Poor Old Bruce

Boston West Street Junction, GNR, 8 Aug 1979

Back to the GNR Skeggy line on 8 Aug 1979. Almost in Boston was Grand Sluice.

On 19/07/2015 at 13:55, bike2steam said:

4F & 2P = 4'8" x 10'5 & 15/16", yep both the same, and the fireboxes.

On 30/08/2019 at 12:31, Talltim said:

I assume that’s 4’8” diameter and 10’5” long. What’s the 15/16”, the thickness of the steel? 

Also I assume the length is not including firebox?

10''5 & 15/16" means 1/16th of an inch short of 10ft 6in. the firebox adds another nominally 7ft, that's where the '7' in 'G7' comes from.

Today's photo is Old Leake, GNR, 8 Aug 1979

On 23/11/2021 at 10:48, uax6 said:

Was that picture taken during single line working? The flag man standing next to the points?

 

Andy G

It was indeed Andy. That's why I couldn't get a better picture of the box.

Bellwater Junction, again 8 Aug 1979. If I'd known I could drive up to it, I would have paid a visit at half term but the OS map suggested (to me at the time anyway) that it was in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully there'll be another time.

Should have come before East Ville by rights but not to worry.

Next along the line was East Ville, 8 Aug 1979

On 11/11/2021 at 17:20, 2mm Andy said:

No idea if anyone has taken over that particular kit (some of the 009 kits have passed to 'N Drive Productions') but an unbuilt example sold on Ebay earlier today;

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224675549910

 

 

Andy

Flippin' 'eck!! for that price you can have my kit!

In the late 1950s and early 1960s (probably before then but that was when I saw them) freights north of Rowsley were  regularly piloted and banked from Rowsley to Peak Forest. I remember seeing 8Fs with a 4F fore and aft and even on one occasion a train with three 4Fs, two pulling and one pushing.

The Southern Pacific mentioned above by @lather was Barnstaple, in SR livery but with its BR number and attached to a Stanier 4000 gallon tender.

The Hymek diesels had their acceptance tests from Manchester to Derby and back. Some were finish painted but many were in pink primer.

Back to the Skegness line, the next box I have was Little Steeping (or Little Sleeping according to Platform 5's Track Atlas), GNR, 8 Aug 1979. Very similar photos, one on the outward journey and one on the return, but I have put them both in for completeness. Not sure where plumb is (was) so I've gone with the horizon and signal post. Should have perhaps gone a bit more!

On 10/11/2021 at 10:38, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah, but that's only one case; a four-cylinder compound (Webb, de Glehn) will be the same, essentially sounding like a two-cylinder simple. But a Worsdell-von Borries two-cylinder compound (the last of which in the British Isles ran until 1946 on the Ballymena & Larne section of the NCC) or a Webb three-cylinder compound, both with a single low-pressure cylinder, will have exhausted only twice per revolution. The Webb three-cylinder compounds are said to have quite a soft exhaust, wuffing along. This leads to some ill-informed captions to photos of double-headed West Coast expresses in the 1890s / early 1900s, where the pilot engine - usually an Improved Precedent - is said to be doing all the work, on the grounds that it is volcanically and wastefully chucking a great cloud of incompletely-combusted fuel out of the chimney, whereas the Teutonic or Greater Britain is economically spouting a gentle plume of white steam; a misapprehension reinforced by contemporary lineside observations that the simple was making all the noise. Of course it would be!

Point taken Stephen. I should have mentioned the Webb 3-cylinder compounds with only two exhaust beats per revolution. Two-cylinder compounds similarly gave two beats per rev. I did see a little 2-6-0T 2-cyl compound somewhere in Europe (Austria perhaps, not sure without digging) which gave out two beats and sounded very 'different'.

On 10/11/2021 at 14:36, Wickham Green too said:

Which suggests that we have - in this case - two cylinders giving a conventional 90 degree thrust and a third cylinder ( whether in simple or compound mode ) giving a very out of balance thrust ........... doesn't seem to make a lot of engineering sense to me !

Well, the Midland and LMS compounds worked quite well, to the extent that they could be argued to have been the most successful compound locos in this country, having had a life span covering almost 60 years.

Don't forget that the driving axles of the Webb LNWR 3-cyl compounds were not coupled at all. The two HP cylinders drove the trailing driving axle while the LP cylinder drove the leading driving axle.

Looks interesting. You must let us know how you get on.

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I have some other coaches like them and I can't get the bogies off because the bolt heads are inside, the threads in the floor are stripped, and the nuts are glued on.

I bought some nicely repainted S/H Tri-ang clerestoreys like that which just(!) needed the bogies changing. I ended up destroying the existing bogies (Tri-and Mk1s which would be scrap anyway) to access the floor, chain-drilled round the boss to get that out of the way and then start rebuilding the floor to fit new bogie mounts.

Thorpe Culvert, GNR, 8 Aug 1979

The original box was replaced about 2003 with this one, seen on 21 October this year

For some reason I missed Wainfleet in 1979 but fortunately it was still there three weeks ago, 21 October 2021

Working our way back from Skeggy, the first box was Seacroft, apparently demoted to a crossing keeper's hut since 1964.

Then a similar structure at Havenhouse, still with a summersault signal

Both ex Great Northern and both now long gone but seen here on 8 Aug 1979

Some pictures of a rather forlorn looking Bedford Midland station taken on 14 June 1979 at the start of rebuilding.

iands took us to 'Skeggy' a few days ago. I had a day trip hanging out of the 'Jolly Fisherman' on 8 Aug 1979. Here are a couple of my pictures of Skegness box taken that day. Great Northern of course.

Trent, Midland Railway, 8 Sept 1963

18 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Then of course there's the mysterious exhaust sounds of three-cylinder compound locos which can start as a simple with different-sized cylinders and then run exhausting from the low-pressure only !

What's mysterious about it? The HP cylinder exhausts into a the steam chest for the LP cylinders. Only the LP cylinders exhaust to atmosphere so it doesn't matter whether the loco is running compound or simple, it can only give four exhaust beats per revolution. On the Midland and LMS Compounds the outside cranks were set at 90 Degrees with the inside crank at 135 degrees.

Shepshed, LNWR, 1962

Whitwick, LNWR, 1962

Coalville East, LNWR, 1962