Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: transportation

I get a stare from the driver of ex-DB Class 23 2-6-2 23071 as we stood in Eekbeek station prior to the engine running round. It was just a quick footplate visit and this shot was taken from the fireman's seat with the firehole & hotplate in the foreground. The VSM (Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschapij) runs from Apeldoorn to Dieren but on this day the train terminated at Eerbeek. In June trains run only on Sundays and there is only one round trip.

Driving or Flying?? A VW Beetle, a Morris 1000, a Citroen 2CV & a Fiat(?). On the floor is Rover JET1 the first gas turbinepropelled car. All in the Science Museum Kensington.

Indian Railways broad gauge Pacific WP 7656, built 1965 at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works West Bengal, & train stopped at Ajhai en route from Delhi to Agra Cantt with the Taj Express. We waited 9-10 minutes here for the Toofan (?) Express to pass pulled by a diesel. Departing at 09.08 we arrived at the main intermediate stop at Mathura at 09.34. Our return journey two days later was on the same train pulled by the same WP.

A morning visit to Old Delhi, or Delhi Junction, station and broad gauge 4-6-2 WP 7569 departs eastwards with a passenger train. Note the last minute passenger jumping aboard the second coach! Based on a 1947 design by Baldwin Locomotive Works in the U.S.A more than half of the 755 5ft 6in gauge WPs were imported from North America but the last 289 were built at Chittaranjan works in India. This particular engine was built by the Canadian Locomotive Company in 1955.

Grand Central Trains Class 180 Adelante diesel multiple unit 180103 on 1A59 the 06.56 Bradford Interchange to London Kings Cross service bypasses Ravensthorpe station. It is taking the ex-Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway route via Wakefield Kirkgate. HFF to everyone & have a great weekend.

On its way from Lancaster to Seascale the Class 101 diesel multiple unit pauses by the signal box at Rothley! During the Railways at Work Gala the dmu ran a shuttle between Loughborough & Rothley. Here it was waiting to return north at 10.16 having just reversed at Rothley Brook.

Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106, visiting from the SVR, comes off shed & crosses over into platform 1 in Loughborough station.

French steam SNCF 141-TD-740 on a special passenger train at Meymac station. 141-TD-740 was built in 1932 by la Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de l'Est for suburban services in Paris. It was later transferred to the Western Region & worked out of Gare Saint-Lazare until electrification in 1967. Withdrawn from SNCF in 1968 it was chosen for preservation at the Mulhouse Railway Museum but after languishing for 14 years out in the open it was deemed irreparable and was sold. C.F.T.L.P., Chemin de Fer Touristique Limousin - Périgord, purchased the engine in 1982 and it was restored to working order. It was classified as a "monuments historiques au titre de la préservation du patrimoine industriel" by ministerial decree in 1987. The CFTLP still run special trains in SW France the next being 23rd/24th June - see: www.trainvapeur.com/programmes/programme.htm for details.

Bolton steam shed, Stanier 8F 48652, 8th June 1968. The engine is fitted with a small buffer beam snow plough. Two Drewry diesel shunters including D2234 alongside. The signals on the far left are on the Manchester to Bolton line.

British Railways Standard 2MT 2-6-0 78019 is brand new & just out of its box being in steam for the first time in Loughborough yard. Alongside is GCR 8K LNER O4 2-8-0 63601.

View north from Leicester station. Peak class diesels 45159 & 45114 slowly draw a train towards the station although the signals seem to be against them. In fact that's the signalman hurrying back to his box to clear the Inner Home. Meanwhile a dmu is heading northwards under clear signals on the Down Main. 45159 had failed within sight of the station & fortunately 45114 was on hand in the station & was dispatched to retrieve it. The whole episode only took half an hour or so. I wonder how long it would take today if a Midland Mainline train failed here? There are only very few locomotives around, if any, & those would be EWS or Freightliner owned so difficulties with insurance, liabilities, etc would make it a long drawn out procedure I'm sure. Until the 1980s Leicester Midland before modernisation was an interesting place with a definite steam-age atmosphere. Leicester North's Midland Railway signal box, a forest of semaphore signals, the loco stabling point behind the box and, off shot to the left, the LNWR & MR Goods yards all added their bit. Interestingly, the loading gauge post on the extreme left has lost its hanging gauge hoop which could still be seen on a 1975 photo I posted elsewhere. A clear indication of the further loss of freight business in the intervening two years.

Cabside number Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44845, built at Crewe in 1944. I am contemplating the last day of steam at Newton Heath & the fact that the filthy cab won't ever be cleaned again. I don't think that left hand window has ever been cleaned! This engine still had 50psi of steam in its boiler but by the end of the day would be cold & ready for its last journey to the scrapyard.

GCR Loughborough shed. LNER O4 2-8-0 63601 footplate from the tender while getting steam up. I am trimming the coal forward before going off shed to pull our service train. The cab layout is simplicity itself & the engine steams on a candle. An excellent engine in many ways but perhaps not first choice for cold, wet winter days. Then again in 1912 when the locomotive was built designers didn't really care too much about the welfare of crews. Note the sheet in the tender - hooked onto the cab roof it's our only protection against the weather when running tender-first. She will be running her last trains for a while this coming weekend, 23rd-24th June 2012, as her boiler certificate runs out then. She did make it to 100 years old in steam though so come to the GCR to ride her for one last time.