Search results

Don't know if anyone else had a similar memory, but when I was little living in Yardley Wood, my parents were keen cyclists and many of the Sunday runs into rural Warwickshire finished up at the tea rooms at Bentley Heath. Paradise for me, because the GW main line passed only a short distance...

You are right that a GWR loco was tried out (and failed) for banking but it was a 2-8-0 tank engine with outside cylinders. The GWR loading gauge was more generous which is why its cylinders fouled the platform at Bromsgrove. The Western pannier tanks (94xx class) had inside cylinders which gave...

I understand entirely; I too discovered girls, beer and cars (not necessarily in that order), but it wasn't just that that turned me away from railways (at least for a while!) It was the dieselisation that really depressed me. I was spotting on Nuneaton station in mid 1959 and I was waiting...

Nice pic, Ken. Can't make out which loco it is, but it just goes to show what a large scale US locos were built to. IIRC they were permitted to be nearly 16 ft tall? Sadly here in the UK, being pioneers, we were limited by the size of bridges built over the early railways, which meant we were...

A couple of brilliant photos. The first one of 46202 must rank as one of the few pics taken of it in action. Such a pitifully short life for a potentially very intriguing loco. Outshopped in August 1952 (I think) and smashed up on October 8th 1952. It was a hybrid, being a Princess boiler atop a...

Information on the early history of steam locomotion is very patchy. Your question is a good one, because I have heard of other stationary engines being turned into locomotives. The Pen-y-Darren tranway loco comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others.

I was very pleased to see the reference to Derek Harrison (aka Mr Snow Hill) and his book. Many years ago, we members of the Wolverhampton Model Railway Club had a very good illustrated talk by him, at the end of which I bought a signed copy of his book, which I still have. Sad that he is long gone!

I wish I hadn't been such a smart-ar*e to claim that Berwyn station was Carrog. What a mistake-a-to make. Perhaps I should engage brain before releasing gob!?

Would you like to elaborate on that? I thought I was the only person alive who remembered Egbert the engine! Speaking of Sammy the Shunter, does anyone remember a smashing old boy called Harold Elliott. He had a magnificent model railway which I had the joy of seeing at Bingley Hall in the...

Yes, as a kid, I had Sammy the Shunter books, too. There were other "humanoid" engines around in the 50s, the name "Egbert the Engine" comes to mind.

As a trainspotter who used to infest the chunk of platform at the south east end of the station between the LNW and Midland sides of the station between about 1956 to 1958, it is so good to see historic views of the old station. Herr Hitler's Luftwaffe did so much damage to the LNW side during...

So good to see what a beautiful job has been made of "Henrietta", based I understand, on one of the vehicles on the Wisbech & Upwell tramway in East Anglia. It was there, I believe, that Wilbert Awdry was an incumbent in the parish of Emneth. This tramway was the basis of his stories of Toby the...

Yes, I'm afraid there were some pretty badly built cars around in the 1960s. I bought a brand new Ford Cortina 1600 Super (SRF 184G) back in 1968, painted in metallic "silver fox". Sadly the fox proved too slippery, because the paint all started to flake off (I think that was the wording I...

Hi Richard It was taken at Carrog station on the Llangollen steam railway, lovely spot. I am in regular touch with a former footplateman who used to work out of Aberystwyth on these "Manor" class locomotives. So glad that so many of these excellent engines have been preserved so that we can...

Big boys are often quoted as being the world's largest steam locos; it's a fact that they are the only 4-8-8-4s ever built, but they are not (a) the longest, that was a PRR S1 at over 140 ft, (b) the heaviest, that was an Erie 2-8-8-8-2, (c) the highest tractive effort, that was a Virginian XA...

Fascinated also by the report about Mrs Ethel Denley. If I read this correctly, she would have been the elder sister of Bertram Goodman, whose daughter I knew. So sad that the British motorcycle industry went downhill so quickly.

Just remembered that Anne's name is Frampton. According to t'internet the Velocette preservation movement is quite active in Australia.

Yes the building had the name in large letters:- Taylor and Challen Ltd. It was the backdrop to many a picture of trains entering Snow Hill from the north. Terry D

The Velocette business was run by a Bertram Goodman, descendant of the original founder and the business was still active in 1970, when I dated his daughter Anne for a while. She was a regular rider of a Velocette machine at the time. I understand she later emigrated to Australia and married...

It's a sad fact that this very locomotive was the first of its class of 35 to be scrapped. It was destroyed by a Nazi air raid on York in 1942. Its name was transferred to one of the other locos, becoming no. 60006 and continued in service well into the 60s.