Heaven: Nerdish Railways - for those in favour of the Iron Horse
As suggested by Lots of Yay here, it is probably time again for another railway appreciation thread, and which is more heavenly that hellish.
For starters, I am copying one of my own one of my own posts:
This is fascinating and quite meditative, although I wonder why they don't announce the 'whistle' signs as text. They seem quite important to me as well.
Also, anyone know what engine that could be? Obviously, the camera and mic was mounted on the front of the loco, and on return on its back - the engine sound is much less audible than on the way to Pickering. A tank engine perhaps?
So, let's go at full steam! (Also for diesels and electrics and turbine-powered and other rail vehicles). All aboard!
For starters, I am copying one of my own one of my own posts:
Fair enough, but now I'm stuck on the Grosmont to Pickering Route Learning on the NYMR (North Yorkshire Moors Railway) video, which goes on for nearly 2 hours, and I've actually got other things to do! Grrrr.
ETA: They nearly flattened a ewe and two lambs early in that ran over the track, just a mere few yards ahead of the train!
This is fascinating and quite meditative, although I wonder why they don't announce the 'whistle' signs as text. They seem quite important to me as well.
Also, anyone know what engine that could be? Obviously, the camera and mic was mounted on the front of the loco, and on return on its back - the engine sound is much less audible than on the way to Pickering. A tank engine perhaps?
So, let's go at full steam! (Also for diesels and electrics and turbine-powered and other rail vehicles). All aboard!
Comments
Thanks for starting the thread!
Also, anyone know what engine that could be? [/quote]
Following up the information given with the YouTube video this appears to be the locomotive in question: https://www.nymr.co.uk/lms-5mt-black-5-4-6-0-no-45428-eric-treacy
It appears there is someone who posted all the engines and carriages found along the route!
This would be a thing on my to-do list, doing the NYMR!
This one is no longer operating on that railway.
Had many good holidays staying at a nice b&b in Grosmont and spending the day riding between Whitby and Pickering on the NYMR whilst Mrs. Monty stayed back and read.
Does anyone remember Dalescroft Railfans, who used to organise bus tours to sheds?
Two of the biggest are the Stephenson Locomotive Society and the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society, both of which are still very much alive and well.
Hm... to be frank, I'm not quite sure how to interpret the comment on GWR 56xx 6619 on the YouTube link. Was that engine at the back of the train, and the train then just reversing in Pickering with the GWR 56xx 6619 now at the front? Or did the the LMS Black 5 4-6-0 45428 'Eric Treacy', which apparently was the leading loco, reverse in Pickering and drive back, tender first, again at the front?
The sound on the return trip seems much more muffled, so a tender-first LMS Black 5 4-6-0 45428 or the GWR 56xx 6619 backwards appears to be a reasonable conclusion.
How do you all see it? Is there a turntable in Pickering? (Could probably check in the video, couldn't I...!)
Embarrassinlgy, I just realise only now (!) that the video is actually from 2011, so you will be right with the fact that she's no longer with the NYMR in 2020 or 2021.
Last remark for now: I was a bit surprised at the amount of loco wheelslip at the start. Perhaps a learner driver too? The train can't have been that long or heavy, especially when they had the tank engine/banker at the back.
Any thoughts? (This is VERY nerdish, all this...!)
Local trains in Belgium in the 1970s still sometimes had coaches with varnished wooden seats - OK for short journeys, and, I guess, easy to keep clean!
The colourful paint schemes of early diesels are quite attractive.
In good news, the Lakeshore Line in around Toronto, Ontario US going to be electrified.
All modes of propulsion are most welcome, see below. - And what you're saying is good news!
I can’t explain why I find it fascinating to watch a video explaining tiny details about a train I will never ride in a language I don’t speak. But there it is.
The first diesel railcars in these islands ran on the 3' gauge County Donegal Railways in Ireland just over 90 years ago, in 1931.
Talking of various modes of traction, what about the Spurn Head railway? https://tinyurl.com/263ee4mz
From Wikipedia:
On railcars, Didcot has a rebuilt steam one. The 'engine' part is enclosed in the carriage, but, before my memory, Horwich in Lancashire had one where the engine part looked like a little engine. It lasted, I think, until about 1950.
We had some in Kent (before my time!), but they weren't popular - uncomfortable for passengers and crew, not very good at climbing any sort of gradient, and hard to keep clean - they had to live in the smoky, dusty confines of a steam locomotive shed. The Southern Railway separated the little engines from the coaches, and converted the latter to ordinary carriages for push-pull use, in which form they lasted until the 1960s. Now those I do remember...
Yes, but there were turntables at all the major stations, anyway, so it wasn't really a problem. Most railcars in France, Germany, and elsewhere, were double-ended (and some, in Germany at least, were powerful enough to haul some goods wagons, too, saving the railway the cost of a separate locomotive for freight traffic).
I understand they had to lower the track bed in the tunnel at Ryde so the new trains would fit, which was the reason for using old tube trains in the first place.
Quite so. The BR Mk 1s probably only continue to exist because they were cheap and plentiful for a while, with too many of them available at the same time for the scrappers to deal with when they had the chance. Having experienced their bench seats, temperamental heating and crude ventilation far too many times for the full length of the ECML on their wretched original bogies before continuous welded rail was common, I would be perfectly happy to see every last one of them vanish from the face of the Earth without trace. I don't like them.
For the same reason (presumably), some stations have had their platform surfaces raised a few inches. The *new* trains look quite smart, though - far better than that horrid LT aluminium finish.
I now feel Very Old, as the last time I travelled on a train on the Island was in 1964, from Ryde to Cowes, steam-hauled, of course...
I say it “ecks ecks”.
I'll get me grease-top and me overalls.
So there.
The most interesting trainset is one of the 600/700 series modified to solar power and operating at Byron Bay on the NSW far north coast
The 600-700 series used to run between Sydney and Canberra for many years. It was usually 2 cars and when it reached Queanbeyan one carriage was uncoupled and went the last few miles to Canberra ( a short branch line which was opened to transport the building materials for Old Parliament House) and the other went down to Cooma ( 60 miles) then to Bombala near the border with Victoria.
I am a director of another local railway museum, which operates industrial and mining locomotives hauling ex-government railways passenger carriages, as well as a demonstration train of non-air-braked wooden coal wagons. Our museum site is a former major colliery, and we operate over a short line awaiting restoration of a fire-damaged main line to a neighbouring colliery site.
We currently have an 0-4-0 saddle tank and 0-4-0 diesel railtractor operational. We have a sister saddle tank under restoration and a 2-8-2 tank dismantled and up on stands awaiting further funding for restoration.
We are still recovering from the bushfire disaster in 2017, but have just received a grant to replace timber bridge piers with concrete, so look forward to extending our operations again once the bridge is restored.
Way back in the early 50's, I was sent by train to spend time with a great-aunt and -uncle at Rylestone. I went by train, and was disappointed to have a steam loco with dog-box carriages from either Lithgow or Wallerawang (can't remember now). Most of the passengers were workmen on their way home from Lithgow, Wallerawang or Kandos. The property where I was staying was right by the train line and so I'd spend much of the day running up to the fence to see trains passing. On the way back, the train was a rail motor to Lithgow, and I was able to sit at the front with a view out a front window. From memory, the drivers cabin was very narrow to allow for this and also for inter-unit access for longer trains.
No love for Stroudley's "Improved Engine Green"*?
.
*= yellow
No. Hideous colour. Was Outrage.
My Dear Sir - you place your immortal soul in peril on account of that! Certain of those who venerate the Highland Railway in Stroudley's time, not to mention the Brighton, are even now contemplating a Hell call.
Don't care. Anyway, the Highland Railway went all sensible with a nice green (unlined) - much easier to clean...
A late comment - but I wonder why they didn't use ex-deep tube stock (Northern, Bakerloo etc) since if 1938 would fit, so would that? District (and other 'surface') trains are bigger. Maybe none were available, maybe there was public pressure for more headroom?
I enjoyed your comments here regarding gravity on the Ffestiniog. Me and my kids liked taking our bikes half way up (Tan-y-bwlch?) and then cycling back downhill through the woods - they were really quite small when I started taking them. There's a place half-way down where you can sit and wait for trains to go by in a little cutting, right up close. The footpath you have to take is signposted to 'llwybr cyhoeddus'. I couldn't find it on the map
(That's a joke for welsh speakers. If I follow ship protocol for things not in English and provide a translation, I'll spoil it).
No tube stock was available, but also the D Stock fits perfectly well (OK, well enough) into Ryde tunnel without lowering the trackbed.
The biggest problem with Ryde tunnel was, and is, its curvature rather than its headroom. Only Underground stock has coaches short enough to get round while keeping both front and back within the curved profile of the tunnel roof.
I. Stand. Corrected.
You are quite right, of course, and I like the way the Company spread its name right along the side of its engines' tenders or tanks. It's a railway which I find quite appealing, and I'm fortunate enough to have travelled over the main lines from Perth to Inverness, on to Wick (and Thurso), and from Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh. This was back in the early 70s, so no steam (blue Diseasels
The coaches used in steam days (pre-1967) were of normal height, of course, but AIUI the Southern Railway (post-1923) had to make sure that it sent across shortish bogie rolling-stock capable of negotiating tight clearances - some ex-South Eastern & Chatham coaches, for example, were too long. Presumably, the tunnel at Ryde was one of those tight spots!
Yes, about 25cm I think. Although even after that change it's still noticeably below sea level.