70013 Oliver Cromwell at speed this morning.

[firbeck 860]

As its passing through Newark from Lincoln to Kings X late this coming Saturday afternoon, I thought you'd like a taster of what you might see, hear, smell and feel.

I went over to the level crossing at Kelvedon, which is just down the road from me, this morning and was surprised at the number of people there, though I gather that BBC East had given the run from Liverpool St to Norwich quite a bit of publicity.

It makes you realise what terrifying places level crossings can be, I was sitting against the fence on the legal side of the barrier, getting the range on in coming trains. I was concentrating on a loco hauled Norwich express when another one sneaked up behind me, sitting only a few feet away from two trains passing with a closing speed of about 200mph frightened the life out of me!!!!

One of the locals told me that cars zig zag through the half barriers all the time, they must be insane, the time to get through was very short and you can't hear these high speed heavy trains approaching.

Anyway, you can see for miles down the track at that point and along came our Pacific, going pretty quickly, I decided to use the video facility as I'm going to see it pull in at Witham Station this evening, plenty of time for stills then.

Here it is, bang on time at 11:30, the noise was tremendous, well worth a trip to see it if you live near Newark:-

Not great quality but you get the impression of it's power.

[rob237 89]

Certainly a surprising turn of speed...thanks for the movie.

Perhaps the 'Lord Protector' was pleased to be back on his old stamping ground, from his original GE 32A days!

A Professor of Pedantry would say that he never had a red-backed nameplate whilst on the BR payroll, only since preservation...but everyone would ignore the silly old fool.

Cheers

Robt P.

[plantfit 7,670]

I have been told it's coming to Lincoln via Spalding and Sleaford, if thats the case it should be going passed Metheringham and Dunston between 12.15 and 12.45. both these places are on my way home from work so I might be lucky and get a couple of pics, also it's shopping day at the Tesco on Canwick road Lincoln and Lincoln station is just 200 mtrs away so I might be able to see it there as well, pics to follow if I get any

Rog

PS nice to see you're back posting Rob, I trust you are well

[firbeck 860]

I was told this morning that the Witham stop over tonight is used an excuse to get the public involved, ie lots of cab visits etc, all good for getting kids involved and a bit of publicity for steam locos in general. I shall therefore wear my shorts, already am, and take my school work folder that I found in mums loft last week, perhaps the 'Jimi Hendrix for President' sticker will give my age away though.

The last time this happened, with 'Britannia' at Bishops Stortford a few years ago, my pal and I got into the cab and the driver announced, 'hang on, traffic control wants us up the other end of the platform', so we had a ride in the cab of a Brit over Network Rail metals for a few hundred yards, now that was something else, we were speechless.

Rob,

Old Ironside still has his cannon trained on Ely Cathedral outside his mothers house, I gather that she called him a 'very naughty boy' and stopped him from blowing in the entrance doors, she must have been a very formidable woman.

Do you know, I don't recall seeing 70013 in BR days, I once went on a trip round Crewe works and sheds near the end of steam when I had stopped taking numbers. The Crewe North roundhouse that day was full of Brits on every turntable track, it was an amazing sight. I was reliably told afterwards that we had seen every surviving Britannia that day, but I can't find the pictures that I know that I took.

Last week during mothers epic loft clearance, I found an undeveloped Kodak black and white film, it is obviously one of mine from that period, could it be the one, will it be undamaged. I found some negs in cassettes from the same period, they were in perfect condition, could the film be salvageable, has anyone any experience of such things, what do you reccomend that I do with it.

[plantfit 7,670]

firbeck,

Take your film to one of these independent photographic shops (family run) and explain to them about the film and it's age and potential importance I'm sure they would try their best to salvage it just from the challenge point of view, good luck with it anyway, look forward to seeing it posted on here

Rog

[firbeck 860]

A bit of a disaster last night.

I went to Witham station at about 19:00 and found the place packed with several hundred people waiting for the Brits return, apparently Anglia News at 6:00 had run quite a big feature on the train and half the population of Essex had decided to turn up.

I positioned my self on the platform slope on the up line facing east with a perfect view of the loop lines entry into the station. Unfortunately, there was a problem, by coincidence, or was it, thieves, no doubt Pykey scum, had stolen copper signal cable at Marks Tey near Colchester, all up and down trains were subject to massive delay.

Commuter trains from London were qeueing for miles, it was like a scene from the old days when the coal trains going into Toton were backed up past Trowell Junction:-

First stop Colchester, stuck at Witham.

By now it was getting very dark. The station staff at Witham were very helpful though, making constant announcements, mainly about the Brit's progress, which must have p@ssed off the regular travellers, and even coming round to see if everyone was ok, 100% commendation to a much maligned station staff.

The people around me were very friendly and not keen types, I was telling them tales of Brits from the old days, they didn't believe me at first, I was flattered to realise that they didn't realise how ancient I actually am!!

Eventually a puff of smoke in the distance and everyone got excited, at which point the station inspector appeared and said that due to it being half an hour late, it wasn't going to stop and suggested we kept well away from the edge of the platform. He was right, the driver really wound it up and I cr@pped myself as it got closer, funny how when you were a kid, those A4's hurtling through Grantham were good fun, when you've accepted your mortality, sitting a couple of feet away from that high speed roaring monster is a little bit worrying:-

Did yer like that!!

Sorry about the quality again, but it was a great experience, sit on the side of the platform at Langley Mill on Saturday Fynger, and see what you think.

Oh, having left my car in Morrisons car park, I called in on the way back and was impressed to buy a bottle of Black Sheep Bitter for £1:28, they had some good beer bargains in there, Tesco and Sainsbury take note, please.

I'm going to dig out my old Brit photos now and make you suffer.

Incidentally Rog, thanks for your advice, there's an old fashioned family run shop in Dunmow that I could use and have done before, on the other hand, we have an all singing and dancing contemporary photographic shop in the town run by a lovely Malaysian bloke, but boy, is he a keen type, I reckon he would be really impressed at the challenge, I'll have a word.

[firbeck 860]

URGENT

If you can read this Plantfitt, I've heard that 70013 is unable to run today and has been replaced by a diesel, perhaps the Pykies stole it's copper pipework.

Thought I'd let you know in case you were going out your way to see it.

[plantfit 7,670]

Thanks for that firbeck, not out of my way though it's on me way home from work so I stopped at Dunston about 10 miles from Lincoln, good views across the open fields and on the embankment, this is the replacement 56 601 at the head, on the tail end was 47 786 Roy Castle OBE, it was by chance that I took the pic I thought I could use the next train through as a sighting to get my camera settings right and this was it, I took a few more in the sidings at Lincoln while the better half was shopping in the Tesco if you are interested

Rog

[firbeck 860]

Cheers for that, any pictures welcome.

The problem with 70013 was caused by a leak around the 'mudhole', whatever that is. It had been kept in light steam since thursday, then the fault was found yesterday, apparently minor, but the loco had to be cooled, fixed and steamed up again and they didn't have time.

Look on the 70013 website, some good pics from the cab from thursday, I liked the fire brigade tanker filling it up at Colchester, I wish I'd gone there now to see that.

I'll publish some of my 60's pics of Brits in the morning when I have time to scan, all sorts of locations from Annesley to Carnforth.

I hope Fynger enjoys seeing the Castle in half an hour, meanwhile here's one of my old pics of the only time I saw a Castle at Trent Junction, Clun Castle in 1965:-

[plantfit 7,670]

This is the other end of the train, picture taken down Great Northern Terrace Lincoln,

It's 47 786 "Roy Castle OBE" if you look on the ground at the side of the loco you can see where the Lincs fire service have laid out a hose ready to quench the thirst of Oliver Cromwell. I do have a picture of the fire service tanker if you are interested

Rog

[plantfit 7,670]

I'll post it anyway

Rog

[Ashley 288]

a "Mudhole" is an access hole into the boiler to allow funnily enough mud (sludge) to be removed, physical scraped out or flush via high pressure water jet, it usually has a flange mating faces with a gasket and nuts and studs fixing, the latter of which can snap making the job a bit of a barsteward

[firbeck 860]

Thanks Ashley.

Plantfitt

Shouldn't someone have informed the fire brigade that the Brit wasn't coming, I bet they weren't impressed.

See the 'Steam' site for some old Brit pics.