Prototype Tim Mills' Photos

[76043]

Interesting to see the lads tape recording the departure, I was doing the same in 1963/64 so now I have 49 3" tapes featuring recordings recorded at 1 7/8 ips all 150 minutes (you can do the maths!) around Northampton plus some special trains (Castle, County etc) Duchess over Beattock,

So nice to see lads recording the departure, I was doing exactly the same in 1963/64 instead of taking photographs and am able to 'relive' many great memories in sound.

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

 

[Genghis]

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

 

[46240]

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.

 

[simond]

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

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

 

[Martin Shaw]

Re #3907/8 I can add some info. The three doll bracket at the country end of the up platform was provided by the LNER, in 1923 the arrangements there were different. I don't understand why the RH doll has a different cap to the other two, perhaps the original got broken. The three arms were from L to R, from Up Main starting to Down Main, from Up Main starting to Maldon, from Up Back starting to Maldon. The two dollies are for shunt moves from their respective lines. The first two of these along with the pile of redundant rodding etc lying on the platform are preparatory works in connection with the resignalling of Witham with single aspect searchlight signals which was commissioned on 19/11/61. At that time the connection that had allowed trains from Maldon to run into the up Main platform was removed.

There was also a signal box at Blunts Hall that was closed on 17/9/61.