This is the original forum of the Bristol Railway Archive that existed between 2003 and 2013. I finally rescued it after it seemed unrecoverable after a large crash. I have made it available for viewing. It is locked, all posts to the new version please!
Use this forum to talk about the railways in and around Bristol, or for any off-topic stuff you want to share. Also request photos and information that you are missing.
Robin Summerhill wrote:
Seeing the Hymeks new as they arrived (from Gorton was it?) was of some interest, but of course we were aware that when the deliveries were completed, that would be the end of steam on the GW lines at least.
Was that really 1962 ? How time flies .
Deliveries started in May 1961. Details and history here:
My preference would be for Scots, Jubilees and the occasional B1 in Barrow Road, with Counties and Castles "round the Marsh"
Each to our own point in time
Just a couple of years could make a big difference. My interest in railways started in earnest in September 1962 so I got to see the last three years of steam in the Bristol area. Presumably you came along just a little bit later?
I guess I'm more of Jules's generation (I started spotting in 1967) but the era I've always pined for is Robin's. I was fully aware at the time of what I'd just missed and how sadly diminished the railway had already become.
Not that I don't feel affection for the good old hydraulics (and detest the 47's Peaks and 31's etc. that replaced them).
AndyK wrote:
I guess I'm more of Jules's generation (I started spotting in 1967) but the era I've always pined for is Robin's. I was fully aware at the time of what I'd just missed and how sadly diminished the railway had already become.
Not that I don't feel affection for the good old hydraulics (and detest the 47's Peaks and 31's etc. that replaced them).
The Peaks were a separate mater entirely. They were essentially a Midland region class, some of which just happened to be based in Bristol because that was the end of the Midland main line south. In the early 60s, you might say that many on the Midland never really accepted that 22A had been given to the WR and recoded 82E
In fact, in the early days, Bath Road men didn't work them, although 10 were allocated there. They were worked exclusively by Barrow Road men who had to walk to Bath Road to collect their engines. They were not generally seen on ex-GWR metals except to and from Weston, as Barrow Road men knew the road down there.
The 47s (or Brush type 4s as I prefer!) were operating on the WR well before the final demise of hydraulics
They were not generally seen on ex-GWR metals except to and from Weston, as Barrow Road men knew the road down there.
It must have been later but I remember Peaks being the regular Summer motive power for trains to Torquay.
Took a trip behind one to Weston one Saturday when I was a kid and the driver was rather late in braking for Worle Junction - to this date, still the most frightening rail journey I have ever taken!
(Apart maybe from a very spirited dash from Stratford to Norwich behind 2xCl 47's on a Cotswold Rail Blue Pullman ECS working very late one Saturday night!)
They were not generally seen on ex-GWR metals except to and from Weston, as Barrow Road men knew the road down there.
It must have been later but I remember Peaks being the regular Summer motive power for trains to Torquay.
After Barrow Road closed in November 1965 things were different, as the duties of the two sheds were shared. Former Barrow Road men would learn the GWR roads from Bristol, and Bath Road men learnt the road to Derby. By then there was clearly no need to restrict the Peaks to Barrow Road men as Bath Road men had traction knowledge. And of course by then you were just as likely to see a 47 on a Midland line train as you were a Peak, so it was not necessary to restrict their use to the Midland line.
jules wrote:
Took a trip behind one to Weston one Saturday when I was a kid and the driver was rather late in braking for Worle Junction - to this date, still the most frightening rail journey I have ever taken!
(Apart maybe from a very spirited dash from Stratford to Norwich behind 2xCl 47's on a Cotswold Rail Blue Pullman ECS working very late one Saturday night!)
The most frightening rail journey ever could open up a big new thread , so I'll put my two top ones in for starters:
1. The speed at which a Standard class 5 plus 3 coaches could come down from Devonshire tunnel towards Bath junction was always something to get concerned about.
2. On a Birmingham-Manchester train in 1965 or so headed by an English Electric type 4 (that a class 40 to you post-TOPS people!) nearing Wolverhampton when the engine was knocked off the road by a diesel shunter!
They were not generally seen on ex-GWR metals except to and from Weston, as Barrow Road men knew the road down there.
It must have been later but I remember Peaks being the regular Summer motive power for trains to Torquay.
My recollection is that before about 1970 trains from the north changed engines, typically from a Peak or Brush to a hydraulic, at Temple Meads, before proceeding down to the South-west.
Just about coinciding with the first phase of the Bristol resignalling, this ceased and the Peaks and Brushes began to work the trains all the way through to Paignton, Penzance, or wherever.
AndyK wrote:Just about coinciding with the first phase of the Bristol resignalling, this ceased and the Peaks and Brushes began to work the trains all the way through to Paignton, Penzance, or wherever.
That would have been coincidence.
The change was actually caused by the reasons I mentioned earlier - Peaks becoming "common usage" engines at Bath Road following the closure of 82E, and 82A men being trained on them (although even then, only up to a point - men at other WR depots would not have had the traction knowledge so they would have to be employed on out and home turns) and the combining of route knowlege of Bath Road and Barrow Road men.
There is another point worth picking up on your post - Peaks working through to Penzance. Bath Road never had any double-home (ie. lodging away from home) turns, so Bath Road men never worked beyond Plymouth. If Peaks ever worked beyond North Road that would suggest that Laira men had traction knowledge, but I don't recall that that was ever the case.
Over to others with more information on this point?
If Peaks ever worked beyond North Road that would suggest that Laira men had traction knowledge, but I don't recall that that was ever the case.
As I mentioned, I recall Peaks being specifically used on Torquay turns only - I don't ever recall them leaving Bristol on Cornish trains. Never saw them coming from London either, only off of the MR line at TM - or occasionally diverted off at Westerleigh.
On many occasions I went to Torquay, where there always seemed to be spare Peaks at Goodrington Carriage Sidings waiting their next turn. I think Goodrington might have had a bit of a specialty in turning them round and was probably their furthest regular Southern outpost during the 70's.
By the late '70's they become completely common use - even on Portishead and Cumberland Basin freight turns!
When refering to Peaks do you include class 46?
Laira did have an allocation of this class.
Any idea what date they were allocated to LA?
During 60's/70's, anything 44/45/46 were referred to as "Peaks" without regard to technical differences .. though D1 to D10 were obviously a bit of a "Holy Grail" for those of us based in Bristol.
Hello - 'BristleGWR' seems to have the answer of to my question of how to add photographs to ones posts. How do you do it ? Please do tell me how? I liked the 'Then & Now' photos. I have several 'Then' photos of Bristol Docks when they were a working port. Many from around the Redcliffe area and the end of Prince Street. I used to catch a #99 Avonmouth bus home to Sea Mills from the New Cut end of Prince Street. A comment in one of the replies refers to a wharf by the new bascule bridge as belonging to the Middland Rly. I don't dispute the ownership but if they did they had no rail connection to it. The nearest railway to that wharf would have been the old GWR branch through Redcliffe tunnel to Whapping Wharf. The line passed over an older bascule bridge over the entrance to Bathurst Basin. It still worked in the 1950's to allow the Holms Sand & Gravel boats through. One of them - the sand dredger 'Steep Holm' is pictured in 'Then & Now' That bridge in the days when I attended Bristol Technical School near to Bedminster Bridge still had the bearers on it for broad guage rails. As another correspondent says each of us is nostalgic for our own youth. Another talks of remembering various diesels at Bath Road shed and Castles etc. at St. Phillips Marsh. [Spam to us back then] Well my memories have Kings, Castles, Stars, Saints plus prarie tanks and 1400 tanks at BRD [82A] and Halls, Granges, Manors and all other ex GWR freight locos plus panniers at SPM [82B]. I did see my one and only known cop of a DUKE - 9083 Comet at Spam. 1951 that was and I'm sure she was on her last journey to Swindon scrap line! I have lots of memories of rail lines around the Bristol docks, even right up to almost the Centre. Enough for now. Someone please tell me how to add photos. All the best from Phil H. Leura. NSW. Australia.
To include photos within posts first of all you need to have the photo uploaded somewhere on the internet as a jpg file and needs to be accessible. I upload my photos to my webspace provided by my ISP, then link to the photo within the post using the tags.
Within these two tags you put the url address of where the photo is located.
, so I'll put my two top ones in for starters:
