Peterborough North

[Clive Mortimore]

14 minutes ago, 31A said:

Because it was decided to close the M&GN while the units were being built, and so they had trip cock gear added for the GN before they were delivered?

That might have been so but you still need a couple more for Finsbury Square.

 

[31A]

45 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

That might have been so but you still need a couple more for Finsbury Square.

 

Thank you Clive, I've got two already - they're very nice!

[thegreenhowards]

I do like a baby Deltic! As for those DMU things, I hated them  when I was growing up and I still hate them. Real trains have locos on the front!

[great northern]

In a mess today, as my fridge freezer has stopped freezing, and I can't find anyone to look at it before Monday. This means normal service is on hold, and you get an unshopped image to start the day. 61190 is on yet another Skegness -KX.

Actually, if anyone can successfully photoshop the signals at the back of this image they will be doing a lot better than me. Then an under roof shot, which needs no shopping at all.

[great northern]

Little progress with fridge freezer, as no-one will turn out at the weekend, but it has actually started to freeze again, not much but enough to make me hope it may be repairable. Your first evening train is the Up Hull fish, with the usual immaculate KX B1.

It was followed by Mons Meg with the 1.10pm Edinburgh-KX.

[great northern]

The image below started life as a widescreen view, but after what seemed like a thousand or more editing clicks the programme announced that it had encountered an exception, and must close, which it did. Expletives. When I finally looked at it again, I just couldn't face doing all that again, so I cropped the difficult bits, and here it is.

A bit ragged, and am I the only one who feels that plain blue skies just look wrong?

 

Anyway, a very nice and co-operative image next, Claud at Platform 6, the nearest thing to perfection we will get.

 

Freezer update...stopped working completely again.

[franciswilliamwebb]

How many refrigerated vans do you have?  Just thinking... 😉

[great northern]

1 hour ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

How many refrigerated vans do you have?  Just thinking... 😉

I have quite a lot, but I can't get the doors open.🤨

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, great northern said:

Freezer update...stopped working completely again

 

As with our conversation the other day with stuff being a bit older than we think it is. We had a problem in the heatwave last summer with the fridge part of our American job; we had a good local repair company come out and they chiselled a load of ice off the back (so much for self-defrosting) and thought that would be it but it still struggled. It was worth the £45 on the callout for a checkup and further diagnosis but we decided, after 18 years, it was time for a replacement. When the new one came we realised just how much electric the old one had been using to try and work past the slowly building problem. AO.com did a great job with the install and removing the old one.

[30368]

2 hours ago, great northern said:

A bit ragged, and am I the only one who feels that plain blue skies just look wrong?

 

Not sure I agree Gilbert. To me the sky looks early morning, sun almost up (or conversely, perhaps, the opposite) perhaps around June time? I like the image but then it has one of those ugly Thompson pacifics centre stage and I, perversley perhaps, like them.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

As with our conversation the other day with stuff being a bit older than we think it is. We had a problem in the heatwave last summer with the fridge part of our American job; we had a good local repair company come out and they chiselled a load of ice off the back (so much for self-defrosting) and thought that would be it but it still struggled. It was worth the £45 on the callout for a checkup and further diagnosis but we decided, after 18 years, it was time for a replacement. When the new one came we realised just how much electric the old one had been using to try and work past the slowly building problem. AO.com did a great job with the install and removing the old one.

Hi Andy

 

We recently had fun with AO. Mrs M ordered a new dishwasher from them. With in minutes we had "them" ring us up asking if we wanted to take insurance out, as usual they didn't get the message we were not interested  and kept ringing for a few days.  Mrs M had a text saying when the new one would be delivered, to our old address in Essex. We have other stuff delivered here in the wilds of Lincolnshire by them. Mrs M thought she would contact "them" on the number they kept calling us from. It turned out to be an insurance company.

 

It was all sorted out and the dishwasher is wonderful. Now to train the 30 something kids to not use too many plates, cups etc so the dishwasher fairy doesn't have to hand wash what cannot be crammed into the dishwasher.

[great northern]

18 minutes ago, 30368 said:

 

Not sure I agree Gilbert. To me the sky looks early morning, sun almost up (or conversely, perhaps, the opposite) perhaps around June time? I like the image but then it has one of those ugly Thompson pacifics centre stage and I, perversley perhaps, like them.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

Having given it more thought, I think my objection to it is that it just looks bland. I prefer something with some atmosphere to it.

[great northern]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

As with our conversation the other day with stuff being a bit older than we think it is. We had a problem in the heatwave last summer with the fridge part of our American job; we had a good local repair company come out and they chiselled a load of ice off the back (so much for self-defrosting) and thought that would be it but it still struggled. It was worth the £45 on the callout for a checkup and further diagnosis but we decided, after 18 years, it was time for a replacement. When the new one came we realised just how much electric the old one had been using to try and work past the slowly building problem. AO.com did a great job with the install and removing the old one.

This one isn't very old though Andy. I got it not long before the pandemic started. It has gone dead again now, so I think I'll just get a new one tomorrow.

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, great northern said:

Having given it more thought, I think my objection to it is that it just looks bland. I prefer something with some atmosphere to it.

 

Blue skies are never uniformly blue, there's always some graduation in tone at least. Paler at the bottom due to atmospheric diffusion and a clearer blue higher up where there's less diffusion.

[great northern]

12 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Blue skies are never uniformly blue, there's always some graduation in tone at least. Paler at the bottom due to atmospheric diffusion and a clearer blue higher up where there's less diffusion.

I'm using a number of skies which you very kindly sent me rather a long time ago, but I find that I have to desaturate them before using them, and when I do that a lot of the subtleties are lost.

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, great northern said:

I'm using a number of skies which you very kindly sent me rather a long time ago, but I find that I have to desaturate them before using them, and when I do that a lot of the subtleties are lost.

 

I'll try and have a look at some more for you. I need to do some fresh ones myself too, gives me an excuse to escape the desk!

[landscapes]

3 hours ago, great northern said:

The image below started life as a widescreen view, but after what seemed like a thousand or more editing clicks the programme announced that it had encountered an exception, and must close, which it did. Expletives. When I finally looked at it again, I just couldn't face doing all that again, so I cropped the difficult bits, and here it is.

A bit ragged, and am I the only one who feels that plain blue skies just look wrong?

 

Anyway, a very nice and co-operative image next, Claud at Platform 6, the nearest thing to perfection we will get.

 

Freezer update...stopped working completely again.

Hi Gilbert

 

I agree with you, when I photoshop a blue sky to me it doesn’t quite look right and that’s why I tend to go for a grey sky.

 

Regards

 

David

 

[Mallard60022]

In Summer 1958 there were almost always large Stacks of Clouds up Pboro way by mid day and certainly afternoon. That is why it was so popular locally for Gliding Schools along with the flatlands of course, in case of 'emergency'.

P

[great northern]

Here comes another vintage 4.4.0, arriving from Grimsby. Marne was an Immingham engine in the mid 50s, then went to Lincoln, where I remember it well, and then on to Darnall. Fron there it will have travelled to Cleethorpes, and gone on Immingham shed, where someone must have purloined it for a trip down the E.Lincs.

As usual I didn't notice till too late that the second coach had some how tilted it self at a stupid angle. The second image shows the D11 having a rest before removing the stock.

[jazzer]

On 10/02/2023 at 12:34, Clive Mortimore said:

Anti DMU therapy? No idea what you mean. I can hear that Cravens trying to disassemble itself, none did in 30 years of service.

 

Something that always puzzles me is the batch used on the Kings Cross suburban services were said to have been built for the M&GNJR. Why were they built with LT trip-cock gear if they were intended to doss around in Norfolk?

If that’s correct about being intended for the M&GNR it solves something that has puzzled me for a long time. Not that I lose any sleep over a DMU but I can’t think of anything less suited to a particular service  than a Cravens bone shaker on the KX suburban. We read of passenger complaints of overcrowding when Those Who Know Best , scrapped the beautiful Gresley 8 coach double Quad-Art sets and replaced them with 5-coach BR standard suburban sets, so goodness knows what they said when  those were then replaced with pairs of Cravens rattlers with even less seats. 
While Kings X were putting up with the Cravens, St Pancras next door had the warm comfortable and luxurious ( well for a DMU anyway ! ) class 127’s on their suburban services . In fact for a while I was coming home from school on 127’s barely a third full even at the height of the rush hour on the Barking - Kentish Town (LMR) route , which I suppose were sent over from Cricklewood. Meanwhile KX commuters we’re travelling like sardines in stock that would have been better suited to crawl along half empty between Barking and Kentish Town. It does seem odd though , that two mainline termini next door to each should have such massively differing quality of trains. 
Actually I found coming home from school on a cold winters night the 127’s had fantastic heating,

Edited February 12, 2023 by jazzer

[Clive Mortimore]

42 minutes ago, jazzer said:

If that’s correct about being intended for the M&GNR it solves something that has puzzled me for a long time. Not that I lose any sleep over a DMU but I can’t think of anything less suited to a particular service  than a Cravens bone shaker on the KX suburban. We read of passenger complaints of overcrowding when Those Who Know Best , scrapped the beautiful Gresley 8 coach double Quad-Art sets and replaced them with 5-coach BR standard suburban sets, so goodness knows what they said when  those were then replaced with pairs of Cravens rattlers with even less seats. 
While Kings X were putting up with the Cravens, St Pancras next door had the warm comfortable and luxurious ( well for a DMU anyway ! ) class 127’s on their suburban services . In fact for a while I was coming home from school on 127’s barely a third full even at the height of the rush hour on the Barking - Kentish Town (LMR) route , which I suppose were sent over from Cricklewood. Meanwhile KX commuters we’re travelling like sardines in stock that would have been better suited to crawl along half empty between Barking and Kentish Town. It does seem odd though , that two mainline termini next door to each should have such massively differing quality of trains. 
Actually I found coming home from school on a cold winters night the 127’s had fantastic heating,

Hi Jazzer

 

Are you sure the source of the heat from the 127 wasn't from a fire? They were prone to bursting into flames.

 

Cravens were used on the the Kentish Town to Barking services, both the 112s and 113s in the 60s and later 105s.

[45568]

18 hours ago, great northern said:

 

A bit ragged, and am I the only one who feels that plain blue skies just look wrong?

 

Looks perfectly natural to me!!!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

 

18 hours ago, great northern said:

 

 

 

 

.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by 45568

[great northern]

An A4 swings under Crescent Bridge.

 

and is revealed to be Dominion of Canada, stopping with the 6.35 KX-Hull.

[jazzer]

10 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Jazzer

 

Are you sure the source of the heat from the 127 wasn't from a fire? They were prone to bursting into flames.

 

Cravens were used on the the Kentish Town to Barking services, both the 112s and 113s in the 60s and later 105s.

According to popular rumour at the Locospotters club the fires were the actions of dissident firemen who lost their jobs when the Stanier class 3 tanks were replaced by 127’s !

After I left school I didn’t travel on the line again for about 20 /25 years and by that time it was incredibly  run down and on the way to closure. Trains seemed to be anything that was on its last job before the scrap yard, so that makes it even more strange they were using some pretty decent trains at one time. On the point about using 127’s on a loss making under used line  compared the Cravens bone shakers out of Kings Cross I suppose it illustrates once again that for years after nationalisation the various regions continued to function as individual companies with little co- operation between them , which probably didn’t change much until sectorisation.

As for the Barking - Kentish Town Line I haven’t been there for years but I understand money has been pumped in and it has been electrified with  pretty good service , so after years of being under the threat of closure it is back from the dead, probably because of the increasing growth of Tilbury docks, and the lines importance to through freights.

As an aside, the line would probably make an interesting topic to model as almost the whole route is on viaducts after Woodgrange Park

[great northern]

Fridge freezer is dead, and it was only five years old. The previous one lasted twenty one, but I'm told they've kept prices down by making them ever more shoddy. New one will arrive on Thursday, and brilliant local family firm told me they will get it installed that day, even if it means working till 8.00pm.

 

First image tonight shows the other side of Marne and an approaching K3.

Lots of backlight, but I think it has some atmosphere. Then we have a close up of the K3, which is on a Welwyn GC to New England Class D. Another one where Paint.Net closed down on me when I'd nearly finished shopping, and once again it has had a more severe crop to avoid the tiresome bits. Well, some of them anyway. Always plenty of lattices and poles to contend with when I try this angle.