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65th anniversary of the end of WW2, maybe. They tried to paint everything black then but I think the GWR defeated them. I think some LMS locos at least got white lining.

Interesting, tried to find pics of the loco on Google, but it seems she wasn't repainted black until September 1946, the LMS must have been right miserable boggers, lets lighten up after the war, no, we'll adopt black as our colour.

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Just to show that East Anglia isn't all about ripping up railways and replacing them with concrete guided busways:

http://www.nnrailway.co.uk/page.php?pid=8#latist.

There's going to be a grand opening ceremony at Sheringham today performed by Pete Waterman when the first through train for nearly 50 years will arrive from Liverpool Street hauled by 70013 Oliver Cromwell which will cross the road and carry on up to Holt.

Unfortunately, the train is being routed via Cambridge otherwise I'd be on my way to Witham to see it pass, though it is due to return our way at about 21:00 tonight.

Hopefully there will be loads of coverage on our local TV channels tonight which I can bore you with tomorrow.

Yes, there is a Nottingham connection, the North Norfolk Railway is the last surviving bit of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway which was built to carry holiday trains from the East Midlands to the Norfolk Coast, particularly to Great Yarmouth. Trains from Nottingham branched off the Midland line just past Melton Mowbray at Saxby Junction and went on their torturous route across Norfolk to Yarmouth Beach Station, I remember it well in the 50's, just before it closed down.

The only problem with running through trains from Norwich is the need for reversal at Cromer, this means that Cromwell will have to be towed on the back of the train by diesel along the Poppy Line so it will be on the front at the appropriate time. The original track formation is still in place at Cromer to allow through running, whether the rails will be put back remains to be seen, otherwise it's going to remain a problem, especially in view of the grand plans to introduce a large scale circular steam route around Norfolk, most of which is in place.

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  • 9 years later...
2 hours ago, radfordred said:

I know we have a few train buffs on here? Why can you not use the train toilet while in the station? & when they announce " leafs on the tracks" is it really something else? 

It's what YOU leave on the line !,   There are still many carriages whose toilets dump the contents straight onto the track. If you "dump"  in the station, the contents are for all to see !.

Very unpleasant, its' just a decorum thing. Last time we went to London on the train, the crew locked the toilet doors just before we entered the platforms to stop folks using them. 

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At school we used to sing a song:

'Whilst the train is in the station please refrain from urination...………………………………….'  there's more.  ;)

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     Railway lines have a small electric current passing through them. As a train passes over them it creates a short circuit enabling the signal man to know he has a train in a certain section. Leaves on the line create a problem, they become impacted onto the rail and become an insulator so the flim flam trains of today don't create a short circuit, thereby becoming invisible to the signal man. (A visual indication in his signal box disappears, not the train entering a twilight zone.)

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Sounds like a crude system in an age where inductive coils are both cheap and easy to install. Even more so when you think of GPS systems.

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Brew, I'm thinking in the simplest way, that a resistive loop and short circuit by a train would show a section occupied by stationary traffic, whereas a coil would only show movement, or to detect stationary traffic would need an ac excited coil but that would only work if it were covered by said stopped traffic. The loop system monitors all the rail length. BTW, re signals, on the line to Hull they still use semaphore signalling.

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Leaves on the line also make the rails slippery. I am told that the Robin Hood line suffers from this. Some years they have implemented a special timetable with one train an hour skipping certain stations and the other taking things very carefully when stopping and starting from the likes of Kirkby and Sutton Parkway.

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