great northern

The formation of the 8.00 Leeds/Bradford. Mk1s to start with.BSO CK. MK1 SK, two compartments reserved for passengers joining at Hitchin, who back then would almost certainly those compartments empty, whereas now they would be full of sullen looking interlopers, who would refuse to move. Then an all door Gresley SK. Another all door SK and a BSK, these two and the previous SK to be secured by KX. FO and RK, the latter one of the few to be seen in 1958. These came off the previous days 1145 Up Leeds. Now the Bradford portion. CK, again one compartment reserved for those joining at Hithchin, and a BG. Finally, MK1 TSO. For some reason on Bradford portions these were often placed outside the brake vehicle. Bonus J6 as well.

One more of Aboyeur this evening. I have photographed the whole formation, as it is slightly unusual, and I will post all of those in the morning.

And to mine Tony, it upset me when it wasn't in service.

Now the Down expresses start to appear much more frequently. Copley Hill A1 Aboyeur has the 8.00 Leeds. The J6 is now out of the way while parcels transfers take place, while Aboyeur negotiates the dogs leg curve.

Another of those trais we see every day of the week now appears, this one being that short parcels train from New England to East, which will spend quite a while in Number 1 bay. Local J6 64177 has the job today, and we have two views of it on the approach to the station. I do like a J6, especially one that has come half way round the world to get here.

On we go towards Skegness. Weather forecast is 57f, wind NE 20mph, light drizzle, and don't even think about the sea temperature. and hope Mrs McStingy, the landlady, doesn't live up to her name. Are we nearly there yet?

Thane of Fife is on its way, next stop Abbot's Ripton. Then we have the 7.50 KX-Skegness, which was the only train to Skeggy which ran non stop on the main line part of the journey. I think it is a good bet therefore that this is the Butlin's express. There is no headboard, but the Top Shed B1 has been given special treatment.

The 9.25 is not ready to go yet, so the WD is allowed through and back to the Up. We have a manon the bridge to record that. and there is another one at ground level near the signal box. I've just checked the WTT to see what the margin was for the 9.25, as even that would surely take precedence over a Class H. Much to my surprise, I found that it stopped at Abbots Ripton, which was being run down for closure, before it got to Huntingdon, so there was time to get the WD into a loop without inconvenience to passengers

So why is the WD on the slow? Well, 60505 has sneaked in to our only Up platform witht he stock for the 9.25 stopper to KX.

62613 is now approaching CVrescent Junction, and will take the chord down to East. and we have a WD creeping along the Up slow with a Class H mixed goods bound for Hatfield.

Now we have the East shuttle, and a valanced Claud to admire. Unusually this one will start from Platform 6, rather than number one bay. off it goes for its five minute journey.

Silver Link has not stopped, but is rolling slowly past the spotters, who are our early this morning. It is still only 9.15am. and here she is again, just a little way further on. That will be our last look at her though, at least until she comes through on her return journey to KX.

More trains run, more images obtained, but not yet photoshopped. We do still have more of Silver Link though.

A lot better , thank you Neil. The car is fine, though I need to find out how to reset the dashboard display which was wiped out by the battery change. Played with the trains too, and admit to some trepidation when I called up the first macro. All is fine there too, and it is obvious in several small ways that the new unit has made a big difference. Somehow, I have also managed to walk over eleven miles so far today. No set backs at all.....so far.

Something on the Down, at last. This is the SO Hertford North- Scarborough, portions from Hertford and Hitchin, no doubt joined together at the latter. The 1960 Grantham station survey I consult says this was worked by a KX A4, so Silver Link has the job today. I assume that the Branch portion was brought to Hitchin by a suburban tank, and the A4 worked from there. How it got to Hitchin is a matter for surmise, light engine or on an early morning outer suburban from KX seem to be the possibilities.

I'm not having much luck with batteries. The car problem turned out to be a near deceased 12v battery too. There were more twists in the story, but eventually I managed to get a new one fitted. While sorting all that my phone went dead too. It is a special one which plays through my hearing aids, and is a great boon. I had only put new batteries in on Saturday, the first time it failed. Checked again, as it would be just like me to put things in the wrong way round, though I know that should mean it wouldn't work at all. Close examination of new batteries I bought on Saturday showed their use by date to have expired.😦 I will sort that tomorrow, Also managed to communicate with DVLA, a near superhuman feat. Enough of that, for those who like to look at the coaches, here's what is behind the A3. Not particularly exciting, but typical of some of these Saturday formations. The front seven came from Notthingham, and the rear four were attached at Grantham. I've just noticed that one image posted twice, dunno why.

While waiting for the AA, and Ocado, here is your morning image, which is of Melton again, now waiting for the off. Hopefully I may be able to get some trains run and photos taken later the morning, before a trip to the dentist!

Good news and bad news. The bad is that when I went to start my car to go and collect Timara, it would not start, so she had to come via Nottingham. Car is now booked in for diagnosis, but not till next Wednesday. The good news is that the problem with the Power Pro was indeed just the battery, which when checked was effectively dead, registering about .7 of a amp. New one did the trick, all macros reentered, and we turned it off and back on after an hour three times, and all was well. I really do think that is the end of that saga, but at the moment it seems that when one thing is dealt with another immediately appears. Not good for someone with an anxiety disorder. Very strange about the battery, as the unit had not been standing idle for any length of time. Just a bad one, I think. Another shot of Melton tonight.

Off to Corby at 9.15am to pick up Timara. If you hear a very loud scream around 12pm, that will tell you that changing the battery hasn't solved the problem. Your image this morning shows the fireman's side of Melton as it runs past the water tower, brakes on.

Hot on the heels of the Grimsby is the Nottingham-KX, another train seen every day of the week, but with a different formation on saturday, which we will examine in more detail later. Well kept KX A3 Melton brings it in.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the battery is the cause. I've talked to TMC, who have confirmed that replacing it will not put me in breach of warranty, and I've just had an e-mail from NCE, also saying battery is the most likely culprit. Timara will be here tomorrow, and we will replace it then, put in a few macros, and see what happens. One interesting thing is that NCE have now said that the battery must be inserted positive side up. That isn't in the manual,and I've not seen it mentioned before when doing previous replacements, of which there have been several over a life of getting on 25 years. Hopefully all can be sorted without a replacement unit being required.

We can return to Saturday morning events, and see 61142 waiting time with the Up Grimsby. A couple of minutes later it is off under the bridge and on its way.

Last of the plonks this evening. However, I did manage to get a couple more images on Friday, and today I put in just enough macros to get trains made up on FY1 and through the station on both Up and Down lines, so we are OK for a while. There was a moment though earlier when I nearly said something very rude. I shut everything down when I finished operating, knowing it would result in all the macros being emptied again. However, couldn't resist powering up again a couple of minutes later, and they were all still there. So, as calmly as possible, I left it for a couple of hours, and tried again. All macros empty. Perversely, a relief, as I don't fancy ringing TMC and saying "you know that unit I said was faulty and asked for a replacement, which you have done, well, er, it wasn't faulty after all." Rather peculiar though.

In all the disruption caused by the faulty new equipment, I forgot that I had intended to photograph my latest goodie, which Steve@31A delivered on Thursday. Here, belatedly, it is. Gresley CK to Dia 8, an early LNER diagram, with turnbuckle underframe. This is the coach I wrote about a while back, which seems to have had its first and second class accomodation altered at some time in its life, though none of the reference books say anything about it. This one is as built, two first plus coupe first, and four second. I have them recorded on locals and through trains in my period on the main line, and they may have also worked on the M&GN. I say "may", as in the Express Publications book on train formations there is constant reference to CK 2-4. The LNER had no such thing, so it seems likely that It refers to Dia 8/116. If so, there would be one, in theory at least, in all my M&GN trains bar one. I really love this coach, so it will be seen a lot from now on. Many thanks to Steve for a great addition to PN.

Ah yes, I'm getting round to that. Taken about ten years so far, but I'll get there, eventually.