[Tech1] TV History

Sat Jul 4 11:46:44 CDT 2020

When I was about 12 I was one of the regular group of trainspotters on the
Bridle Path at Watford Junction. A place to gather and chat, with the odd
train passing. Wait for the Midday Scot, then go home for lunch. Sometimes
we'd get on our bikes and go somewhere else.
A favourite was Old Oak Common roundhouse, where they complely ignored boys
wandering around. Once, 6000 was sitting there, so we climbed into the cab.
Completely ignored.

B

On Sat, 4 Jul 2020, 14:25 David Newbitt via Tech1, <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
wrote:

> Also from 1973 Graeme – possibly the same occasion
>
> [image: 6000 Nameplate 1973]
>
> Just look at the thickness of metal in those brass letters! They didn’t do
> things by halves in Swindon. There’s something about the industrious
> looking buffing up going on that serves as a reminder of the immense pride
> GWR men took in their machinery. For an alternative look at 6000 how about
> this for something to chance upon as you round a bend in the road. It had a
> hefty watermark across the front as I found it and I cloned out the worst
> of it where it compromised the detail, but a chunk of grey overlay is still
> there below the smokebox door.
>
> [image: KGV on the move.]
>
> King George V for those not of the GWR persuasion was the flagship of
> God’s Wonderful Railway. She was regularly  through Taunton Station, often
> on a stopping train, in the 1950’s when I, like most lads, was a frequent
> purchaser of a 1d platform ticket to indulge in train spotting. 13 coaches
> was the norm through the summer though more were sometimes encountered.
>
> Seems to me some of us haven’t entirely grown up!
>
> Dave Newbitt.
>
> *From:* Graeme Wall via Tech1
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 4, 2020 11:55 AM
> *To:* patheigham
> *Cc:* Tech ops
> *Subject:* Re: [Tech1] TV History
>
> Apropos Pat’s Bulmers story, here is KGV with the Pullmans on one of it’s
> early main line trips in 1973.
> —
> Graeme Wall
>
>
> On 4 Jul 2020, at 11:22, patheigham via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> I do so agree with Geoff Hawkes’ mention that the reminiscences should
> have been recorded.
> You don’t say what year this took place – maybe video handycams weren’t
> around? I should have loved to have shot on that.
> (There has been a super programme made with Go-Pro cams (?), think it was
> the Scotsman, which covered the work of the footplate crew).
> I posted earlier, a story of riding on the footplate while on a filming
> job.
> (attached again).
> Every kid wanted to be an engine driver in those days – I remember being
> taken up to the front of the train to say hello to the drivers who were
> unfailingly cheerful and chatty.
> My maternal grandfather had been an engineer of some description, and
> lived on Watford Way – one night I was taken to see a train dash across a
> bridge opposite his house. It was there and gone in a shower of sparks, but
> I think it could have been the Flying Scotsman.
> He also took me to King’s Cross to see the trains – it had been raining
> and the carriages came in with water dripping off their gutters. Very
> evocative, and I remember wondering from where it was that they had come.
> Perhaps that was the first seeding of my interest and future love of travel
> to distant climes, subsequently fulfilled by the film industry!
>
> There is a huge nostalgia for the age of steam, witness the healthy
> proliferation of preserved railways and the plethora of railway programmes
> on TV at this time.
> Also attached - a Discovery at Bulmer’s Cider!
>
> I took a girlfriend for a day out on the Bluebell Line - when she saw the
> steam engines, delightfully exclaimed: “Choo-choo’s!” Says it all!
>
> Best
> Pat
>
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>
> From: Alan Taylor via Tech1
> Sent: 03 July 2020 12:09
> To: Tech-Ops-chit-chat
> Subject: Re: [Tech1] TV History
>
> There is usually documentation and photographs for equipment, but the way
> it was used in the real world is rarely documented.
>
> Some of you will have been told about the grandfather of my ex-wife.  He
> was an engine driver on GWR in the final years of steam and often used to
> talk about Caerphilly Castle as though it was his personal loco.
>
> We discovered that it was a static exhibition in a museum and took him to
> see it.  He was very moved to see it in pristine condition and one of the
> museum staff allowed him to go onto the footplate.  It was obvious that he
> knew the what even the most minor controls did.
>
> A more senior member of staff was called and at one point asked if he knew
> what two tapped holes in the surround for the driver’s window were for
> because they aren’t seen in similar locomotives.  He immediately explained
> that they were for the display of a dynamometer while they were doing
> efficiency trials in the 1950s.
>
> This impressed the staff as it had puzzled them for years, but made
> perfect sense and even fitted in with some of the paperwork. We were then
> invited upstairs to see photos of that loco in operation and it was quite
> obviously him driving it in many of those pictures.  They asked him all
> sorts of stuff about driving it because although they knew what all the
> controls did, in many cases they didn’t know why or how they were used.  He
> talked at great length about how you operate the loco differently in cold
> weather, how you temporarily boost the power when approaching gradients,
> how to read the track to keep things running smoothly, how certain long
> left hand bends cause problems at high speed while similar right hand bends
> don’t, what you do when starting up and shutting down, but most of all he
> explained that you don’t go by the dials, but how it feels and sounds.
>
> The museum were thrilled to get such a comprehensive description of how
> the loco was operated and much of it was new to them.  Grandad just
> shrugged it all of and couldn’t imagine how “so called experts” didn’t
> already know such trivial matters.
>
> Alan Taylor
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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