[Tech1] (was) TV History

Sun Jul 5 15:59:03 CDT 2020

‘Foremarke Hall’ is (I think, certainly has been recently) in use on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway (GWR – see what they did there?) between Cheltenham and Broadway.  

PS – the real Foremarke Hall is part of Repton School, and by a happy coincidence ‘Repton’ the SR Schools class engine, is also running in preservation.

Anorak mode off!    Best wishes  .....  Vern

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From: David Newbitt via Tech1
Sent: 05 July 2020 10:01
To: Graeme Wall
Cc: Tech ops
Subject: Re: [Tech1] TV History

Very little excuse for stretching this thread to breaking point but I thought it a nice example of modern B & W photography/processing. From the Railpictures.net site, the photographer is the Swiss based George Trub. He has posted well over 10,000 photos which have notched up 21.5 million viewings.

Dave Newbitt.

From: Graeme Wall 
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 7:55 PM
To: David Newbitt 
Cc: Bernard Newnham ; patheigham ; Tech ops 
Subject: Re: [Tech1] TV History

Here’s4073 at Swindon museum
— 
Graeme Wall

On 4 Jul 2020, at 19:10, David Newbitt <dnewbitt at fireflyuk.net> wrote:

You’re one up on me there Bernie – the GWR staff at Taunton were mustard at chasing small boys off. Only once did I ever make it to the engine shed (MPD to the purists I guess) but looking back it was a potentially dangerous area with umpteen sidings, constant shunting and the coaling stage close by.

Alan’s 4073 Caerphilly Castle is something I very much enjoyed reading about. She was one that I saw many, many times and in later years I went to see her in the Science Museum and eventually took my son to share the experience. Old tech maybe but he was enthralled, as I believe many youngsters are when close up to steam locomotives.

Dave Newbitt.

From: Bernard Newnham
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 5:46 PM
To: David Newbitt
Cc: Graeme Wall ; patheigham ; Tech ops
Subject: Re: [Tech1] TV History

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

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.

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

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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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