The Duchess of Sutherland, and steam trains

[cj_eds]

The Boats, Planes and Trains thread seems very heavily biased towards Boats and Planes so thought it was about time to post a train.
Ventured out yesterday to see the Duchess of Sutherland, there's not much that beats the shear noise and smell of old steam trains.



So go on, admit your inner train-spotting geekery and post up your steam trains!

[350Wedge]

I'll see your Class 8 and raise you a BR 9F

Here are a couple of videos I took yesterday at Mid Hants Railway yesterday of our resident 9F leaving Alton.

First one is a bit longer and takes a min or two to get going, turn the quality to HD and the sound up though as it gets a bit volcanic at 2 mins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUgAvJqt0S4&fea...

This next clip is from same departure point but right next to the smokebox, different driver so not quite as volcanic but still deafening! Video really doesn't do it justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flWVPRWVrsw&fea...

Enjoy the clips

[Yertis]

Why can't they run 9Fs on the main line anymore?

I live quite near the Bristol - Exeter mainline - over the last six years I've had the chance to see just about every major class of post-1925 express passenger engine thunder by, it's bloody fantastic. As a boy I never thought I'd never get to see them in steam, let alone belting along at nearly 80mph.

[GrahamG]

Rather poignantly one of these fine machines was involved in the Harrow disaster - which happened 60 years ago today - 112 killed and hundreds injured

There's a very good article http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/angels-and... that explained what happened.

[matchmaker]

GrahamG said:

Rather poignantly one of these fine machines was involved in the Harrow disaster - which happened 60 years ago today - 112 killed and hundreds injured

There's a very good article http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/angels-and... that explained what happened.

[pedant]It was a Princess Royal rather than a Princess Coronation. Princess Anne, the rebuilt Turbomotive [/pedant]

[GrahamG]

matchmaker said:

GrahamG said:

Rather poignantly one of these fine machines was involved in the Harrow disaster - which happened 60 years ago today - 112 killed and hundreds injured

There's a very good article http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/angels-and... that explained what happened.

[pedant]It was a Princess Royal rather than a Princess Coronation. Princess Anne, the rebuilt Turbomotive [/pedant]

[marginally bigger pedant] it wasn't that loco I was talking about, but rather City of Glasgow that was also involved ;-)

[c7xlg]

I went fly fishing with Lady Sutherland once...

[mrmaggit]

cj_eds said:

The Boats, Planes and Trains thread seems very heavily biased towards Boats and Planes so thought it was about time to post a train.
Ventured out yesterday to see the Duchess of Sutherland, there's not much that beats the shear noise and smell of old steam trains.



So go on, admit your inner train-spotting geekery and post up your steam trains!

Booked on a trip a week on Saturday behind this, Nottingham to Euston and back vis Melton Mowbray.

[Pkh72]

mrmaggit said:

cj_eds said:

The Boats, Planes and Trains thread seems very heavily biased towards Boats and Planes so thought it was about time to post a train.
Ventured out yesterday to see the Duchess of Sutherland, there's not much that beats the shear noise and smell of old steam trains.



So go on, admit your inner train-spotting geekery and post up your steam trains!

Booked on a trip a week on Saturday behind this, Nottingham to Euston and back vis Melton Mowbray.

She's come on a bit since i last saw her in August last year -

[cj_eds]

Interesting photo pkh72, do you have more of the servicing/rework?

It seemed a shame to see it in BR Green on Saturday. I'm not really old enough to remember steam trains on the mainline - my old man had a model railway in the loft and he had the Duchess in Crimson Lake so that's how I remember it "should" be. Having seen some of the photos and videos online of it in black, it did look pretty good like that too.

mrmaggit, enjoy the day out! Sounds like they get good use of her.

[drivin_me_nuts]

Yertis said:

Why can't they run 9Fs on the main line anymore?

I live quite near the Bristol - Exeter mainline - over the last six years I've had the chance to see just about every major class of post-1925 express passenger engine thunder by, it's bloody fantastic. As a boy I never thought I'd never get to see them in steam, let alone belting along at nearly 80mph.

I read a few years back the reason was because they cause excessive wear in point frogs and the potential for them to derail through raised frog/protected points.

[Pkh72]

cj_eds said:

Interesting photo pkh72, do you have more of the servicing/rework?

It seemed a shame to see it in BR Green on Saturday. I'm not really old enough to remember steam trains on the mainline - my old man had a model railway in the loft and he had the Duchess in Crimson Lake so that's how I remember it "should" be. Having seen some of the photos and videos online of it in black, it did look pretty good like that too.

mrmaggit, enjoy the day out! Sounds like they get good use of her.

Unfortunately I don't have any more photos of it, was on a family visit to Butterley at the time.

[mrmaggit]

cj_eds said:

Interesting photo pkh72, do you have more of the servicing/rework?

It seemed a shame to see it in BR Green on Saturday. I'm not really old enough to remember steam trains on the mainline - my old man had a model railway in the loft and he had the Duchess in Crimson Lake so that's how I remember it "should" be. Having seen some of the photos and videos online of it in black, it did look pretty good like that too.

mrmaggit, enjoy the day out! Sounds like they get good use of her.

Wildo, we normally try to do one a year, but as we are based in Nottingham it generally tuns out that we only get one or two a year to choose from.

[StripeyNick]

I'll give you........

Britannia arriving at Cardiff Central a couple of weeks back with a charter from Poole...


70000 at Cardiff by Nick Wilcock, on Flickr

and King Edward I heading for Cardiff with a special on St David's Day.....


6024 King Edward I at Coedkernew by Nick Wilcock, on Flickr

[Pkh72]

[drivin_me_nuts]

Pkh72 said:

She is just begging to be restored.

[drivin_me_nuts]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

... You could well be right. A part of me cries 'shame' at the slow erosion of this magnificent piece of engineering. So many skills lie within the crafting of these machine of steam that I hope they last for many more years to come.

[cj_eds]

Wandering around the yards up at Bo'Ness there were more engines, carriages, trucks etc than can ever be fixed within their time, budget or number of volunteers. It's such a shame they're not being restored, and must get to a point where some of these restoration societies will happily take any free or cheap rolling stock to use as spares etc knowing they'll never get them running again.
Scrap value of some of these things must be considerable as well, they're the sort of places I'm surprised aren't raided by the *local scrap metal thieves* on a regular basis.

[mrmaggit]

drivin_me_nuts said:

Pkh72 said:

She is just begging to be restored.

Is that Butterley? If so, they have another almost finished.

[Pkh72]

cj_eds said:

Wandering around the yards up at Bo'Ness there were more engines, carriages, trucks etc than can ever be fixed within their time, budget or number of volunteers. It's such a shame they're not being restored, and must get to a point where some of these restoration societies will happily take any free or cheap rolling stock to use as spares etc knowing they'll never get them running again.
Scrap value of some of these things must be considerable as well, they're the sort of places I'm surprised aren't raided by the *local scrap metal thieves* on a regular basis.

The preserved railways certainly do have an issue with the metal recycling brigade.
At a place a used to work at we had a preserved diesel in for insurance repairs as its major cabling and pipework had been stripped by these tossers.