Scalefour Forum

Lifted from Tony Wright's thread on RMweb. By a German photographer taken in the 60s. Enjoy!

http://www.bundesbahnzeit.de/page.php?i ... land#Teil1

Some great shots there (wish mine of German railways at that time were anything like as good!), but a pity about the green cast. I'm guessing they were shot on Agfa filmstock (although I can't see confirmation of that from a quick whiffle through Ulrich's website). I'm surprised there wasn't adequate correction on scanning, but maybe if you buy his digital prints you get a better balance. I must say I'm quite tempted to order a few just to find out, although it might be hard whittling an initial wish list down to just a dozen or so favourites.

Wonderful! A real step into the past. I couldn't help noticing the acres of empty platforms.

Andy W wrote:Wonderful! A real step into the past. I couldn't help noticing the acres of empty platforms.

To say nothing of being able to wander around top-link sheds with impunity............

It wasn't that difficult to arrange group visits to many running sheds in the early to middle 1960s, provided you behaved sensibly while present, while Swindon works ran public tours at the weekends, with a staff member as guide.

Interesting that while there are some examples, most of the locos don't look anything like the fit for the scrap heap look that modellers tend to depict for this era.

Great find, thanks for sharing

Jim

jim s-w wrote:Interesting that while there are some examples, most of the locos don't look anything like the fit for the scrap heap look that modellers tend to depict for this era.

By the mid-1950s BR had largely given up cleaning steam locos, apart from express passenger types. A major factor was the lack of staff to do the job. Also, there were an increased number of diesels being delivered. The original intention of the modernisation plan had been to evaluate the new diesels in service before ordering more of the most successful types. Instead, in 1957, the BTC decided to place major orders before the test period had even really started, to try and improve overall train speeds. By mid-1960 there were over 550 in service, and three times that many on order. The diesels from these orders appeared in numbers in the early 1960s. After that cleaning steam locos became even less common, and it was clear that steam was going to vanish much earlier than had originally been intended. After that, for economic reasons, serious failures were likely to result in the loco being withdrawn rather than repaired, and such minimal repairs as were carried out were only enough to keep an engine in service until it became redundant. I would put the visible consequences of the change in policy as becoming obvious from about 1964 onwards, from memory.

There's a picture about halfway down the page of a 3MT. In the background is a line of engines including a M7, something that looks like the front of a SR 4-6-0 and a pannier tank. Can anyone identify the location?

Bild 45 to bild 54 are all Eastleigh, so far as I can tell. The buildings are common to most of them, a number of locos are visible in more than one photo, and three are specifically identified as Eastleigh.

garethashenden wrote:There's a picture about halfway down the page of a 3MT. In the background is a line of engines including a M7, something that looks like the front of a SR 4-6-0 and a pannier tank. Can anyone identify the location?

Almost certainly the east end of Eastleigh running shed. If you look at the preceding picture (Bild 47), you can see that the 4-6-0 is the Nelson 'Lord Vincent' adjacent to the pannier with the clean panel on its bunker. The accompanying text indicates that pictures 45 - 54 were all taken at Eastleigh.
I though Bild 77 was notable for showing a condensing pannier still carrying, in 1960, a GWR 'shirtbutton' roundel!

I have the clearest possible recollection of a very dirty green liveried 57xx Pannier tank at Kensington Olympia in what must have been the early'60s with the full "Great Western" lettering on its tanks. Likewise in the same period a black, not just dirty green because I gave it a rub to check, 28xx 2-8-0 (definitely not a 38xx because I remember the cab type clearly for some reason) at Oak Oak shed with "GWR" remakably visible on the tender. It was presumably still wearing wartime black paint.

Sorry, but my notebooks from that period have long since bitten the dust so I can't add any more detail.

I'm fairly confident too that I saw several tank locos with "GWR" still showing in various locations across the network in the early '60s. I cannot recall seeing a shirt button version, though.

What is interesting(?) is that I can scarcely remember any pre-nationalisation livery remnants from non-GWR sources by that era although there must, surely, have been some. I lived on the Southern but did travel quite widely.

The best I can do is seeing one at least, possibly more in the same rake of, "Southern Railway" lettered Post Office Sorting Vans at Dorchester in the late '50s and a small tank engine (no record of type - perhaps a Holden 0-4-0T) at Stratford Works in LNER livery in what must have been the early '60s.

Not too sure what this adds to the fount of human knowledge but, anyway, here it is!

Chris

I remember 9710 with its shirtbutton totem [bild 77] from when I lived in West London as a boy. Also of interest, to me at least, is bild 43 showing a Castle on a rake of non-corridors. That rake is, I think, what was known as a 'W set', used in the Bristol area until at least 1961. Unless anyone knows any better I suggest that the 'W' indicates use for conveying Workmen.

Chris