TheSignalEngineer

Taken from Garrison Lane, this is a train coming out of New Street off the curve by Exchange Sidings and past the paint factory in 1975. The canal bridge is about half way down the train. The line to the right of that goes to Saltley. Off picture to the right is the site of Adderley Park Brickworks which was later used as a rubbish tip and has never been built on because of the amount of gasses still being given off. 1025 on the 12.25! by Stephen Burdett, on Flickr IIRC the houses just visible behind the paint factory were knocked down in the late 1970s. One looks to have lost a window already.

That sounds like the approach via the Camp Hill line. The curve over the canal at Garrison Street was 15mph in those days.

If it was coming into Birmingham from Plymouth the West Suburban line through Selly Oak doesn't really fit. Most of the part by the canal is in leafy territory then from Five Ways it's a blue brick cavern. Coming in via Camp Hill is a much more likely route for dereliction although the only view of the canal is at Garrison Street between St Andrews and Grand junction. A lot of this area particularly where the Carr's Paints factory stood was redeveloped around that time. From the north the railway runs parallel to the canal from Monument Road bridge to Soho Depot, which is opposite to Winson Green Prison, now officially known as Birmingham Prison I believe. A lot of that area was redeveloped in the 1960s and 1970s, but the old Monument Lane Carriage Shed site was still derelict much later. The area in front of the prison where the visitors car park is now situated was still old houses in the late 1980s., and most of the houses and factories around Dudley Road were still standing. what does come to my mind is that if you were stopped in an area of dereliction on the approach to New Street the regular place to be held was the signal at the entrance to Monument Lane tunnel. That is now in the bowels af the Indoor Arena but up to about 1989 it was in the open with the site of Monument Lane loco shed, closed mid-1960s, to the right and the site of the Malthouse Sidings to the left. This was the location of the Mitchells and Butlers maltings and a coal yard. It was only ever used as a scrap yard after the mid 1960s, and was empty for a while before the arena was built. This was what the Malthouse Sidings on the approach to the tunnel looked like c1964/5

It's crushed smokeless fuel. I can't remember the brand but I think there may be a bag in the shed, will have a look later.

Evening all. Decided it was time to get back into things after a bit of an absence. Mojo has returned following the bike crash at Dalby Forest last month. It took four weeks for all the bits to heal but all discomfort now gone thank goodness. For three weeks sleeping was uncomfortable because if I turned the wrong way the pain would wake me up, so I was getting about four hours per night. Repairs to the bay window area have been completed. Had so much trouble trying to get people to take on a small job in their eyes that in the end I bit the bullet and got the tools out of retirement. First household DIY job I had done other than painting and a direct swap for a tap that I had done in three years. That probably means I have now got rid of most of the bodge jobs done by the cheap subbies used by the builder. Only took me fifteen years. Meanwhile the garden has been tidied and the allotment is virtually all planted so that is down to the quick inspection and maintenance visits until crops start to be ready. Soft fruit will be the first I think. My grandson should have been playing at Marple today but that was rained off. He made his debut for the district U13 yesterday. They lost a rain curtailed game against the county junior team by one run when their batsman was run out off the last ball.

They had a bit of gear in the coal plant which came down on top of the wagon and shook it. Got the coal out but didn't do the bearings much good.

Courtesy of the excellent Michaels Clemens Railways website this was in the Plymouth 1957-8 Freight WTT Engine Restrictions table. The site may be able to throw light on some of the other locations mentioned previously. http://www.michaelclemensrailways.co.uk/?atk=572

Same here. Video card kept shutting down, computer would restart but video card wouldn't. Fan was being slowed down by accumulated dust.

Simon doesn't do things by halves. He will have a steam generator below the baseboard and water running down the insides to cascade off the bottom into the big pool underneath.

The Cross City service when it was first introduced did get the better sets. Tyseley fitted gangways to the 116 motor coaches and the trailers were replaced mainly by Lav trailers from BedPan and Merseyside, although a few got other types.

Towards the end of first gen DMUs at Tyseley there were sets with maps of virtually the whole of BR. Getting a set with three different classes on three different liveries was not uncommon in the 1980s. There were a few services in the West Midlands which ran as stoppers and then continued on to other places but not always advertised as through trains. Some substitution of loco hauled sets did also occur, I have a picture of a 47 arriving at Moor Street with a local from Dorridge.

If you are careful it's possible to remove the seals from those and check if it's just dirt causing the problem. I've washed some out with degreaser and injected new grease before refitting the seals. I use a length of studding with a thick washer and nut on each end. Slowly tighten being careful to keep everything in square as the bearings pull into place.

I had the pleasure as a ten-year-old of looking down on that from Proof House Junction signal box. My Grandad was signal lineman for that district covering from the tunnel mouth to Vauxhall and Adderley Park. Summer Saturday morning visits were the best of all, bus into town then walk down to Banbury Street, through the gate next to the Proof House and up the steps to the box at the top of the bank.

The various lines of my family mostly moved to Birmingham in the second half of the 19th century, although I have traced one connection back to the time of Oliver Cromwell's mates having a bit of a scrap at Camp Hill. Three of my grandparents had railway in the family so it was I suppose inevitable that I followed on, eventually spending almost fifty years directly or indirectly earning a living from it. My earliest railway memory was just before my second birthday. I had a great aunt who was married to a Monument Lane driver. My Dad took me down to New Street to get the tickets for our holiday trip to my Mom's ATS friend who lived in Brighton. He arranged it to coincide with a particular train that our relative was booked to work and I was lifted up onto the footplate. My earliest memory is of being held aloft to pull the whistle cord to acknowledge the Guard's whistle before being handed back down to the platform. The next memories of the railway were trains running along the embankment between Selly Oak and where University station now stands, then when we got allocated a new house we used to catch the bus near Stechford station. That was where I saw my first Stanier Pacifics on Sunday diversions, We also walked up to the old airfield where Castle Vale estate now stands to visit the British Industries Fair and Battle of Britain displays. In those days if you were lucky you might catch a Garrett on the long coal trains into Washwood Heath. Growing up a bit and moving to a better house after my sister was born and it was train spotting at New Street on a regular basis before Snow Hill was discovered. I had been there before to catch the night train to Cornwall on a busy Friday in summer, a big adventure for a lad of about four at the time. Talking of model shops, I often used the one in Burlington Arcade, but mention of Bearwood Models brought back a lot of memories. Before the shop in Constitution Hill they had one on The Parade at the bottom of Summer Row which was close to where my Dad worked. I still have the Hornby Dublo 3-rail stuff which came from there in the 1950s, and it still runs perfectly.

As far as I remember there was no switching of the OLE at Piccadilly. The DC was cut back to the bays at Oxford Road and the AM4 units initially worked Crewe to Oxford Road as 25KV then later through to Altrincham when that section was converted.

True even the buffers were painted brown on the white ones, but then very little of the livery complied with the Corporate Identity Manual. Plain blue DMUs originally had blue solebars.

Did something a bit different today. We took our Bromptons on the train to Southport. Surprised that the tide was actually right up to the wall, usually we are greeted by an expanse of mudflats. After a quick warm-up for three miles round the Marine Lake we set off to the Leeds and Liverpool canal. We rode Southport Pier to Wigan Pier in a shade over three hours including a brief refreshment stop at Burscough Bridge. The distance of that was about 21 miles..

Only below the solebars, they were blue.

Not seen one so far. The dates I have seen are unfitted up to 27/7/1959 and fitted from 12/4/1962 so not a lot of help. As far as livery goes most of the pictures are no help as the loco spent most of its time in unlined grot.

Even then it can be awkward. On an LMR 1943 pattern frame I could probably get out about 80% of the levers with little problem. The rest could be a bit difficult especially next to a join in the locking trays.

We often did that during stagework and when a box was due to come out of use in the near future. I don't know when it was actually introduced. It was not in the 1928 requirements but certainly appeared in the 1950 edition.

Evening Paul, This is an explanation of lever positions and contacts we prepared earlier, about 32 years ago for some training notes actually. Eric Updated higher resolution attachment added 13May2022 12:36

I saw a lever snapped in the frame at Duddeston Road. It was the one controlling the points at the entrance to Saltley loco shed, so a bit inconvenient. Fortunately with an LMR standard frame it was quite easy to change a lever and there was a spare in the frame that we could get out to change for the broken one. Job finished in about an hour, so not much delay, just disconnected the points then barred and clipped them as required whilst the change was done. Just fortunate that we were already working in the box when it happened.

Besides at Shunt Frames, the WCML retained mechanical boxes working colour light running signals on the Northampton Loop (prior to No.3 being replaced) then from Atherstone to Basford Hall excluding Norton Bridge, through the Independent Lines bypassing the station to Coal Yard then on to Liverpool excluding Weaver Junction and Edge Hill panel to Lime Street which retained its Westinghouse power frame. To that you can add Grange Junction to Macclesfield, Cheadle Hulme, Adswood Road, Edgeley Junction No.1 and No.2, Stockport No.1 and No.2 and Heaton Norris. A few still exist especially the latter five boxes where there is even some Absolute Block working shown in the current Sectional Appendix. I think that all of the points at the remaining boxes have probably now been converted to motor working.

Better to change the lever as it would be difficult to do the weld and get the handle smooth when in situ. There is also the question of getting the weld through the full thickness, you can't just tack it on.