Swindon 123

I have never found a photo of an 03 in BR use that had the marker lamps anything other than black, or sometimes green if they first appeared in all over green. Those that had wasp stripes from new generally had black lamps. In the blue era, lamps could be blue or black, there didn't seem to be a pattern, other than possibly where painted, which may well be the case most of the time, as I have come across at least one 03 with yellow lamps. Also be aware that some 03's had 08 style lamps instead of the square ones. It seemed to be mainly SR based ones, but they did move around. As always there are a bewildering number of variations, so access to a good colour photo is the only real way to be sure. And yes I know that is not always possible, which is very frustrating!!!!!! Paul J.

This was the plan of Werrington junction as I drew it out in 1979/80, when I was at Kings Cross. We always knew it as the Down Slow, the Down Stamford not starting until Helspston Junction. Paul J.

When I was at Kings Cross (1979-84) used to see the sand train quite often. Up to about 1983 it I only photographed it with a single clss 37 on the front, but at 1983 shot of it has 2 x class 31 on the front. I never saw the main train put off at Wood Green, it was always heading to/from KX Goods yard, which by the way did have at least one Class 08 as a pilot. I did capture on photo the Bounds Green pilot shunting the "Sand Hole" at Wood Green. See photos below from my Flickr pages. First a couple of Class 37 hauled loaded trains. Now some Class 37 hauled empties. The only time I captured anything other than a 37 on the front. 2 x Class 31 on the loaded hoppers bound for Kings Cross Goods. Lastly 08558 shunting the "Sand Hole". Paul J.

The cement trains used to drop down the incline from Camden Road in the slow line tunnels, either the Down or Up slow, usually the Up, and then reverse into the goods yard. Did it many times with the "Fletliner" train that we used to pick up at Willesden Freightliner Terminal, later Brent yard, as a back working off the Kellogs.. See below. See this photo on my Flickr site showing a single Clss 25 cement train just tuning onto the incline at Camden. Paul J.

I've started to convert D6116 to EM using its original wheels, which I am turning down to a more acceptable profile. There is plenty of room between the bogie frames for the original wheelsets opened out to EM. The wheels are mounted on stub axles that push into the center plastic tube/gearwheel, and haven't given me much problem, although I'm not 100% convinced of the quality of the wheels themselves. The pickup is by a metal "busbar" that fits just inside the frame, and interacts with the brass bearings, a possible cause for problems in the future??. The grease on my example was applied very sparingly, so no issues there. The whole wheelbearing/pickup does need close attention when the wheelsets are opened up, as the axle has a lot of play on it, so I'm still experimenting on the number of washers on the axle to give the best performance. Note the bearings go a certain way, so pay attention to them when taking apart and putting the axles back together. The bogie sideframes come off the bogie easily by carefully leavering them out at the ends. I found the inside end the best, but be careful when putting them back together, as the gear towers on mine started to come apart when the bogie frames were taken off. The body is held in place by 4 clips above the inner wheelsets. My method of taking the body off was to insertion of a small flat screwdriver adjacent to where the clip is to open the body away from the chassis and insert a thin cardboard strip to stop the clip re-engaging and repeat for all 4 clips. The body came off easily on mine, but watch out as there are a lot of wires connection the body to the chassis that need to be unclipped from the circuit board. I hope that answers some questions that may be out there. And yes to someone elses post I spotted, the headcode discs are rubbish. Some spares from my collection of SLW 24's are probably the answer. to that problem. Paul J.

I've never seen a photo of one, and never heard of one with them on the livery grapevine, so very, very unlikely. Paul J.

I think the location is Naas Lane, just south of Gloucester, and the sidings are for RAF Quedgely. I haven't been able to find a photo from the same location, but I think the one below is taken from the opposite side of the line, and shows the sidings in the process of being lifted. Whilst this taken from the other side shows the distinctive tree line. Paul J.

I did get to visit the place in November 1988, and took some photos of the locos on site, the Baguley and the Hudswell Clarke, but the sun was in the wrong place, so some didn't come out that well. First the Hudswell Clarke, then the Baguley. Paul J.

I used some Phospher bronze pickup strip, filed down to the right width, although I'm pretty certain SLW did have some etched parts available to replicate them when they first brought the early version out. Might be worth asking if they still have some. Paul J.

A very tempting one to model Phil, being out of sequence, so I did, seen below running on Shenston Road. Paul J.

I have found the photo below taken at Liverpool Edge Hill carriage sidings where the number on the electrification stanchion is the same as the one in the photo, although the last two numbers are unidentifyable. As stanchions carried identification for the "line" they were on, the fact that the identification plate starts with LX 192, puts it on the same "line" as the one in the original photo. In the photo below, the identification plate is on the stanchion to the right of 195111. Paul J

The nearest electrification stanchion has a plate on it which reads LX 192 03, which puts it in the Edge Hill area, which would also tie in with the arches in the background, although exactly where I haven't pinned down yet. Paul J.

Hello again Alex, finally found time to getting around to answering your queries. The wagons were swept off in Hereford yard by the shunters/yard staff with the drivers help sometimes, if he wanted to get an earlier finish. As and when they were empty, the wagons were sent down in the midday pickup service to Severn Tunnel Junction, later East Usk Yard then even later still, Tidal Sidings, before being sent on whatever north bound service that was able to take them. At the very end of the traffic they sometimes added the empty wagons directly to northbound trains at Hereford, if there was space, but in general they were sent south first. Any number of BSW's could be sent from Hereford, as in general the pickup ran more often as not as a class 9 service, but this was not always the case in later years, so they could cause complications in their marshalling. Empty wagons were got rid of the as quickly as possible, as in the mid 80's Hereford yard was quite busy, and if there was a heavy engineers program on, space was at a premium. With regards to the flexible hours/rules, there isn't much extra I can add. To my knowlage the links at all depots were drawn up by the depot LDC's (ie the ASLEF or NUR drivers reps), I was part of the LDC that made up the rosters at Hereford for a number of years. The work content at the depot dictated how the weeks work, and therefore the links were structured. As long as the basic rules of each 8 week link must have 312 hours rostered work in it, and include 9 rostered Rest Days, Sundays were not in the working week, but were put into the links as a matter of course, with 12 hours rest between the end of one turn and the start of the next driving turn, this was increased to 32 hours if my memory is right, for a turn finishing on a Saturday and the next Monday turn, unless there was a Sunday turn rostered in which the 12 hour rule applied between each turn. What diagrammed work was allocated to a depot really dictated the link structure that the LDC could come up with, and was individual to each depot. The diagrams came from the area/regional diagram office, who worked out how each train to be run was going to be worked by the various depots in their area, and that was a black art in itself. Hereford had some interesting issues sometimes when making up the links, as quite a bit of its work in later years was only running two or three days a week, and a lot of it either very early morning or late at night, making fitting in other turn difficult at best. We tried not to put Rest Days in the middle of the week on very early morning or late night turns, but on a couple of turns that started at 00.05 in the morning, I remember ringing up the diagram office to ask if they could add 6 mins to the diagram so that it booked on at 23.59 the night before, so that we could fit it in the link better. Drawing up the links at Hereford could take a week, sometimes more, if it was a big timetable/diagram change, made worse sometimes by having to get the diagram altered if it didn't actually work, usually due to PNB times, or a driver not actually being in the right place at the right time, I kid you not. Hereford was a small depot with regards to the number of drivers, so it was a major task to make up the links at some of the big depots. I hope this gives you some insight Alex, as to how complicated it could be. The rules were quite simple in reality, it was the diagrams, and trying to make them all fit into the links that was the hard part. Paul J.

I was doing my MP12 course when SSF first appeared, in late 1983, on locos. At first no one, including our instructors, had any idea what it meant, but as it was first noted on some of the most recent ETH fitted locos, then being allocated to Stratford depot, it was interpreted as meaning "Super Stratford" (SSF). Our instructors soon found out it meant "Speed Sensor Fitted", which meant that the loco detected when the speed was above 3MPH, and any movement of the reverser into Engine Only abover that speed would cause a full brake application. At that time there was no vigilance fitted to locos in general, only a couple of experimental versions, one of which I seem to remember was fitted to one of the Deltics. Paul J.

I thought that when I first saw the photo, but the original was taken many years ago and some of the stuff on the far platform in the photo I found looked recent, as in last 20 years. Paul J. Edited due to chubby fingers on small keyboard.

I was right. It was familiar, annoyingly so. My submission for location is Chester, precisely the Crewe end bay platforms (not the ones on the island platform). The nearest photo I have found that seems to match the original is thus. Paul J.

Thaks for that explination Titan. That answers a lot of questions for my memories of driving them. My diary doesn't correspond with that date. According to my diary the last trip I had on 55004 on 1D08 was on 25th September 1981, so it must have been that trip. Also the diary suggests it was a 19.40 departure from KX by then. Yes, very sophisticated locos for their time the Class 50's. By the time I trained on them they had been refurbished, so most of it had been removed to some degree, but the thing that stuck in my mind was that the field diverts occured 10MPH later when the ETH was switched on. Never did actually try switching the ETH off and on at speed to see what if anything happened when you did. Paul J.

If you look carefully there is at least one more track between the two platform roads, so it can't be Shrewsbury (Salop). It does look annoyingly familiar though. Paul J.

I know from personal experience that both engines on a Deltic didn't always take power at the same time. I was working the 19.35 for Hull out of King Cross one night in late1981, (with 55004 I think?). Started away from KX and made our way into Gasworks tunnel, with the engine farthest from the driving cab taking power. As we got to the point in Gasworks tunnel to start accelerating, I gradually opened the controller up towards full, As we got towards the end of Gasworks tunnel, the second engine took power, and frightened the life out of the driver and myself, as it shook the whole loco and tried to join us in the cab. Offending engine then shuts down, general fault light, no traction power until the engine stop light on the offending engine came up. As this was before SSF, the driver said try a restert, and the engine restarted. By now we were just about to enter Copenhagen tunnel and just about moving, so it was try for power again and slowly move the power controller towards full. Yet again, as we were getting towards the end of Copenhagen tunnel, the second engine started to take power and rev up, at which point it tried to join us in the cab again, with the resulting loss of power and the engine shut down. At this point the driver said forget it, just don't shut off anywhere, and I didn't, the power controller stayed at full from the top of Holloway Bank to between Biggleswade and Sandy, where we were booked onto the slow line. Sorry to take us off track slightly, but I worked on both 31's and 37's and both had their faults, but in general both did the jobs asked of them. The refurbished heavyweight 37's had excellent haulage charicteristics, and the booked load on the steel trains between South Wales and Dee Marsh/Crewe was 1420 tons, which they would shift, although slowly, taking an hour to cover the 12 mile climb between Shrewsbury and Church Stretton. One thing that helped them shift such heavy loads was the fact that the sanders on the refurbished locos were replaced, the new ones being far far better that the unrefurbished one, and in my experience better than the 56's. The only locos with equivalent sanders were the 60's. The only thing the refurbished 37's lacked was a high top end speed. They generally struggled one they got over 50MPH due to the regearing and resulting alteration to field diverts. Paul J.

OPne thing I forgot about regarding timber unloading at Hereford, was that before the wagons returned to Scotland (all the timber unloaded from Hereford came from Scotland), the wagons had to be swept clean of all bark and wood chippings, so that any infestations of beetles didn't get back to Scotland. Paul J.

The train the BSW's arrived at Hereford on was always a Class 6, which is why the BSW's especially, came down as and when they could fit them into the formation, as of course they were air piped. I believe that was why OBA's and later the odd OTA's were preferred for the traffic, although not always available, and also why the BSW's especially used to clog up Warrington yard every now and then, as they couldn't get them to Hereford, hence the odd trip with a light engine to go get them. Paul J.

Hello Alex. At that time we worked under the "Flexible Rostering" system, which meant that you could be rostered a turn between 7 to 9 hours long, with a maximum of 39 hours worked in a week in theory, although in practice you worked around an 8 week roster with a total number of hours for that cycle being no more than 312 hours. For example the week I went to Warrington my turns were 7 hours long on the Monday and Tuesday, I was 8 hour spare turns on the Wednesday and Thursday (the day I went to Warrington) and another 7 hour turn on the Friday, a total of 37 hours. The week before I had 5 turns of 8h 06m, making a total of 40hours 30 mins for the week, and so it went on over an 8 week cycle, with the total number of hours worked being 312 hours. If you worked over the rostered hours for a week, you got paid overtime for those hours. It was a very complicated system, and whole topic could be taken up trying to explain the complexities of how it worked. With regards to how long the trip took. A light engine move from Hereford to Crewe depot could be done in around 1 hour 15 mins with a straight run, but the line to Crewe was worked by Signal Boxes under Absolute Block Regulations, and with some long distances between boxes, so depending on how many other trains were trying to get to Crewe as well, it might be up to 2 hours. Crewe to Warrington was 45 mins tops, but yet again how many other trains were about could extend this. On the day in question, with a call at Crewe depot for fuel, i would have expected the run to Warrington to have taken 3h 30mins. I would have had a 30 minute break at Warrington, once the loco was hooked up to the train and I knew no one could pinch it, then it would be a relatively easy run back to Hereford in around 3-4 hours, probably following the 4V63 freightliner from Crewe as a class 6 train, 60MPH max speed, although the number of piped BSW's in the train might have affected that, but I don't think it did, although my memory might be lacking as it was 32 years ago. Hope that helps set the scene a bit Alex. Paul J.

Stratford depot had a reputation for getting more out of their 31's in terms of power output than any other depot, although Finsbury Parks fleet were also kept in good condition, and gave some impressive performances on occasions. The 31's had a bit of a mix and match set up when it came to engine control, with the English Electric engine governor having to match up with original electrical and load regulation equipment. They had a few idiosyncrasy's, such a starting back up again if you took the BIS out to quickly after shutting them down. I also had one that the load regulator and engine governor went out of synch so that when you opened the controller for power, the amps started to rise but the engine revs didn't rise as well, in fact the engine revs got slower and slower until the engine stalled as the load regulator couldn't or wouldn't increase the fuel to the engine. This happened at Bounds Green, so not on the main line, but to get it out of the way, I was at the cab controls, whilst my driver went into the engine room and tried to manually hold open the fuel racks as much as he could. The loco literally kangaroo hopped down the track until we could put it in a siding out of the way. It was the only loco I had that shut the engine down due to excessive wheelslip, although I did have a class 33 once on a Cardiff -Crewe that engine oversped when the 3rd field divert operated. Happy days! Paul J.

Yes BR37414, LE Hereford to Warrington, via Crewe Depot for fuel, and pick up a conductor as I didn't sign north of Crewe to Warrington at that time, and was instructed in no uncertain terms, I was not to leave the loco for any reason. Looking through my diaries it would appear that the date was 26th November 1987. Paul J.

The flow to Hereford came down from various locations in Scotland in almost anything that was capable of carrying logs, but mostly BSW,s, OBA'a and very occasionally the odd OAA, OCA or OTA, See photos below. Traffic used to come down overnight from Warrington and get put off in Hereford station, in a siding known as "Under the wall" by the island platform. It came down in dribs and drabs, as and when, and on occasions it would accumulate in Warrington to such an extent that we would send one of the locos off the evening Padd-Herefords up to Warrington to clear the yard. I did it at least once, unfortunately with a 47, not a 50, with strict instrunction, "on no account was I to leave the loco, and bring it back to Hereford at all cost". Interesting times for freight at Hereford, now sadly all gone. A lone OCA carrying timber in the yard at Hereford. The Hereford- STJcn pickup including OBA, BSW and a lone OTA wagon. Paul J.