Simon Lee

I did think the same, having looked at the SS United States Conservancy website www.ssusc.org they makes no mention of the Dockyard requirement, and having being towed to Turkey and Ukraine for asbestos removal it would appear to be at odds with what it is quoted above. Interesting that her propellers are preserved and on public display SSUSPropellers2021.pdf (squarespace.com)

D99 Third Carabinier turned up on a car special in 1970, quite a suprise as it trundled past our house, we lived off Chants Ave. They looked big, but as 45125 says they were RA6 so within the High Levels limits. I think for me, it was at the time second only in rarity to the Cuban "class 47s" which I saw thanks to being off school with measles !

Sad to hear this, I first met him in the old ERG shop on London Road Dover. He was always friendly and happy to pass on advice and encouragement . RIP Bob

Sounds like we could both go back and do it all again at the drop of a hat !! Seem to remember a mod being introduced that on the BM arrival line, after the arrival time you could put 6 skips in then letter D which would save the DB/TF inputs. When I was on my basic TOPS course at Webb House, the instructor, Jack Jones gave us an easy way to remember the arrival inputs - BM - bloody marvellous the trains arrived. TF - thank f%&k there's a loco DB - damm and blast wagons as well.

Indeed the schedule was set up exactly as any land based train, the ship was consisted as the loco, the wagons as any other train and the departure also In the early days, of the Dover office acting as Dunkerque, we would arrive the ship in Dunkerque, then 2 hours later the wagons would have to be "interfaced off" to indicate to any enquirers that the wagon had arrived on mainland Europe. Eventually this procedure became automatic.

It was local French staff, there was a tie up dating back to 1927, that involved the ALA company see this link, the ferry St Eloi was shown as owned by ALA and carried that companies lettering on the funnel, as opposed to the St Germain was a pure SNCF ship. Proir to the Eloi, the Twickenham Ferry known as "Le Twic" was the ALA ship. https://www.doverferryphotosforums.co.uk/category/pastandpresent/ferries/sealink/ala/ Jobs in the BR ticket offices abroad would appear periodically on the Clerical vacancy sheets, possibly the most coveted posting was the New York office ! Iirc they also employed local staff as well in these offices.

Correct, same applies to to mainline registered diesels and electrics, whos numbers begin 89xxx Scotsman being 98872, D1015 Western Champion being 89415

You're right, all the ferries that had rails on the main deck were numbered in the 99 xxx series. The anomaly was the Golden Arrow ship Invicta which gained a 99 number but was. withdrawn in 1972 when TOPS had hardly started, and l9ng before the Southern Region was online.

Something that maybe of interest/use, the fact that there used to be a TOPS office at Dunkerque for the Trainferry traffic, a very small scale operation run on a 2 shift (sort of) basis the clerk would "load" import wagons onto the system and then load the sailing details onto a consist and send it to us in Dover. The sailings being shown on TOPS as a train. In the days when the Ventek TOPS terminals were maintained by Ventek engineers on a monthly basis the Dunkerque office was a prized day out for them. The Dunkerque office closed around 84/85 and the worked passed to us in Dover.

Couldnt remember the initials of the code I was thinking about when I posted earlier. I and a few others had permits for all the Humber Ports at the time, IIRC we got a years grace then they were withdrawn.

That is correct, the cars in the photo are actually of the black variety, guess you can class the contents "Petroleum Products" as opposed to petrol.

It was a dockside photo charters that were in vogue in the early 2000s before port security was increased in the UK. IIRC the same group organsed and event at Goole using the Pug based on the Worth Valley.

The loco line in TOPS was / is known as the 06 line, for the simple reason it starts 06. The original 06 line was "split" in the first field to cater for non renumbered locos, thus imputs by the TOPS clerk would be for example as follows 06 D 1000 06 ; 47101 the skip character replaced the D once the 4 digit locos were withdrawn the field was amended/updated removing the need for the skip during one of the regular Saturday night update outages. One regular feature was the updates/amendments to the system were promogulated by a "ZZ" all terminals message on the previous Thursday. There is, in, one of the late Adrian Curtis's books a photo of a TOPS printout featuring a Western a former colleague on the DOver office, had dealt with Westerns during his time at Hither Green TOPS.

3N52 was ECS 1350 Filey Holiday Camp - Hull 1525, which was booked to run round in Dairycoates 7 section. Stock had arrived at FHC as the 0820 Kings Cross - FHC.

A quick Google search finds this on Flickr