76043
Western Thunderer
Have you digitised them and thought of their future after you are gone? A bit grim, but they sound, excuse the pun, well worth saving for posterity. You probably already have thought of this.
Tony
Prototype Tim Mills' Photos
- Thread starter oldravendale
- Start date
Tony
70010 was one of the few Brits that I remember seeing - on shed at one of the Crewe depots in 66 or 67. The reason I remember it so vividly was the renditions of the name being different on the smoke deflectors. The other ones that spring to mind are 70045 passing my school during induction day in 1966, causing the headmaster to lament that the only problem with the then brand new school buildings was the location next to the Gloucester - Cheltenham 4 track railway. The only other one I remember is 70049 entering Crewe station from the north on a Royal Mail Train, wheels locked as it tried to bring the train under control. First time I had seen Sorting Coaches, which in the maroon livery were a joy to behold.
Happy Days!
David
Happy Days!
David
Good afternoon Brian,
Very interesting to see the March -allocated K3 working through Witham on a Class C train.
I acquired a kit-built K3 last year as part of an estate sale, which was also a March-allocated loco.
Spookily enough I fitted Class C lamps, imagining it working fruit/van trains from East Anglia.
So, seeing it on a parcels working gives me another option.
Keep the inspiration coming please.
Cheers, Nigel.
Very interesting to see the March -allocated K3 working through Witham on a Class C train.
I acquired a kit-built K3 last year as part of an estate sale, which was also a March-allocated loco.
Spookily enough I fitted Class C lamps, imagining it working fruit/van trains from East Anglia.
So, seeing it on a parcels working gives me another option.
Keep the inspiration coming please.
Cheers, Nigel.
simond
Western Thunderer
In my teens, a pal, Neil, & I were taken by his dad, Gordon Kennedy, to Diggle & Halebarns, Ken Longbottom’s magnificent garden railway. All the regulars were Gordon’s age, I guess, but we were accepted and trusted with the responsibility of signalling and running trains, and became regular operators. Ken was a screaming eccentric, hilarious company, and an excellent tutor, and I learnt much about signalling from him. His memory is etched in my mind, a burned-through ciggy on the lower lip (he always had a ciggy on, he just didn’t actually seem to smoke it) and an impish grin.
One of the features of Halebarns station, which became a through station when Westport was built, was the sound effects. Gordon had recorded, or had obtained recordings of, appropriate whistles, chuffs and clangs, and had, by virtue of Ken’s electrickery, aided by Meccano, springs, Auntie Mary* relays wire coat hangers and inventiveness, arranged to play these back as loops when the express went through.
*Auntie Mary, aka the Air Ministry provided all sorts of useful surplus, including relays, and those lovely grey ball raced 9-pole 24V motors. (The definition of “surplus” might depend on the person doing the defining.)
There was a shelf of old reel-to-reel tape recorders under the layout, which were triggered by treadles and interlocked with the signals, and which played the impatient driver at the home signal, the enthusiastic driver at the starter or the prolonged howl of the through express.
It’s more than fifty years ago, the memories are still rattling around!
I visited once after Ken had died, but haven’t been back for twenty-some, indeed, maybe thirty years. I heard that the layout had fallen into disrepair, which is sad. I wonder what happened to it all.
Anyway, to return to Brian’s thread, I did look at the recordists, and they don’t look like (my memories of) Gordon. But if anyone has such recordings, maybe digitising them, and linking them on the resources section of WT, might be a gift to the future, as well as the present.
atb
Simon