Hmm ... possibly some of the older Q stock? The A stock was still pretty new, the CO/CP/R stock all very much in service (the skirts at the bottom might have been a problem too). C stock didn't come along till 1969 or after.
IIRC, I used to see this stock - mixed in with the skirted CO etc. cars - at New Cross (LT platform) as my Southern train whizzed through, back in the late 60s/early 70s. Does that sound about right, date-wise?
Probably although (living as we did on the Northern Line) I didn't travel much on the "big" lines so don't remember the Q stock. Indeed I thought all District and Circle stock was R (which it wasn't). The older Q stock had flat sides and clerestory roofs, originally hand-worked doors as well (like the LNER stock on Tyneside).
IIRC, I used to see this stock - mixed in with the skirted CO etc. cars - at New Cross (LT platform) as my Southern train whizzed through, back in the late 60s/early 70s. Does that sound about right, date-wise?
According to the Fount Of All Knowledge the Q stock lasted on the East London Line until 1971, so that would fit.
IIRC, I used to see this stock - mixed in with the skirted CO etc. cars - at New Cross (LT platform) as my Southern train whizzed through, back in the late 60s/early 70s. Does that sound about right, date-wise?
According to the Fount Of All Knowledge the Q stock lasted on the East London Line until 1971, so that would fit.
Yes. My Ian Allan book - 1969 edition - lists quite a lot of Q stock still in operation, both in full *sets* and also as *trailer* cars. In those days, the older surface and Tube trains were still painted red.
I surmise, then, that it would not have been available when the Ryde-Shanklin line was electrified in 1967, though it might well have been suitable. The electric trains used initially on the Island were formed of pre-1938 Tube stock, the recently-replaced 1938 vehicles arriving at a later date.
The *new* trains look quite smart IMHO, even though they're not green.
The GNRI painted its diesel railcars, buses, its one horse tram, and 8 of its 10 electric trams in a much darker shade of Oxford Blue, with cream and (sometimes) silver or grey roofs. Very smart.
The GNRI painted its diesel railcars, buses, its one horse tram, and 8 of its 10 electric trams in a much darker shade of Oxford Blue, with cream and (sometimes) silver or grey roofs. Very smart.
Sorry Jedi Judy, that would have been a good idea - but Baptist Trainfan has provided a timely corrective!
That turntable picture is wild, from a 'modern' H&S point of view. I know there's nothing likely unsafe about it, and that hundreds were in use, and loco's (that is, bombs on wheels) didn't roll off into nothing, and that people didn't put their backs out pushing or fall into the well, and that no-one trapped their foot between the rim and the bridge - but can you imagine how much training and safety interlocks and who-knows-what would now be required?
The GNRI painted its diesel railcars, buses, its one horse tram, and 8 of its 10 electric trams in a much darker shade of Oxford Blue, with cream and (sometimes) silver or grey roofs. Very smart.
Ouch. That would have required a BIG crane - or maybe jacks? I wonder whether after that they would have 'just' measured across the diagonals between bearings and said 'OK, it's straight enough' (or not). No chance of crack-testing the frames, and maybe a wheel-tapping approach on the wheels...
Sorry for double-post. Here is a link to more information about that steam crane with Bluebell.
They are saying that NYMR, the one from the opening post, has another preserved one, and which is actually working and used for track maintenance; short video here, and NYMR breakdown crane charter train here.
And here's one in prolonged action, on the Nene Valley Railway - may be the NYMR crane?
There's quite a knock on that last one - I see why the bloke was having a feel at the big end. I suppose it could be the cross-head too. I wouldn't fancy getting as close to a load high in the air, as some of those blokes did when the tender was on the move - if one of the legs of the set of chains comes adrift, you want to be well out of it!
For anyone who ever saw a clean maroon Duchess/City or Princess Royal purring along the West Coast Main Line with a complete rake of maroon coaches, there's no other livery that can quite compete with it. I'd like to have seen a Compound sweep through Monsal Dale in red, but by the time I knew them, they were all in lined black and the coaching stock was red and cream.
A really clean Castle with it's glitter work polished and glistening was an impressive sight, but even that is second to a complete maroon ensemble in prime condition.
I saw one of the GNR(I) big blue 4-4-0s with smoke deflectors in Dublin in the 1960s. At that time, the CIE had gone entirely diesel, but the UTA was still using its allocation on through trains from Belfast. Unfortunately it was on shed and too far away from the platforms at Connolly Station (still Amiens Street back then) to be able to know which one it was.
That's a nice memory @Enoch. Did you know you can now cycle (or walk) all the way down by Monsal Head, as the viaducts and tunnels are all open? I have half a memory that some group or other would like to put rail back down along it. @Bishops Finger has had me reading about preservation steam in Ireland this evening. Here's a link to a museum site. I go to NI once in a blue moon; it would be a nice day out.
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 seem to remember reading somewhere that the last time tube stock became available was around 1992. At this time London Underground and British Rail were both in the process of being privatised and although the 1968 Central and Northern Line stock were up for sale, nothing ever got done and those trains eventually got scrapped.
There was also the stock that everyone has forgotten about, the 1983 Jubilee Line stock which ran for little over 10 years before being withdrawn and scrapped. I believe it wasn't very successful; also it may have become available at just the wrong time.
BTW the Central Line stock was a bit older than 1968 - 60 or 62 I think.
The 83 stock was rubbish, with reliability issues and doors that were too small for passengers to get on and off in good time. It might have worked on the IoW, but at the time it was made redundant from LU the IoW had a perfectly good and reliable fleet.
That's a nice memory @Enoch. Did you know you can now cycle (or walk) all the way down by Monsal Head, as the viaducts and tunnels are all open? I have half a memory that some group or other would like to put rail back down along it. @Bishops Finger has had me reading about preservation steam in Ireland this evening. Here's a link to a museum site. I go to NI once in a blue moon; it would be a nice day out.
Yes @Marvin the Martian. In 2018 I walked from where Longstone station used to be, through Headstone Tunnel, over the viaduct, on to the site of Monsal Dale station, down to the river, up to the hotel where I had an ice cream, and then back along the road through Little Longstone. On the way, I regaled various random complete strangers with the news that the last time I'd been through that tunnel had been in a train and pulled by steam.
Peak Rail has always had an ambition to get track on from Rowsley to Buxton but sadly there are a lot of obstacles. Apart from the likely moans from walkers, cyclists etc who would doubtless complain about sharing their route with what it was originally built for, there was a very low bridge over the main road at Rowsley which was removed more or less instantaneously on closure. It's followed by a viaduct over the river. When it was a working railway, the whole was on a steep gradient. Getting any sort of configuration that could resolve the levels without blocking a trunk road to most buses and heavy lorries verges on the unachievable.
Also, one would wonder what sort of condition the infrastructure is in after 50+ years. There are a lot of embankments, bridges and tunnels.
Ouch. That would have required a BIG crane - or maybe jacks? I wonder whether after that they would have 'just' measured across the diagonals between bearings and said 'OK, it's straight enough' (or not). No chance of crack-testing the frames, and maybe a wheel-tapping approach on the wheels...
I spent a summer at the Inverness diesel depot in 1967 and was at a couple of derailments that were sorted using only jacks to lift, with chains and crow bars to pull the engine sideways. The HASAWA was mostly in the future then, and the real work was done by the old men who had done it many times before and were good at it. The turntables had almost all gone by then so I never saw a lift from a pit, but I'd guess that the one in the picture would have taken a crane, with a timber crib with some rails built under the engine so it could be pulled backwards. There's usually one crane within easy reach, but unless an incident occurred near a city with more cranes available, or was blocking a running line or a roundhouse, they'd have to make do with that.
The 83 stock was rubbish, with reliability issues and doors that were too small for passengers to get on and off in good time. It might have worked on the IoW, but at the time it was made redundant from LU the IoW had a perfectly good and reliable fleet.
Fair enough! I'd forgotten about the single-leaf doors - though the D stock (now with Vivarail) seemed to manage with them.
The 83 stock was rubbish, with reliability issues and doors that were too small for passengers to get on and off in good time. It might have worked on the IoW, but at the time it was made redundant from LU the IoW had a perfectly good and reliable fleet.
Fair enough! I'd forgotten about the single-leaf doors - though the D stock (now with Vivarail) seemed to manage with them.
The D stock doors were more closely spaced, meaning fewer passengers trying to cram into each one.
Back to cranes, and the engine shed just across the road from Our House (yes! Lucky me - though My Old Mum had a job to keep the curtains etc. clean) had a coaling stage complete with a very shabby and decrepit looking steam crane to heave the tubs of coal around.
Well, the London, Chatham & Dover probably couldn't afford to clean it ...
According to my southern grandfather, that was the London, Smash 'em and Turnover Railway.
Hehe...
We had the South Eastern where I lived, actually... (the original South Eastern, that is - trains started running on the line in front of Our House at about the same time the house itself was built).
Ouch. That would have required a BIG crane - or maybe jacks? I wonder whether after that they would have 'just' measured across the diagonals between bearings and said 'OK, it's straight enough' (or not). No chance of crack-testing the frames, and maybe a wheel-tapping approach on the wheels...
I spent a summer at the Inverness diesel depot in 1967 and was at a couple of derailments that were sorted using only jacks to lift, with chains and crow bars to pull the engine sideways. The HASAWA was mostly in the future then, and the real work was done by the old men who had done it many times before and were good at it. The turntables had almost all gone by then so I never saw a lift from a pit, but I'd guess that the one in the picture would have taken a crane, with a timber crib with some rails built under the engine so it could be pulled backwards. There's usually one crane within easy reach, but unless an incident occurred near a city with more cranes available, or was blocking a running line or a roundhouse, they'd have to make do with that.
That sounds like interesting work experience! Maybe lifted at the front, you would only need to deal with about half the mass (lacking a crane big enough to lift the whole thing) - but that would put a hell of a load on the pair of wheels at the rim of the pit. Maybe one could pack it all up with sleepers back there, get the front of the thing up in the air, and then try to spin the bridge back under it!
I expect they did get the engine out eventually - there may be a record somewhere as to exactly how the rescue was achieved.
There have been cases of derailed locomotives being cut up on the spot - one such incident occurred on the old Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Burnham to Evercreech line in 1949. A train was derailed near Ashcott, the engine fell into the South Drain, and, although the train itself was re-railed, the engine was stuck in the mud, and cut up into bits where it lay.
There's said to be a Furness loco that is buried deep under the ground where the ground collapsed under it and it fell into an underground chasm. It fell deeper and deeper and each time anyone tried to get it out, it sank further. Eventually it was impossible to retrieve it.
There's also a legend that may be true that sometime in the early 1900s, the Lancashire and Yorkshire left an 0-6-0 tender engine parked in a siding in rather a rough area of north Manchester for a week or two waiting to go the works. When they came to collect it, it had gone - in pieces into the neighbourhood.
I've not heard the Manchester story (which is perhaps apocryphal!), but the Furness Railway certainly lost a goods locomotive (no.115) at Lindal, near Ulverston, in 1892. It is believed that there was a sudden colliery subsidence, into which 115 took a dive. The crew escaped, the tender was retrieved, but the engine sank through loose earth and coal waste, and was lost.
Presumably, it is still there today, albeit possibly not all that well-preserved...
When the new main road near where I live was being built in the first half of the last century they used a roughly-assembled railway to carry materials. Local legend has it that the loco (a small saddle tank) was buried under the new golf course as it was too old and worn out to be worth taking anywhere else.
They’re now redeveloping the golf course into housing and a new school, so maybe I’ll find out if it’s true in the next few years…
I've not heard the Manchester story (which is perhaps apocryphal!), but the Furness Railway certainly lost a goods locomotive (no.115) at Lindal, near Ulverston, in 1892. It is believed that there was a sudden colliery subsidence, into which 115 took a dive. The crew escaped, the tender was retrieved, but the engine sank through loose earth and coal waste, and was lost.
Presumably, it is still there today, albeit possibly not all that well-preserved...
In New Zealand, a number of locomotives was dumped into river beds as flood mitigation measures. The Plains Vintage Railway and Museum has recovered and restored one of these, a Rogers 2-4-2 which has been painted in the prototypical multi-coloured scheme of the era. It was not in steam on the occasion we visited but we rode behind A64, an 1873 Dubs-built 0-4-0T which dates from the very earliest operations on the South Island.
North British 4-4-0 of course fell into the river in the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. It was recovered, repaired, later rebuilt as a compound and stayed in service until 1919. https://tinyurl.com/2p9czhaj
There's said to be a Furness loco that is buried deep under the ground where the ground collapsed under it and it fell into an underground chasm. It fell deeper and deeper and each time anyone tried to get it out, it sank further. Eventually it was impossible to retrieve it.
There's also a legend that may be true that sometime in the early 1900s, the Lancashire and Yorkshire left an 0-6-0 tender engine parked in a siding in rather a rough area of north Manchester for a week or two waiting to go the works. When they came to collect it, it had gone - in pieces into the neighbourhood.
I remember as a child a very gory tale about a train full of passengers that got trapped in a tunnel at Crystal Palace that collapsed that was never recovered and remains trapped and full of bodies to this day. In the late 70s, a lady claimed she fell down a hole and actually saw the train, but the whole thing was a hoax.
There was a case where a locomotive, completely lost to sight in the fecund vegetation of a South American jungle, was found when someone eventually came upon it.
Rev W Awdry based one of his Railway Series books - Duke, the Lost Engine - on this, although his engine had been buried in its shed by a landslide...
And then there was the mystery of the Lynton & Barnstaple's Lew, sold to Brazil and never seen again ...
I wonder if the good Reverent Wilbert made up the "South America" story to put us off the real story, of "Fire Queen", locked in a shed at Gilfach Ddu (Dinorwig) from the 1880s until after the quarry closed in the 1960s, rediscovered and sent to Penrhyn Castle museum? "Duke" was published in 1970 and I'm sure that the author, with his interest in the Welsh narrow gauge, would have known about "Fire Queen" - although "Duke" himself is of course a George England Ffestiniog locomotive.
Comments
What *surface* LT stock might have been available in 1966-67?
IIRC, I used to see this stock - mixed in with the skirted CO etc. cars - at New Cross (LT platform) as my Southern train whizzed through, back in the late 60s/early 70s. Does that sound about right, date-wise?
I'll have to go and have a look in my little Ian Allan Book of London Transport Underground Stock, from about that time - how nerdish is that?
According to the Fount Of All Knowledge the Q stock lasted on the East London Line until 1971, so that would fit.
Might I make a suggestion that you provide a translation in hidden text?
jedijudy
One of the Helpful Heaven Hosts
Yes. My Ian Allan book - 1969 edition - lists quite a lot of Q stock still in operation, both in full *sets* and also as *trailer* cars. In those days, the older surface and Tube trains were still painted red.
I surmise, then, that it would not have been available when the Ryde-Shanklin line was electrified in 1967, though it might well have been suitable. The electric trains used initially on the Island were formed of pre-1938 Tube stock, the recently-replaced 1938 vehicles arriving at a later date.
The *new* trains look quite smart IMHO, even though they're not green.
https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/171-slieve-gullion-on-the-turntable-at-waterside-october-1970.jpg?w=993
The GNRI painted its diesel railcars, buses, its one horse tram, and 8 of its 10 electric trams in a much darker shade of Oxford Blue, with cream and (sometimes) silver or grey roofs. Very smart.
That turntable picture is wild, from a 'modern' H&S point of view. I know there's nothing likely unsafe about it, and that hundreds were in use, and loco's (that is, bombs on wheels) didn't roll off into nothing, and that people didn't put their backs out pushing or fall into the well, and that no-one trapped their foot between the rim and the bridge - but can you imagine how much training and safety interlocks and who-knows-what would now be required?
The CIE diesels looked very nice when new. For about ten minutes...
Common-sense prevailed, and they were soon painted green, until the black-brown-white livery came along (which also suited them).
Maybe they somehow supported the front end (with a crane?), and then hauled it backwards onto terra firma?
Yes indeed - here's one, preserved on the Bluebell Railway in Sussex:
bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/steamcrane.jpg
They are saying that NYMR, the one from the opening post, has another preserved one, and which is actually working and used for track maintenance; short video here, and NYMR breakdown crane charter train here.
And here's one in prolonged action, on the Nene Valley Railway - may be the NYMR crane?
NB. Apologies for multitude of links!
A really clean Castle with it's glitter work polished and glistening was an impressive sight, but even that is second to a complete maroon ensemble in prime condition.
I saw one of the GNR(I) big blue 4-4-0s with smoke deflectors in Dublin in the 1960s. At that time, the CIE had gone entirely diesel, but the UTA was still using its allocation on through trains from Belfast. Unfortunately it was on shed and too far away from the platforms at Connolly Station (still Amiens Street back then) to be able to know which one it was.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the last time tube stock became available was around 1992. At this time London Underground and British Rail were both in the process of being privatised and although the 1968 Central and Northern Line stock were up for sale, nothing ever got done and those trains eventually got scrapped.
BTW the Central Line stock was a bit older than 1968 - 60 or 62 I think.
Peak Rail has always had an ambition to get track on from Rowsley to Buxton but sadly there are a lot of obstacles. Apart from the likely moans from walkers, cyclists etc who would doubtless complain about sharing their route with what it was originally built for, there was a very low bridge over the main road at Rowsley which was removed more or less instantaneously on closure. It's followed by a viaduct over the river. When it was a working railway, the whole was on a steep gradient. Getting any sort of configuration that could resolve the levels without blocking a trunk road to most buses and heavy lorries verges on the unachievable.
Also, one would wonder what sort of condition the infrastructure is in after 50+ years. There are a lot of embankments, bridges and tunnels.
I spent a summer at the Inverness diesel depot in 1967 and was at a couple of derailments that were sorted using only jacks to lift, with chains and crow bars to pull the engine sideways. The HASAWA was mostly in the future then, and the real work was done by the old men who had done it many times before and were good at it. The turntables had almost all gone by then so I never saw a lift from a pit, but I'd guess that the one in the picture would have taken a crane, with a timber crib with some rails built under the engine so it could be pulled backwards. There's usually one crane within easy reach, but unless an incident occurred near a city with more cranes available, or was blocking a running line or a roundhouse, they'd have to make do with that.
Fair enough! I'd forgotten about the single-leaf doors - though the D stock (now with Vivarail) seemed to manage with them.
The D stock doors were more closely spaced, meaning fewer passengers trying to cram into each one.
It was something like this, but fixed onto a platform, rather than on wheels:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/tractors/images/9/9e/Coles_5_ton_crane_-_1917_at_Beamish_2010_-_IMG_1326.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100505212944
It was, shall we say, rather less clean than the one in the photo...
According to my southern grandfather, that was the London, Smash 'em and Turnover Railway.
Hehe...
We had the South Eastern where I lived, actually... (the original South Eastern, that is - trains started running on the line in front of Our House at about the same time the house itself was built).
It's true enough that the South Eastern & Chatham Managing Committee did spend a lot of time and money making the engines look smart, even the little ones:
https://images.hattons.co.uk/mediaimages/H4-P-001_announcement.jpg
That sounds like interesting work experience! Maybe lifted at the front, you would only need to deal with about half the mass (lacking a crane big enough to lift the whole thing) - but that would put a hell of a load on the pair of wheels at the rim of the pit. Maybe one could pack it all up with sleepers back there, get the front of the thing up in the air, and then try to spin the bridge back under it!
There have been cases of derailed locomotives being cut up on the spot - one such incident occurred on the old Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Burnham to Evercreech line in 1949. A train was derailed near Ashcott, the engine fell into the South Drain, and, although the train itself was re-railed, the engine was stuck in the mud, and cut up into bits where it lay.
There's also a legend that may be true that sometime in the early 1900s, the Lancashire and Yorkshire left an 0-6-0 tender engine parked in a siding in rather a rough area of north Manchester for a week or two waiting to go the works. When they came to collect it, it had gone - in pieces into the neighbourhood.
Presumably, it is still there today, albeit possibly not all that well-preserved...
They’re now redeveloping the golf course into housing and a new school, so maybe I’ll find out if it’s true in the next few years…
In New Zealand, a number of locomotives was dumped into river beds as flood mitigation measures. The Plains Vintage Railway and Museum has recovered and restored one of these, a Rogers 2-4-2 which has been painted in the prototypical multi-coloured scheme of the era. It was not in steam on the occasion we visited but we rode behind A64, an 1873 Dubs-built 0-4-0T which dates from the very earliest operations on the South Island.
I remember as a child a very gory tale about a train full of passengers that got trapped in a tunnel at Crystal Palace that collapsed that was never recovered and remains trapped and full of bodies to this day. In the late 70s, a lady claimed she fell down a hole and actually saw the train, but the whole thing was a hoax.
Read the full story here
Rev W Awdry based one of his Railway Series books - Duke, the Lost Engine - on this, although his engine had been buried in its shed by a landslide...
https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Duke_the_Lost_Engine#Foreword
What worries me slightly is that I actually know this Stuff.
I wonder if the good Reverent Wilbert made up the "South America" story to put us off the real story, of "Fire Queen", locked in a shed at Gilfach Ddu (Dinorwig) from the 1880s until after the quarry closed in the 1960s, rediscovered and sent to Penrhyn Castle museum? "Duke" was published in 1970 and I'm sure that the author, with his interest in the Welsh narrow gauge, would have known about "Fire Queen" - although "Duke" himself is of course a George England Ffestiniog locomotive.