TheSignalEngineer

Harborne Fire Station was built c1907 and is Grade 2 Listed. I'm not sure when it closed but was converted to apartments about 20 years ago.

One reason for Ian Allan pulling out of the Manchester shop was the new rent demands from the landlord. I was told at the time that they were asking twice the price for about half of the sales floor area. The same landlord was reportedly asking £98K p.a. from a charity shop in the vicinity.

I'm loving these old warts'n'all shots which capture the everyday railway as it was at that time. Regarding the old negs not printed at the time, I've managed to rescue a few of my own including slides which had badly discoloured. Not all can be brought back to original colour but even most of those I have managed to coax a black and white picture out.

I like the picture of the approach to Harborne in post #462. for the last three years my Dad was based at Harborne Fire Station in Rose Road which was just beyond the Chad Valley factory visible in the picture. Judging by the cab i would guess that the loco is Monument Lane's 58271 which was a regular on the line in 1959/60

I don't know what is actually in the pipeline for the area in the short term but Network Rail's Route Utilisation Strategy has a medium term proposal to do basically what we were talking in 1979. Currently Water Orton is running at 80%+ of theoretical capacity in the peaks which is pushing the limits of what can be run with a robust timetable that doesn't start to unravel when a Signaller goes to the toilet. In the medium term plan the Derby and Nuneaton lines would be paired with a transposition to the existing Up/Up and Down/Down pairing at Castle Bromwich. A new platform would be needed on the Down Nuneaton line at Water Orton and boundary issues are noted on the Up Derby line. The old Down Goods between Water Orton West and Castle Bromwich would be re-instated as the Down Nuneaton, and the former Up Goods between Water Orton West and Water Orton East re-instated as the Up Derby. Also proposed is the re-instatement of double track between Water Orton West and Park Lane to avoid the need to hold a freight on the main lines whilst waiting to go towards Walsall. The long term strategy would see a complete re-hash of the running lines between Landor Street and Water Orton East, with a grade-separated junction at Water Orton to put the Derby lines on the south side and the Nuneaton lines on the north, thus giving access to the Sutton Park line and Lawley Street yards without crossing NE-SW traffic on the flat. Another option mentioned in the long-term strategy is the re-instatement of the Stourbridge - Dudley - Walsall line to give an alternative to the Camp Hill line for freight through Birmingham. This would relieve some pressure on the Barnt Green to Water Orton stretch but would have adverse effects on Worcester, Stourbridge and Walsall areas. For all of the background see this document. https://cdn.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/West-Midlands-and-Chilterns-Route-Study-Final.pdf Given the state of Network Rail's current projects I am expecting to get a birthday card from The Palace before anyone sees a flyover at Water Orton. Edited to correct link to document

The basic problem at the time of the 1980s remodelling was that we were skint. The track at Water Orton was life expired and we had a remit to try to get 100mph through the station on the Kingsbury line. There was little new money available in the job, so the Regional Investment Manager and engineering departments ended up doing some creative accounting based on the cost of relaying the existing layout like-for-like, the amount in the budget for signalling maintenance such as servicing of point machines and relays, renewal of degraded wiring and cables, etc, and the amount saved on remedial works to river erosion along the Down Goods between Water Orton West and Castle Bromwich.

The 1908 Kingsbury cut-off not only gave more capacity but saved expresses from going through Whitacre at 20mph. Incidentally our next door neighbour in the late 1960s came from Whitacre and had worked on the building of the line.

The Duchesses certainly worked from Rugby to Coventry via Leamington Spa Avenue c1962/3 but I think that the Marylebone diversions were fairly late in the job, so may not have been until around the time that they were banned South of Crewe then rapidly withdrawn.

Wolverhampton services ran to Paddington. The remaining 3 or 4 which ran to New Street got tied in with the Euston - Rugby via Northampton semi fasts.

I'm not sure when and why that train went over to Platform 7. There's a photo on the web of 70001 coming out of the carriage sidings at King's Norton with ECS in April 1963. In the summer of 1964 it was booked ECS King's Norton using Platform 5 on the Down and Platform 3 on the Up train. At sometime in 1963 there was work done on tne LNW side platforms to make the old bays into Platforms 1 and 2 involving some alterations around the access to Platform 3, so it may have been around that time that Platform 7 was used for some trains.

I would suggest that to avoid confusion the Mods move these posts to the existing Bachmann 94xx thread and close this one please.

I don't regard Water Orton as one of my better jobs, but in the cash-strapped situation of the time it was the best way of keeping enough to operate the traffic as it was then. The Civil Engineer came up with several grandiose schemes which required the building of a new platform on the Down Slow as it became, and the Up Fast going across 'The Dog' car park.Some were completely un-signallable within the rules and ended up with the East and West junctions almost overlapping. The added complication was severe scouring at the river between Water Orton West and Castle Bromwich. There was an imminent risk of the Down Goods ending up in the water.

Lines L to R were Up & Down Camp Hill Through Siding, Down Goods, Bank Engine Siding, Down Main, Up Main, Up Goods, Up & Down Lawley Street Through Siding, Siding. I had the pleasure of working on the signalling for the layout alterations on the old boxes at Landor Street Junction, Duddeston Road, Saltley Junction, Saltlay Sidings, Washwood Heath Sidings No.1 and No.2 in 1967. That was in preparation for the new Saltley PSB. We commissioned a different layout every second weekend for six months. Previously the lines had been 2nd Down Goods, Down Camp Hill Goods, Down Lawley Street Goods, Down Main, Up Main, Up Camp Hill Goods, Up Lawley Street Goods, 2nd Up Goods. The Goods Lines were all 'No Block' worked under special instructions. If the line ahead was occupied the Signalman was supposed to show a green flag and then clear the signal.

Better get a move on and finish my LimBach conversion. Progress stalled recently due to the hot weather and looking after grandchildren. Reclaimed ownership of the railway room this afternoon so the unfinished projects can get hit later this week.

Back to the New Street situation, Modern Railways reported that on 16th August 1962 No. 46228 was noted apparently doing clearance tests through Platforms 8, 9 and 10. On January 26th 1963 No. 46250 was noted in Platform 7 working the 4.15pm Wolverhampton - Euston.

For through trains it is fairly simple to have a number of brake vans fitted with tail lamps but no coupling at one end. I have about six at the moment. Terminating trains are a bit different, but I have a hidden siding where it one with couplings at both ends can be 'lost' during shunting then re-emerge the other way round if necessary. Likewise I have some passenger coaches with tail lamps which are swapped around in the hidden sidings as necessary. My other option is a NPCCS vehicle added to the train. one I have is a Lima 42' CCT which has been flush glazed, fitted with Bachmann LMS bogies, Dave Franks buffers / pipes and dummy screw coupling / tail lamp at one end. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129666-erics-chop-shop-kit-and-rtr-bashing-lima-lms-42ft-van/&do=findComment&comment=3009586

This is a pre-build sketch of the layout I currently have under construction. To maximise the main line space I put my branch on the inside and used a lot of curved points and slips to get rid of as much straight track as possible.. The overall size is approximately 100 inches square The optimum train length on the main lines is 5-6 passenger vehicles or about 15 wagons. It can also be used as a roundy if I just want to let something run whilst I am doing other things in the room. The Up Main and Down Main have loops on the hidden section. That end of the branch has two hidden sidings. The industrial sidings will eventually have a sausage factory loading dock on the front road and the back road will be hidden for swapping stock.

Welcome to the world. It's easy to rant these days but apologising afterwards is hard, and doesn't seem common. I had several of those moments every week when I was dealing with Railtrack / NR Project Managers.

A bit sharper than me at midnight.

The 12-hour clock was used for all timetables up to the 1960s. The WR changed to 24-hour times in 1964 and other regions in 1965. In the WR WTT the timing columns had am or PM at the top depending on whether the time was before or after noon at the first entry in the column. Arrival/departure times were shown in Bold whilst passing times were shown in thin characters. There was a space between the hours and minutes and this sometimes had a symbol or letter in such as 10*56 denoted a train being looped for another to pass. There were no leading zeroes in either the hours or minutes. Typewritten Special Notices and amendment sheets used other symbols between the times. IIRC a slash with a hyphen superimposed was a passing time. Date typo corrected.

And continue it right up to Nationalisation, family connections as well. Vincent Raven ------- Edward Thompson (son-in-law) H A Ivatt ---- OVS Bulleid (son-in-law)

I remember Midland-built 2Ps running Gloucester - Birmingham semi-fasts showing a good turn of speed with light loads. The stoppers were only booked one minute longer unaided from a standing start up Lickey than an express with bankers. I'm not sure how a 4F coped when one of those was used, which happened quite often between the 2Ps being scrapped and Barnwood getting some Standard 4-6-0s.

Engine Restrictions in the WR Working Timetables in the 1960-62 show that all Stanier Pacifics were barred between Barnt Green and Bristol, so they shouldn't have been seen on Lickey. Duchesses did get as far as Kings Norton with ECS off Euston trains in the last year of their service when those trains ceased to run through to Wolverhampton. I can remember clearance tests being carried out on the Midland side c1963. It was reported in the railway press at the time. According to the New Street Arrivals and Departures book, in the summer of 1964 the 8.45am Euston to Birmingham arrived on platform 5 at 11.35am then left for Kings Norton at 11.50am. The light engine for the return working at 5pm left Aston MPD at 3.14pm and passed through platform 9 at 3.23pm en route to Kings Norton. I can't find a light engine working from Kings Norton off the incoming service so it possibly went via Camp Hill to Proof House then reversed to get to Aston, which would get it the right way round without use of a turntable. Although the 5pm was booked in platform 3, I saw it use platform 7 on occasions. Any documentary evidence or better still a photo of a Duchess running tender first down Camp Hill bank and round the 5mph curve to Exchange Sidings would be welcome.

My Dad was to St Chads around 1974-76. He then went to Alum Rock and finally Minworth.

Formations for the SR stock where SR/WR used on alternate days are shown in the northbound workings.