Severn Valley Railway Spring Diesel Festival

The highlight of my calendar for the last few years has been the Diesel Gala on the Severn Valley Railway, this year they have moved it to May (its usually been in early October) and called it a Spring Festival. The reason they moved the date, they say, is because it is more difficult to get guest locos in October compared to the (late) Spring...

They certainly pulled out all the stops this year, there was a huge line-up of guest locos. I spent most of my time at Kidderminster yesterday and at times i didn't know where to look! On one side you had a Class 31 idling, going past at a Class 46 Peak and the other side a Network Rail Class 73. I haven't seen this variety of diesel locomotive all operating in the same place since the 1980s. The SVR must be congratulated for the amazing event they have pulled off (and continues until Saturday), moving it to May certainly has worked. You can see my photographs from Day 1 of the festival here.

Derby ultrasonic

I did plan to go on a canal walk today but the rain put paid to that, no instead i needed to do something outdoors but under shelter so went to Derby instead to take some photographs. Derby is the home of the railway's research and test division so i saw 2 test trains, both ultrasonic test trains though nothing else out of the ordinary. The lighting wasn't that good but some of the photos arn't bad. You can see my photos here and judge for yourself!

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.

Westland Sea King (Haynes Manual)

To mark its final year of service in the forefront of UK Search & Rescue (SAR) Haynes bought out this manual on the Westland Sea King last year and its a very good edition in the Haynes line. The Sea King is iconic of course, originally a US designed and built helicopter, the UK version built by Westland has served in the Falklands, Gulf Wars, Afghanistan though this book concentrates on the HU5 version used for SAR duties.

The book starts with a short general history of the use of helicopters in rescue operations and then the development of the Westland Sea King. Much of the book is taken up with the Sea King's innards and how to maintain it (as you would expect from a Haynes manual!) What is most interesting here is the more specialised equipment unique to a SAR helicopter and role. The book ends with a few examples of the many rescues and recovery operations the Sea King was involved with during its career.

The end of the Sea King also means the end of Royal Navy involvement in SAR as the role passes to a civilian contractor working for the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, in a way the passing of the Sea King HU5 from service is sad but the new SAR fleet is much more up-to-date and modern which will be welcomed by anyone in trouble! One wonders though if the new service and it's equipment will get immortalised in a Haynes manual one day?

The London Underground Electric Train (Crowood)

There are many books on the development of the tube trains of London Underground, quite a few of them really good too and this is another one to add to that list.

This excellent book approaches the subject from a novel direction: instead of a standard history of the LU network and its rolling stock this book instead describes the development of the many technologies that went into the LU train as we know now and how they all fit together. So starting with the earliest electric traction in the first tubes we see how electric motors and control systems, bogies, bodywork, brakes et cetera developed over the decades.

The book is well illustrated throughout, with a number of diagrams that explain how the various systems work. The London Underground was the first deep-level underground system in the world but it owes so much to early developments in the US as well as decades of evolution and different paths (not all of which worked). Much development work is ongoing and the book is very up-to-date with the latest details of the New Tube for London which will finally replace my beloved 1972 Stock in the next decade (perhaps).

Bogies at the LT Museum Depot

Derby video and more

A day off yesterday gave me the chance to visit Derby on a weekday, my two previous visits had both been on Saturdays and while i had seen plenty of Network Rail RTC research and engineering trains i reckoned that a weekday would yield even more. Oddly enough for the first hour of so it was all rather quiet and i was starting to get a bit disappointed. Then around lunchtime it all kicked off with interesting traction and trains in all directions. You can see my photos here. I also took a video for the first time and it turned out fairly well.

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.

Colouring in is the new rock and roll

Colouring in books for adults are the latest hip trend some selling millions of copies, a colleague has even seen a typography related one (which is maybe a little too hipster). At first i could not see the appeal of colouring in which i thought was something i grew out of when i was about 8 then i saw the Haynes Cutaway colouring in book...

Yes cutaway drawings of cars from Haynes manuals to colour in! I got the book today along with a pack of coloured pencils and happily began colouring away. As others have said it is relaxing and takes you away from the cares of the world and also gets you away from technology. I recommend doing some colouring in. Even typography. As for my first project well it had to be the Lada Riva which was my first car...

Watching the nothing happening

For a long time now i have wanted an internet enabled camera so i can see what happens in my house during the day when i am out. Of course nothing should happen if the house is unoccupied but for some reason i want to see nothing happening... or even better find out that my model aeroplanes somehow fly around on their own when i'm out!

I finally bought a very cheap camera which works fine, though its wi-fi range is very short but i suppose you get what you pay for. I haven't yet turned it on during the day when i'm out but here is a test photo of my landing. I could leave this on at night and see if it picks up the ghost that occaisionally haunts that area of the house on the infrared mode of the camera, though maybe some things are best left unseen.

Behind the scenes

Back to the Severn Valley Railway yesterday this time for the "Behind the scenes" open day, this is when the SVR grant the public access to areas of the preserved railway that are usually restricted to members and staff such as the workshops at Bridgnorth and the carriage sheds at Kidderminster. I had a great time exploring these areas of the SVR as well as the cab of a class 20 diesel locomotive, amazingly it was the first cab i have ever been in! You can see my photos here.

Maybe the best part of the day was being able to get "up close and personal" with locomotives. Usually you interact with locos at platform level but when you are track side you get a much different and much more impressive perspective of these machines.

Derby Departmental

I returned to Derby at the weekend, its always a good place for rail photography especially because of the proximity of Network Rail's Derby base which means specialist track and infrastructure test and monitoring trains (what used to be called departmental trains in the BR days) are usually visible (something hit and miss elsewhere). I saw the New Measurement Train for the first time and another measurement train which had come down all the way from Inverness. You can see my photos here.

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!

Vickers Viscount

Recently completing a model of a Vickers Vanguard reminded me of its much more successful smaller brother the Viscount which i used to see flying into BHX in the late 70s and 80s. The Viscount was one of the first airliners equipped with the new turboprop engines in the early postwar period. It first flew in 1948 and despite the new engine technology was a conventional aircraft, however it was also very reliable and popular with passengers too. The new turboprop engines gave it a higher performance and smoother flight characteristics than piston engined airliners, but it was also more fuel economic than turbojet powered airliners (albeit which were faster and larger)

A total of 445 Viscounts were sold (compared to only 44 Vanguards) and they served with airlines across the world on short and medium haul routes. The last Viscounts probably flew commercially in 2007/8, not a bad service life at all considering it was designed just after the war. The Viscount below in the grainy photo was at RAF Cosford when i photographed it with my Instamatic camera!

Hillman Avenger

The Hillman Avenger was a small family car built by Hillman, Chrysler and Talbot between 1970 and 1981. The car was designed by Rootes and released under its Hillman marque, though Rootes itself had been taken over by Chrysler in the late 1960s and the car was released in the USA as the Plymouth Cricket (the world of car marques was especially complicated in the 1970s!) The Avenger took its styling cues from the latest US car designs though was in many ways technically conservative (for example sticking with a four speed gearbox instead of moving to a five speed). The Avenger was well received by the press and public and considered superior to its rival the Morris Marina. It also competed with the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Viva.

After 1976 the Avenger became a Chrysler proper as the Hillman marque was retired but in 1979, following the sale of Chrysler Europe to PSA, the Avenger was rebadged again as a Talbot! Time was running out for the car however as production only continued until 1981 in the UK. The Avenger was also built abroad, even appearing with a Volkswagen badge in Argentina! The Avenger was a popular car with the public and three quarters of a million were sold. Technically and conceptually the car was perfect for the 1970s though suffered from poor build quality and corner cutting to save money, however the Avenger was not alone in suffering from these problems.

The Avenger below is preserved at Coventry Transport Museum where it helps to demonstrate the production lines which enabled mass production of motorcars.

Daimler Fleetline

The Daimler (later Leyland) Fleetline was one of the major types of British bus in production from 1960 right through to 1983. The Fleetline was the second British bus to have an engine at the rear allowing for a much more convenient passenger entrance at the front. This also allowed for buses to much more easily converted to one-man operation as the driver could handle fares too. In a front engined bus like the Routemaster the driver was too isolated to do that job as well.

The Fleetline was a common bus throughout the country in the 1970s with large fleets in London (though it was not that popular there), Birmingham and elsewhere. My earliest bus memories are on a Fleetline on the number 55 heading down to Shard End to see my Nan, sometime in the mid-70s. Maybe the bus below, as preserved at the Aston Manor Transport Museum, was the bus i was on. If not i probably did travel on it back then at some stage.

The Fleetline remained in service in Birmingham until 1997 though had gone from London by the early 1980s. Many served on with other operators both at home and abroad.

Selling typewriters

The market for typewriters (new that is not vintage gear sold to obsessives and crazies by Etsy and eBay) is a bit small these days but back before the days of personal computers typewriters were big business. I've always had a liking for typewriter adverts, here are 4 i've scanned from a calendar of "60s" adverts. More lovely typewriter adverts can be seen here.