TheSignalEngineer

Wrong canopies. Try again, but definitely WCML 1960s style.

It was unusual to see a 350hp shunter at New Street before Monument Lane got D3839/40/41 in November 1960 although there was sometimes a Saltley one in the Fish Sidings at the back of Platform 11. I have a picture taken about August 1961 at the same spot as the B1 with the same poster on the billboard in the background. Steam actually became more interesting on the North Western side around 1962 as the WCML, GW and GE were taken over by diesels. Aston got Brits including six from Canton in the Autumn of 1961.

Possibly Stafford. I did think it may be the the north end of platform 5 just past the footbridge.

Another interesting point about the one on platform 10. Half way up the main post of the bracket signal on the right hand side is an ex-LNWR rotating disc signal.

We also had round lampshades and round clocks.

I'm not sure the first one is New Street. The roof steelwork looks wrong and the platforms don't seem to match up. The vehicle behind the Crab is a BR GUV so at least 1956 IIRC. The second train is on platform 10 at New Street, probably heading to the Gloucester line.

Thanks, no rush, just interested. That's the platform where the Cleethorpes used to arrive, so looking like a good bet. On that one I can see the Golden Eagle pub and what looks like a Gordon's gin poster on the end of the old GPO building.

Any other New Street shots on the film?

Hastings and Thanet was formed by a merger in 1951. BR signs replaced LMS ones about the same time. As you got the loco number, was that from the picture? If so are any of the details on the other posters legible as I have dated some pictures in the area quite accurately by details of company, theatre shows or train services.

The PSB was built on the site of the turntable. Any Idea of the date? I woud have said late 1950s. The finger departure indicator has the clock set to 12noon by the look of it. If it was a Summer Saturday that would tie in with the B1 being off the Cleethorpes - Exmouth which left New Street around 11.35 on a good day, and there was a train from Ashchurch via Evesham and Redditch due in at about 11.45.

Birmingham New Street from the footbridge. The train in P8 is probably a Fowler 2-6-4T either having arrived from the Redditch/Worcester/Ashchurch area or waiting to depart to Leicester or Derby. The B1 in P7 could be the one off the Cleethorpes running light to Saltley, but depends on the year and day of the week. The east end pilot is standing in the siding between the platforms. The girder bridge in the background is Queens Deive.

Two more on the same page in fact, a D15 and a T9 both on the Up near Bentley Heath 1925/26. The two shown above are on the Down in the mid/late 1920s before the quadrupling.

I don't know about pre-grouping at Snow Hill but I've seen it reported that it was a normal occurence in the 1920s and 1930s. Moving on to 1963, Dave Hill has recently posted a picture to a FB group of 34004 at Snow Hill in July 1963 working what I think is a Bournemouth-Birkenhead SO train. Another picture of it then came to light taken at Oxley shed, so it looks as if Oxford didn't have a loco to work it forward to Wolverhampton.

It will do both. Most moves from it will be a move already agreed between the shunter, driver and signalman as appropriate or as Beast says a whistle code for an engine to shed.

Agreed, I now have a habit of checking the B2B even before I put new stock on the track. Hornby ones I have measured recently were on the Bulleid coaches which varied between 14.2mm and 14.7mm. Not a bad spread across 12 axles.

@AY ModWhere's the OMG button when you need it?

There's another picture of a T9 on Warwickshire Railways, passing Hatton with a train of what appears to be all non-corridor stock. It was in very clean Southern livery and is before the new South box was built in 1937. The example of 34102 on the Pines was the only reported appearance of a Bulleid on a normal setvice train on Lickey. It reportedly went to Saltley for servicing as was usual with that working.

I can't see another station looking like it. As the picture posted had the track in quite good condition I wonder if the apparent difference in platform height is that for speed when the WD rebuilt that section c1941 they laid the track on top of the existing ballast thus raising the rail level?

Don't think the platform brickwork is the same, but looks like it is on the same railway.

My last sighting before the franchise change was at Manchester this afternoon. The Anonymo-Lino. De-branded 390 046 waits at Manchester Piccadilly with the 1415 to London Euston on the last day of the Virgin Trains franchise. 7th December 2019 by Charles Eric Steele, on Flickr

Plenty of Pacer activity when I got to Manchester this morning. Seeing Double by Charles Eric Steele, on Flickr Retro DMUs by Charles Eric Steele, on Flickr

The green tint has come about through Neil altering the contrast and saturation in the post above. The photographer Dave Hill's original FB post, which is the photo at the start of the topic, has a slight blue cast on my screen but not much compared with many slides of that age.

The original photo on FB doesn't look like that. I've taken a copy and reset the colour balance slightly to the headlamp and this is the result.

Fastest accelleration I experienced was one of the older ac electrics on a run out of Crewe. It picked up 3 coaches off for Birmingham off a Holyhead - Euston around 4am. It was crammed with Guinness-filled Irishmen so the driver who I had been chatting to awaiting its arrival invited me up front. We ambled along to Basford Hall then he opened up for the bank to Whitmore, passing Betley Road at over 100 mph.

Switched on as soon as I got back and it duly crashed. It was in auto-reboot so I fired up an old machine and have managed to access photos not on that computer but in a directory on the faulty one which is shared to the home network. Makes my think there is possibly a video driver conflict from a recent update.