Jubilees south of Mangotsfield

[50022Anson]

Hi Tony,

I bought Railsimulator 2012 to kick off a couple of projects including Mangotsfield to Yate/Bitton but you beat me to it, I will stick to recreating my model railway ! I look forward to you hopefully releasing the lines through Mangotsfield in due course ! Thoroughly recommended and enjoy driving trains between Bath & Templecombe which you get with the package ! Sorry Tony, one question, do you get instructions to create your own railway...it looks a formidable project from the outstart !

Cheers
Mike

[Robin Summerhill]

I spent many hundreds of hours on Temple Meads during the 1950s and I never saw a Jubilee take a train forward, but from what others have written, this obviously took place relatively often.

As Marsh 'Un said on page 1 of this thread, up until dieselisation in 1961 Barrow Road had nine of them to work the heaviest northbound trains. They also had a few unrebuilt "Patriots" as well but opinion is, shall we say, divided over the steaming qualities of these particular beasts when put in charge of heavy loads - having the boiler pressure guage dropping remarkably before you'd got the train out of platform 12 could be a bit soul-destroying!!

I was going to say "perhaps you spent all your time at the south end of platform 4 and were missing everything that went in to the old station" but, of course, ex-LMS engines would have run into the main station as well.

What has always surprised me is that in 'Southern Mainline Cameraman' by W Philip Conolly, there is a photo of 45595 Southern Rhodesia running into Southampton Central from the east. It is captioned as a 'Preston to Weymouth pigeon special', and I have often wondered which route it took. I imagine that a Southern pilotman was on the footplate, as I am sure that no Midland crews would have signed off for this far south.

There were regular through engine workings from Oxford/ Banbury to Bournemouth in steam days with trains coming off the GC line from Woodford Halse but, now you mention it, I don't know whether the crews worked through with the engines or they were releived at some mid-way point. As many of these trains ran via Reading West curve then the "obvious" relief point of Reading would not be available.

I have asked on another forum about this and will post again when I get an answer.

This is my first post, my having found the site by entering LHY949 into Yahoo! This was, of course, the prototype Lodekka!

Probably down to me that you found us then

[Ian L Jamieson]

Probably down to me that you found us then

Undoubtedly so, Robin! I'm just glad that Hattie allows some bus chat as many of us have that dual interest.

Regarding the Jubilee at Southampton, my thoughts, too, were that it must have come down the Great Central, but that seems a long way round for a few pigeons. I would have thought that straight down the west coast, and then Bath and Westbury would have been more direct.

Thank you for your replies.

[Robin Summerhill]

Regarding the Jubilee at Southampton, my thoughts, too, were that it must have come down the Great Central, but that seems a long way round for a few pigeons. I would have thought that straight down the west coast, and then Bath and Westbury would have been more direct.

45595 was a Crewe North engine from at least 1960 until its withdrawal in December 1964, except for a brief period at Llandudno during the summer of 1964. The likelihood is, then, that it worked the train throughout.

As regards routing the train from Preston, September 1964 was at the height of the work involved in electrifying the West Coast main line between Crewe and Euston, so anything that they could have diverted off that route at the time would have been diverted. The St Pancras to Manchester passenger service was augmented during this period to reduce traffic movements on the WCML.

So I'd hazard a guess that this train headed for Manchester, then via Peak Forest to Derby, joined the ex-GW main line at Brum and came down via Banbury and Reading West. All this is of course pure conjecture (except the bits about the WCML electrification and 45595's allocations!)

[Robin Summerhill]

So I'd hazard a guess that this train headed for Manchester, then via Peak Forest to Derby, joined the ex-GW main line at Brum and came down via Banbury and Reading West. All this is of course pure conjecture (except the bits about the WCML electrification and 45595's allocations!)

Was the Crewe - Wellington line still there then? If so, another option might have been WCML to Crewe (no electrification work north of Crewe at that time) then Wellington and the GW line through to Banbury.

[Robin Summerhill]

t;] What has always surprised me is that in 'Southern Mainline Cameraman' by W Philip Conolly, there is a photo of 45595 Southern Rhodesia running into Southampton Central from the east. It is captioned as a 'Preston to Weymouth pigeon special', and I have often wondered which route it took. I imagine that a Southern pilotman was on the footplate, as I am sure that no Midland crews would have signed off for this far south.

There were regular through engine workings from Oxford/ Banbury to Bournemouth in steam days with trains coming off the GC line from Woodford Halse but, now you mention it, I don't know whether the crews worked through with the engines or they were releived at some mid-way point. As many of these trains ran via Reading West curve then the "obvious" relief point of Reading would not be available.

I have asked on another forum about this and will post again when I get an answer.

I've got my answer

I am told SR crews worked to Oxford/Banbury, and WR Crews worked to Portsmouth/Southampton, so it is well within the realms of possibility that a Banbury or Oxford set of men knew the road to Southampton.

And, of course, in steam days the term "traction knowledge" had yet to be invented - if a WR driver took the train on at Oxford (or indeed an Eastleigh driver at Oxford working home), for example, he was expected to drive whatever the management gave him to drive.

(This was also before the Sex Discrimination Act, so the use of the masculine in this post is appropriate )

[tonyperks]

Hi Mike in reply to your question about instructions, well Yes and no there are instructions but they are vague, to say the least the editor takes some getting used to, it has taken me 2 years to get to a point where i can lay track scenery signalsl etc with out too many errors, The best place to find information has been Number 1 UKTS.co.uk the RW3 forum there and There are some excellent tutorials on Utube too. If you vist ukts you can download my other route the dursley branch, downloads are frre, but slow, unless you take out a subscription which allows unlimited downloads of any size, also there are hundreds if not thoushands of freeware scenic items trains and route there.

[tonyperks]

Sorry, everyone, I forgot to give the date of Southern Rhodesia in Southampton. It was 4th September 1964.

Could this have been Manned by Branksome Men as some had Knowledge West to Weymouth and East to Southampton?

[Ian L Jamieson]

That's possible, I suppose, but it still begs the question as to which crew was driving into Southampton Central from the east. On the basis of your argument, the train must have stopped in Southampton [or even further on] for a crew change, unless that particular crew DID take it all the way to Weymouth.