great northern

One more shot of 61204, which will soon be crossing to Midland lines. Then we have a train that many enthusiasts would have loved to travel on for the whole of its long, but very interesting, journey. This is a Dundee-KX service, which began its travels at 1145am. If on time, it passes here at 8.24pm. A notebook full of cops by the time you got here.

A Class H originating at Letchworth brings another WD along the Down slow. 61204 ten stes oof towards Leicester, and is seen from an angle that allows the Claud to be in shot yet again.

Interesting. I feel that the first one is a poor photo, and only marginally worth showing, even though the bridge is not a problem. The second one, however, I liked sufficiently that I felt its good points outweighed the fact that the end of the bridge could be seen. What is the general feeling about this?

It is one of the little peculiarities of PN that now and again we get a concentration on a single class of locomotives. At the moment, it is B1s, for as 61098 disappears to the north..... Spital Bridge's 61204 arrives with a Leicester train.

The much easier view of the Cleethorpes is next. After a four minute rest, off it goes towards Cleethorpes.

Can't have that, it might damage the bus.😁

I have tried them but I wasn't convinced by the leaning poses that a lot of them have, and they didn't quite look to scale to me. Clive driving a bus? He is very accident prone, you know, always hurting himself, poor chap. Goodness knows what might happen.

Sir Nigel is going round the bend. He is one of the few locos on the layout who actually has a crew to keep him going. I wish there were more, but suitable figures seem very hard to find. Now we have the 6.45 pm KX-Cleethorpes on the way in. I don't know why, but I never manage to get this shot to my satisfaction. The abrupt end to the bridge has to be avoided, in my opinion anyway, and that leaves angles which never quite seem to work. This time I managed a seriously out of focus background too. Nice clean B1 though, if a bit dusty.

60007 from the other side of the bridge, and less heavily cropped than usual. followed by a last look at 60017 as it approached Spital Bridge. Shows how addled my brain is at the moment, as I convinced myself this morning that I had already posted this, but I hadn't.

Most of yesterday was spent in the final stages of selling my car, not in the least assisted by the malfunctioning of websites, and the inabilty to get to speak to a human being to sort things out. Done in the end, but it left only enough time to process one more image. Sir Nigel is waiting for the off at Platform 2.

I have investigated the strange case of the A4 on the 5.00 from KX. There is a simple answer, that was said by a simple person. The train is in fact the 8.10pm to Grantham. It is formed of the stock for the 5pm KX, and that is what I allowed to fool me. The sequence says clearly it is the 8.10 Grantham, and the A4 is doing the job because it came off here earlier in the day, and now needs to get to Grantham, as its next express duty is from there. So I was both right and wrong to call myself names. And here it is starting on its way there. with another opportunity to feature the Claud. and a little later it passes the K3, nowhere near so interesting or good looking. Do you like those overlapping lattices and poles? They took a long time to photoshop.

I have discovered over time that if one insists on wearing a straitjacket, it is a good idea not to make it too tight a fit. I understand there would be quite a lot of retooling to be done to create the valanced version, so considering the self inflicted problem Hornby gave themselves by flooding the market with these, I doubt it will happen. Geoff and I did have a good day, though quite a bit of it was taken up in agreeing our frustrations with the modern world, and his, poor chap, with the added frustration of still being no closer to being able to build the ECML layout of his dreams.

I entirely agree Neil, though I prefer them in this form rather than as they were originally built. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though, isn't it? I believe there are some people who actually like the look of pannier tanks.😇

The 5.15 Hull-KX brings a very well cleaned Sir Nigel Gresley.

My guest today was Geoff West, but he didn't get to see many trains run, as we got side tracked into venting our feelings about modern technology, and I kept being distracted by the car sale saga. What trains I did try to run, perhaps predictably, did not behave. Here's the K3 grinding to a halt at the signal. and another angle on the Claud, just as graceful from the rear.

I blinked a bit when the tablet told me the loco was 34A 7, which tiurned out to be an A4, but I didn't have time to go and check further. I have now, and it is a mistake on the sequence slide, down to me. There is one photo I've seen, I think in Book of the GN part 1, of an A4 piloted by a B1, but no explanation given. If this was the 5pm, I would think that the B1 would have come off at Hitchin, leaving the A4 to carry on to PN, after which it would back on to the Cambridge portion. Even so, it would a very rare occurence.

Another Pacific on menial duties, this being the 5.00pm from KX. As usual though, Silver Fox will be doing something befitting its status next time. Following it has been a Hitchin-Colwick Class D, which now comes past on the slow, but only as far as that obdurate signal.

A very last look at the A3.... Then attention switches to number 4 bay, where a D16 is standing with the 8.30pm to Melton Constable. The justification for this is tenuous to say the least, but my love of Clauds overruled any objections. So, instead of the usual Ivatt 4 a D16 has got onto a M&GN service to and from PN. Melton still had a few, although this is not one of them, and they worked to the East of their home, not to the West, but its my train set.

Circling cautiously over the bridge, we get one more look at the 9F. before our intrepid bird man scurries back to the north to watch 60061 going on its way.

I hope not Neil, things could get very messy.

Following the 9F, we get views of both sides of the loco as it starts its journey across to the Up side.

Back now to Spital Bridge, but still hovering above it. We now get this view of the waiting A3, and a 9F which has been allowed to come across its path and along the Up slow. A bit of zoom, which doesn't seem to have got things too much out of focus, and thought about cropping to remove the hanging bridge, but that would have cropped out the 9F too. I hope it meets with your approval. Whatever this chap is using must be jet powered, as he now manages to get back down to the south end before the 9F has travelled more than a few yards onward.

Pretty Polly now meets 61113 as it slows for the stop. and soon afterwards Polly is seen at rest. A short express, this one.

The cameraman wanted to see how the vegetable garden was coming on, so he swooped a bit closer. Then he heard the sound of an approaching train, and moved back to capture Pretty Polly coming under the bridge with the 6,35 KX-Hull.

The East shuttle has come in to Platform 6. Tottenham Hotspur has no doubt been sent up with it to avoid a light engine movement. I swear that lamp had not fallen off when I took the photo. The camera then floated down to the south end, and showed me this image with Station Road as backdrop. I thought it sufficiently nice to include, and of course at least one regular visitor will be happy to see it.