I would say my interest has been declining from the mid-1990s. My early memories include marshalling yards full of traffic, much of which was hopelessly uneconomic and was rapidly declining, but I found it fascinating. In the Speedlink era I thought rail freight had another chance, and Ed Burkhardt's vision for EWS was inspiring. But it was not to be. A few years ago I travelled by train from Weston to York, and back, and on the journeys only saw three freight trains on the move. In todays railway one class of loco in about 25 different liveries is not inspiring or interesting to me. I do however find interest in some of the odd relics of buildings and infrastructure that remain from another age. cheers

Here is the Exeter area local trip working from 1975. cheers

The former SR lines west of Salisbury were transferred to the WR on 1st January 1963. The Waterloo to Exeter services were dieselised in phases in August and September 1964. I think the initial service included some WR operated DMUs in the Salisbury area on some local services. The singling of much the line between Wilton Junction and Pinhoe caused serious timekeeping problems. The timetable was recast to a pattern of 8 or 9 semi-fast services worked by class 42s. There was a limited local DMU service between Exeter and Honiton/Axminster at the western end of the route. When class 33s took over the Waterloo - Exeter services in 1971 the load was reduced to eight MK1s. Class 50s took over the Waterloo - Exeter services in 1980. In steam days the milk tanks were attached to services to Clapham Junction or Vauxhall, but in the diesel era it was a trip working from Exeter St Davids to Chard Junction and return booked to be worked by class 22s, and attached to the St Erth - Kensington milk. I saw the Chard Junction trip often in the 1960s as we lived near the line in Exeter, usually a class 22, but sometimes it was a Warship). The class 22s lasted until 1971 when Laira received class 25s and they took over local trip work around Exeter. There was also some freight traffic to/from Whimple, Pinhoe, and Exmouth Junction, but no through freight trains other than the Meldon ballast. cheers

There were trains from Paddington via Devizes, some then went west via Westbury, but there was also a service to Weston-super-Mare, which would have gone down the Avon Valley. Castles were used in these services which ran until about 1961, cheers

I asked the question about the changeover to cardless TOPS on a Facebook group for Westbury railway staff. One former Westbury TOPS clerk started in the office there in January 1982, the old card machines were still there, but had recently been taken out of use. This firms up my idea that Bristol TOPS went cardless in late 1981, or early 1982. cheers

When 'Cardless TOPS' was introduced the pack of cards to represent the formation of a train, or contents of a siding was then replaced by a 'dataset', which contained the wagons, and sometimes '18 comment' lines for additional info. A train dataset might be titled '6V16/08'. or a siding dataset might be something like 'Up1', or 'Stoke1', each yard within the same TRA (TOPS Reporting Area) would have to use a different id. In the mid to late 1990s a Windows based system called 'TOPS 2000' was introduced, still using datasets, cheers

I joined Bristol TOPS in October 1978, we were still using the smaller Ventek cards at the time, though some of the staff were familiar with the larger IBM cards, ( One had transferred from Worcester TOPS, another from Avonmouth). I think Bristol TOPS was the last of the Bristol Division offices to go cardless, that would be late 1980 at the earliest, though possibly 1981, or even 1982. Here is a photo in the office from May 1980. There were 4 terminals, those at each end off the room being off-line for producing shuntlists and trainlists. The picture shows the Y1 machine nearest where incoming messages were received, next is the Y2 machine, with one of the off-line machines by the window, the on-line machines Y181700 and Y281700 operated at 200 baud, which was slow. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rivercider/7591127798/in/photolist-gUEYYg-cyNvPL-cREHRs-e49ecv-oHXoeG-bsHVp9 Bristol TOPS 24/5/80 cheers

The early years of railway operation, either industrial or main line, was a steep learning curve for all involved. From early beginnings most of the future main lines only had perhaps four or five departures a day, so the provision of an additional locomotive to marshall stock, that could be easily moved by hand, was probably never considered. I wonder if any of the major road coaching inns or Royal Mail locations kept a pair of horses to bring carriages in and out of the carriage house while the incoming team were fed and watered? Edit - perhaps they also used older horses no longer fit for main road duty for these purposes? It also seems to be the case that quite a few of the very early main locos were unfit for purpose from their introduction, or were overwhelmed by increasing loads within very few years. The early locos supplied to the GWR were a very mixed batch, including some pretty hopeless cases. In January 1839 Gooch reported that 'Venus is the worst engine' , 'but we have kept her as a pilot at Maidenhead'. Does this mean she was a pilot to assist trains on the main line, or as a station or yard pilot? I believe it was 1875 before the LSWR bought six 0-6-0STs from Beyer Peacock, having previously relied on 0-6-0 goods locos, or 'retired' main line passenger locos to carry out shunting, cheers

The GWR might have been very interested in constructing such a chord line if history had taken a different course in May 1875. With the S&D in financial trouble (after constructing the Bath Extension) the S&D approached the GWR which after consulting the B&E announced they would take over the S&D if terms could be agreed. No progress had been made by 12 August when the GWR and B&E met the LSWR manager at Waterloo, suggesting the LSWR took over the southern half of the S&D. The LSWR then secretly met the Midland Railway, and eight days later on 20th August the Midland and LSWR made the S&D a better offer, which was accepted. cheers