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I haven't worked there for quite some time mate; I'm told by a good friend of mine who still drives there that it's changed a lot from those days, but having said that it's still a superb railway and I'm sure someone with your depth of experience would be welcomed no matter where you wanted to help.

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David - if you are at Mallaig, then you ARE a long way from Nottingham. BUT if you were to visit Compo by train (assuming trains still stopped at his station), you'd be even farther away. By my reckon

Sorry about the break, I hope the pics, the panoramic view of Harringworth Viaduct! So around a long bend and there it is, over a mile of dead straight track across the top of 90ft. high viaduct, fla

On the Antique Roadshow recently a man showed part of his 242 piece collection of what to me are rather insignificant items of railwayana, namely the builders name plate usually fixed to the driving w

I'm one of the old school of railwaymen. Everything is politically correct now. We used to lift buck-eye couplings with one hand. Would'nt be allowed now. I remember when Forest were busy winning the League cup and were sending loads of supporters trains to Wembley. One morning they put together a huge train with three RBKs (Restaurant/buffet cars). The lovely girls had their work cut out setting everything up. I was still a lowly carriage cleaner then. About five of us got squared up early and went and helped the girls set up the tables. We were rewarded with huge hugs, a bacon cob and a cup of tea. Well worth it. That was when all cooking was with calor gas from bottles slung under the coach. One of my jobs was to fill the huge water tanks which provided water for cooking, pot washing etc. Modern cars are much more efficient.

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I heard a bit of sad news last night, Reg Slade age 95 & ex Colwick/Nottingham driver passed away after short illness. I met him last year for just a 1/2 hour chat whilst attending a neighbours birthday party, oh how his eyes lit up to talk to an ex loco man, among his memorabilia was a shoebox of notebooks with listed in them every turn of duty since he became a 'passed cleaner' in 1935 to his retirement but he regretted only recording the basics,sign on/off, mate & wages! What a history that would have been.

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I sometimes do train bookings for a couple that we are friendly with. You can get some real bargains, but you need to do a bit of experimenting first. By changing trains and booking separate tickets you can save a fortune. I can't remember all the details, but for a trip from Sleaford to St Austell, the price for a direct ticket was an eye-watering amount even in standard class. You could just about halve that price by booking an off-peak return Sleaford to Derby, advance purchase first class from Derby to Taunton and back (Cross Country) and another advance purchase first class Taunton to St Austell and back (First Great Western).

And it isn't just this country. I'm in the early stages of planning a holiday to the Black Forest, and you can get extremely good prices for advance purchase from London to any station in Germany via Brussels, provided you limit yourself to connections that use the German ICE trains between Brussels and Cologne - sometimes as low as 59 Euro each way. Anybody who's interested in doing such journeys might like to look at a website called "The man in Seat 61" (www.seat61.com).

Stephenford

in one quick link you may have solved almost 50% of my travel to Russia on the train!

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Mercurydancer - good show. Hope it goes well. Don't forget to post some of your experiences here afterwards! O - and don't forget that you need a (very expensive) transit visa for Belarus - unless you go by a long and roundabout way, in which case you would probably need to cross Ukraine - and that may not be a very healthy option at the moment.

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Sorry to hear Albert. I never knew him but sad to hear the loss of an old train crew. At least he managed to get a decent retirement God rest his soul.

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There were many old railwaymen at the exhibition about Colwick that was held in Netherfield last year.

I met several. I hope he was one.

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Alas, the Toton Garrats are now extinct. At least Oz have a working Garratt. I've been on the Welsh Highland and the Gattarats there are impressive but a bit on the small side.

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I can clearly recall seeing a Garratt heading north on a long coal train through Stanton Gate during the 50's. It would probably have been on a Saturday lunchtime in the summer of 1957, we would go off down there on the tandem for an hour after which the old man would take us up to the Stanhope Arms where he'd have a pint while my brother and I a bottle of orangeade each.

Checking in my December 1956 shedbook it was probably 47968, a Hasland loco, by then only 13 Garratts survived, 10 at Hasland, 3 at Toton. Did you know the roundhouse roads at Toton were specifically made longer to accommodate them, presumably the turntable was as well.

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Not sure about the turntable - it was my impression, somewhat confirmed by the pictures above, that they didn't make too much effort to turn them. The Garratts were used forwards or backwards indiscriminately, without regarding "chimney-first" good and "bunker-first" bad. Visibility must have been indifferent to appalling whichever way you went, with all that gubbins ahead of the cab, and after all it was still a 2-6-0+0-6-2 either way round.

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I think you're right about that, looking at photo's of Toton there was only enough room to squeeze an 8F into a roundhouse road, and you'd never fit a Garratt on the turntable. If you think about it, if one of these monsters did need turning,Trent Junction was only just down the road and that provided three ways of doing that, the main triangular junction, the Nottingham line junction and the reverse curve into the station from the Derby line. Up the other end, Westhouses was situated right next to a triangular junction and just down the line from Hasland.

Many years ago someone bought me the Kitmaster Garratt model kit as a present, a very complex kit but magnificent when it was finished. My brother came up with the idea of taking the top off our Hornby Dublo 0-6-2 N2, constructing a water tank body and attaching it to the front of the Garratt. Fine, except the N2 didn't have a full set of motion so it looked odd and no matter how many lead weights we put in the rest of the kit it was always derailing itself. I've still got bits of it remaining in a box, the boiler, frames, revolving bunker etc. When Airfix took over Kitmaster they reproduced most of their models but never the Garratt, I gather the original master mouldings were destroyed many years ago, what a waste, I bet Hornby, the current owners of Airfix, would love to have those now.

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I recall seeing a garratt coming down the high level line at Trent, again in the 1950's.

I also visited Crewe works in 1958 and looking to see if we could find any remnants of the last garratt.

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Drivers I worked with used to talk about the Garretts. They did tell me that in their heyday they were mostly kept outside the shed unless there was any reason to go in. The roads where they were kept were referred to as 'Garrett Alley'.

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When the railways closed down - Great Central, Great Northern and Suburban, who became the owner of the tunnels? I assume that they are still there, just sealed at their ends and not filled in. Were any put to use?

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