Electric Railway Museum

The Electric Railway Museum is fairly close (Coventry) to where i live but i haven't been to it until now mostly because it does not open that often. Yesterday though was its first open day of the year and i visited and viewed the great selection of electric trains, mostly EMUs.

Most of their collection is unique and it is a shame that EMUs and the like tend to be neglected by most of the railway preservation movement. Still as long as one survives is all that matters i suppose, its not like we need breeding pairs, though there is safety in numbers. You can see my photographs here, check out their website for the next open day, they are very worth a visit.

Royal Navy Historic Dockyard

The RN's Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth is where the famous HMS Victory and HMS Warrior are  on display and of course visiting this was a major part of my holiday in Portsmouth!

I was able to go aboard Victory (which personally i didn't like so much as everything was so low i had to stoop down everywhere!), Warrior and the WW1 monitor M33 which was my favourite. I was also able to see the current RN in the form of HMS Diamond which was easily visible from the dockyard. You can see my photos here, the dockyard is a great place to visit.

Isle of Wight Steam Railway

As i mentioned in the blog post on the Island Line only one stretch of the once extensive Isle of Wight railway system now remains in use. There is another line though which runs from Smallbrook Junction to Wootton which is operated by the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. I had an enjoyable ride along the line hauled by British Railways and later Southern steam locomotives. They have a nice museum too at Havenstreet, well worth a visit. A nice friendly line like the EVR. You can see my photos here.

The National Museum of Computing

Somewhere i've wanted to go for some time is The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley and today i finally went! Seeing all of the old computers, especially the "old iron" (mainframes and minicomputers), filled me with nostalgia even the stuff i hadn't ever seen before! I've always been fond of computing like this, many years ago i learnt to program on a Prime minicomputer via a dumb terminal after all! There were no Primes on display though i was told they did have one in storage.

They did have rooms full of computers and cabinets full of exhibits, happily quite a few of them i own myself too! You can see my photos here.

Tyseley Locomotive Works Open Day

Birmingham has a kind-of railway museum, really a locomotive works that has a few open days a year, and on Saturday i finally got around to going to one of them. Well i say "finally" but i have been to one of the open days before back in the mid-1980s, i was a child back then and everything at the adjacent Tyseley MPD was in BR blue and grey...

Nowadays i am a lot bigger and the trains at the MPD are in London Midland and Cross Country livery. The open day was great fun and included plenty of iconic motive power including City of Truro (the first locomotive to exceed 100mph of course) which was great to see. Personally though i enjoyed seeing the "modern image" locomotives more such as the Class 86 though these are coming up to 50 years old now so can hardly be considered that modern surely? Anyway you can see my photos here.

Class 487 (Waterloo & City)

The Class 487 Electric Multiple Units were unique on the British Railways / British Rail network in that their revenue service was spent entirely underground. They ran the Waterloo & City Line which nowadays is part of London Underground but originally the 1 and a half mile long line between Waterloo and the City of London was separate and operated by a succession of mainline railway companies until the advent of nationalisation and British Rail. In 1994 the line was transferred to LU to become a "tube" proper.

The O.V.S. Bulleid designed Class 487s were built for the Southern Railway during WW2 and entered service from 1940. The units consisted of driving motor cars (with cabs at both ends - and hence could operate singly) and trailers. In off-peak periods the Waterloo & City Line trains often ran with just a pair of motor cars while in peak times 3 trailers were usually marshalled between 2 motor cars.

They remained in service until being replaced by the Class 482 in 1993 seeing out their final days in Network South East livery no less. The Class 487s operated on 660v DC third rail and spent all of their working lives on their short underground line though they did see sunlight now and then when they needed heavy maintenance and had to be bought up to the surface. For test purposes one driving car operated above ground in the late 1970s for a short period.

One DMBSO driving car has been saved from the scrap man and is being restored at the London Transport Museum. It will be restored to Network South East livery.

Heathrow Express

I've done many things such the relaunch of my interest in railways that i never achieved in my youth when i was just another spotty train spotter including seeing engineering trains and entering a few cabs, but i haven't been to a working depot... until yesterday. The Siemens Heathrow Express Depot at Old Oak Common held an open day in conjunction with the London Transport Museum (of whom i am a friend) and very interesting it was too.

Highlights included another cab visit (and a mainline working train for once, not a preserved one) and also walking along the inspection pit under a raised train. You can see my photos from the depot visit here.

Crewe Heritage Centre

I went to Crewe Heritage Centre yesterday, a superb railway engineering attraction in the old railway town of Crewe. Highlight for me was being able to sit in the cab of a class 87, a rather simple "office" considering these trains can go up to 110mph and haul hundreds of tons whilst doing so! But then again as long as you have the controls to go and stop you have most bases covered. You can see my photos here along some some photos taken at Crewe station too.

Mail Rail

The ground under London is criss-crossed by countless tunnels and subterranean transport links, one which was little known about by the general public was the underground railway run by the Post Office between Paddington station and Whitechapel. The system ran from 1927 until 2003 with the network's largest station at Mount Pleasant (where my great uncle worked after the War incidentally so he may have come into contact with the system). The driverless electric railway ran efficiently and barely noticed for many years and could carry mail from Paddington to the East End of London in just 26 minutes.

A new museum at Mount Pleasant is going to be opened soon and by 2020 a loop of Mail Rail will be reopened and this time carrying visitors not parcels! I am so going to go on this.

London Transport Museum Depot

I've wanted to go to the London Transport Museum's Depot in Acton for some time, it is where the majority of the collection is held but it is not usually open to the public and i was going to go to the open weekend last month but a bad flu meant i couldn't go. But never mind as i went yesterday instead on a small guided tour and in hindsight it was a much better way to experience this fantastic facility than with lots of people milling about (if you want to take photographs).

The depot exceeded even my high expectations and i think it might be the best heritage visit i've ever made, the wealth of preserved tube stock is amazing and i was able to board a number of historic vehicles plus get up close with a number of unique exhibits. And of course take lots of photographs, which can be seen here!

Planet

Planet was the UK's last manned lightship having served in Liverpool and later in the Channel Islands. The ship was built and launched in Liverpool in 1960 and served as the Mersey Bar lightship until 1972. After leaving BAR station Planet was sold to Trinity House and headed south serving until 1989 at CHANNEL station. Planet was then sold and has been restored to its original condition, arriving at its current berth at Liverpool's Albert Docks in 2006. Planet is now open to the public as a cafe and a museum.

Lightships are ships which act as lighthouses of course. They were used where the waters were too deep or conditions were unsuitable for building a permanent lighthouse. Most lightships have been replaced by permanent structures or buoys nowadays but there are still a number of unmanned lightships around British waters.

Back to the Severn Valley

The Severn Valley Railway is firmly on my visit itinerary these days after last year's rediscovery. Yesterday i paid my first visit of the year to the SVR, heading up to the Engine House in Highley and then onto Bridgnorth. This time i had time to visit the low part of the town, i'll go up to the high part later in the year when i have more time and the weather is better. It was a bit cold up in Shropshire yesterday, but i took it all stoically. Even standing atop the Bridgnorth station footbridge waiting for a train to come in the sleet!

It was all a good day though my highlight was finally getting to travel on the SVR's heritage DMU (below). Maybe some might think this would be a strange "highlight" but this is the kind of train i grew up travelling on so it was highly nostalgic (though they were blue and grey when i used to travel on them!) You can see the photos i took on the SVR here.

Acclaim

A Triumph Acclaim at Coventry Transport Museum, someone nearby still drives one of these lovely cars i occasionally see it on local streets.

Coventry Transport Museum

Coventry Transport Museum is somewhere i've been meaning to visit for years, and today i finally got around to it! And its very fine indeed, a tremendous collection of classic cars from the earliest late 19th century vehicles to Jaguar concept cars. My favourite cars are the ones of the 70s and early 80s though especially the Triumph Dolomite and Jaguar XJ6. You can see my photos here.

Severn Valley Railway

The Severn Valley Railway is one of those gems in Midlands' tourist attractions that i have kept meaning to visit but always forget to... until now. I had a few days left on my last train season ticket to Worcester so took the opportunity to visit the SVR at Kidderminster. I have actually been to the SVR once before but that was when i was a cub scout in the late 70s or early 80s. I remember a camp somewhere near Bewdley, and a trip on the train to Bridgnorth but little else apart from earwigs and a sprained ankle.

I didn't go to Bridgnorth this time but instead took the steam train to the new visitor centre and museum at Highley. The journey there was in an old skool compartment coach, such a lovely way to travel. You can see my photos here. Well its taken me over 30 years to return to the SVR but i think my next trip will be soon. Less than 30 years time anyway!

Imperial War Museum

One of the WW1 biplanes at the Imperial War Museum. This one is a Royal Aircraft Factory BE 2c.

LMS Ivatt Class 4

43106, seen here on the Severn Valley Railway, is the only member of this class which survived the cutter's torch!

Horse medicine

A selection of medicines available for canal horse owners to care for their animals (and locomotive power). At the wonderful London Canal Museum.

London Canal Museum

As well as walking the Regent's Canal i visited the London Canal Museum which is based near King's Cross in the Battlebridge Basin off the canal. The museum covers the history and operation of the canals in London and beyond, particularly interesting was an archive film show that was running showing a canal boat traversing the Regent's Canal in the early 20th century. This included the stretch i had walked and it was interesting to see just how much had changed and at the same time was still familiar. You can see my photos taken at the museum here.

The strange beauty of historic computers

Wired have a great article on the sights and smells of historic computing, the strange beauty indeed of the "olden days" of computing : mainframes, minicomputers, line printers and other historic computing artifacts. Many of the computers and peripherals at places like the Computer History Museum in California (somewhere i must visit one day!) still work after being restored adding an extra dimension to the experience. The sound and heat of a punched card reader...

It is a very different tech world to now, a bigger world too. Computers filled huge rooms with printers being the size of small cars, plus tape units the size of wardrobes. That is part of the fascination i feel, its just so different to the computing we use now.

Unfortunately by the time i entered work we were past the age of old iron, though i did use a Prime minicomputer at university which was great fun. The biggest computer i've ever had physical access to is a HP PC server which was the size of a small fridge. Just not the same as a room full of IBM 360. One place i must try and get to this year is the UK National Museum of Computing which includes a fair amount of old iron in it's collection.

Photo from Flickr Commons