I rather liked the "Hoovers" with the large logos. I must look out some of my photos, but think they would have been slides, which I cannot scan, yet
Whilst on the subject of Class 50's I thought you might like to see this small selection. 50003 at Dawlish Warren in 1981. Martyn....Do the Camping Coaches in the background still exist ?? A lucky shot of 50002 and an HST near Goring in 1986. Celebrity loco no. 50007 at Chester in 1984. Note the Class 40 in the depot ..........Ah, Memories Take care, John
Initially I thought there were not many changes with the Dawlish Warren pic! The area of waste ground on the left is now the main car park, the then car park visible behind the train is now a go-kart track! the footbridge is still there, as are the camping coaches, they all seem to be MK1's with one inspection saloon (end windows) as far as I can tell. The semaphores went in the Exeter area resignalling ('85 or '86?) along with some fairly minor track changes. EDIT, biggest track change I can see is the addition of a facing crossover under the footbridge allowing the cliff-side track to be used bi-directional in case of sea wall damage, the catch point from the loop has gone also. Nice to see a blue HST as well, it's been a while, and I always liked "Sir Ed", just think it should have got copper capped exhaust ports [ 26 April 2002, 09:14: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
Thanks for the class 50 photos John, that is how I liked 'em Much better than the previous boring blue!
Hello to all Every-one seems to think the Deltic was a great engine, but has any-one worked on them? Beleave me, they were cold,draughty,noisy,smelly,dirty things.To stand between the two engines and operate the boiler was sheer hell-like being in a dentists chair Best wishes Steve
Hello Steve, welcome to trainboard. Yeah, I know we railfans have other criteria when judging locomotives than the people who actually make 'em go, but to us, they certainly looked and sounded great I have been in the cab of one which was just idling, and I can imagine what they sounded like when running at 100mph! - Especially in the engine room
Hi Allan Thanks for your reply. To get back to the original post; I don't like that purple livery-in fact I think all our engines looked better in green;however that green 50 just did'nt seem right. I know our fitters at Old Oak put a lot of time into the job, but when Davey McWhirter took her up to Paddington to be named, I thought she looked a bit odd,to say the least. Then again,these engines were not English Electics best,either. When we first got them on the Western they were,how shall I say,wanked out! You can imagine the shed masters at Crewe and Polmadie breathed a sigh of relief on being told to transfer their 50's to the Western,they simply got rid of all the duff one's in one go-when they let us have their better ones they were knackered too! The Doncaster re-build did not do a great deal either. My favorite engine-the Crompton-the 45 class,not those sports models they had on the Southern. Best wishes Steve
