lostwin - BR in the mid 80's

[Shrewbly]

@lostwin(m) - Can I just say that these are all superb photos, they really capture the essence of the era. I have enjoyed them immensely, partly because....

Ten years earlier I would have been there - well mainly at the other end of New Street.

I was there too! And just to add...

Just the Birmingham Canal, I presume. You wouldn’t get very big ships under that bridge!

for accuracy's (or pedantry's

) sake I think that the canal is the BCN* Main Line.
(Google shows it as just the Birmingham Canal, but in this case is approximately two hundred years out of date!)


*BCN=Birmingham Canal Navigations

 

[lostwin(m)]

@lostwin(m) - Can I just say that these are all superb photos, they really capture the essence of the era. I have enjoyed them immensely, partly because....



I was there too! And just to add...



for accuracy's (or pedantry's

) sake I think that the canal is the BCN* Main Line.
(Google shows it as just the Birmingham Canal, but in this case is approximately two hundred years out of date!)


*BCN=Birmingham Canal Navigations

Thank you! It's been a voyage of re-discovery for me too working through the images again, especially having the capability to see many of them enlarged from contact print size for the first time. It has been many hours of work, but that sense of finding a hidden gem has been hugely fulfilling for me. Along, of course, with the great feedback on here.

 

[magpiespy]

21/10/86. 86414 & 86427 head up a steel coil load, held at signals at Carlisle station.

View attachment 145974

I spent many happy afternoons lineside at the WCML by Euxton Junction in the late 1980s, and this photo brings back great memories of southbound steel coil trains.

 

[lostwin(m)]

My last few for Leicester.

01/05/85. This train was always referred to as the 'Immingham Tanks', so hopefully that is accurate and not just an urban myth. I seem to re-call there was one in the daytime and one late evening. Here 47061 powers straight through platform 2 on said tanks.

 

[lostwin(m)]

27/04/86. Nearly a year later, 47124 was not so lucky with the signals and had to pull to a stand to. Time, 12 O'Clock precisely!

 

[lostwin(m)]

Not so lucky for the driver either, as he became a sitting duck for my camera lens...

 

[lostwin(m)]

02/05/85. 25297 takes on fuel at Leicester depot.

 

[lostwin(m)]

15/09/85. 45103 is the motive power for a morning south bound mail service.

 

[Cowley]

B

27/04/86. Nearly a year later, 47124 was not so lucky with the signals and had to pull to a stand to. Time, 12 O'Clock precisely!

View attachment 147482

They’re all great but I really love this one with the clock.

 

[lostwin(m)]

15/10/85. 31424 is captured at platform 1 with a Norwich bound service. The Royal Mail depot and sidings are just behind and usually had the station pilot in attendance.

 

[lostwin(m)]

05/05/85. Engineering work on this Sunday had 47335 in required attendance passing Bell Lane box, just north of Leicester.

 

[lostwin(m)]

B


They’re all great but I really love this one with the clock.

It is not obvious, but there is also a second hand on that clock too. Literally split second timing required for this picture!

 

[Cowley]

It is not obvious, but there is also a second hand on that clock too. Literally split second timing required for this picture!

I did wonder. I could imagine you watching it tick around.

 

[lostwin(m)]

Nearly all of my South West photos come from a week I spent in Exeter, in the summer of '85. Some have been posted already, this is the best of the rest.

28/07/85. 50040 stops the holiday foot traffic as it backs back into Paignton Station. It will attach to the stock forming the 12.50 to Newton Abbot.

 

[lostwin(m)]

30/07/85. 50007 pulls the VSOE stock through Dawlish. My notes confidently state that this was linked to the filming of Minder - anyone remember the episode?

 

[Ashley Hill]

A lovely shot. Interesting that an air raid siren is to be seen to the right of the 50 adjacent to the public conveniences at Paignton.

 

[lostwin(m)]

30/07/85. A DMU on the approach to Newton Abbot.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Re the Dawlish shot

Minder on the Orient Express - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[lostwin(m)]

30/07/85. 50027 eases the 12.20 Exeter St. D - Waterloo out of Exeter Central.

 

[lostwin(m)]

30/07/85 (I was having a good day!). On the sea wall just before the Dawlish stop, an HST set on the 07.25 penzance - Paddington. If you zoom in - and I can tell some of you are doing just that! - you will see one of the lenses of the power car's headlights is broken.

 

[lostwin(m)]

Re the Dawlish shot

Minder on the Orient Express - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Christmas special episode no less!

 

[Cowley]

The Christmas special episode no less!

I can’t help feeling that they thought of the title in the pub one night and then decided to work the plot out later.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I can’t help feeling that they thought of the title in the pub one night and then decided to work the plot out later.

I think that approach was taken by all of the cheesy "made for Amercian TV" Christmas films, which my wife now avidly follows on the Christmas cable channels....

 

[Mat17]

02/12/85. Doncaster Station is not necessarily the most inspiring of locations, I tried to make the best of it.

View attachment 146873

View attachment 146874

Hmm 114s, lovely units.

 

[lostwin(m)]

I'll shoehorn this selection into a 'Northern End of the WCML' sort of category.

11/05/87. 87032 has a helpful pointer as it pauses at Oxenholme.

 

[lostwin(m)]

05/07/86. My favoured backdrop at Carlisle makes another appearance. 85017 posing for the camera this time around.

 

[lostwin(m)]

21/06/86. I think I was trying to contrast the future against the dull metal boxes of the present. In the end, the APT perhaps could be compared to a Delorean car, a futuristic dead end - the angled styling is not too dissimilar either. The contemporary French TGV has aged so much better. Car 370 003 in shot.

 

[lostwin(m)]

21/10/86. However, 37014 looks right at home light engine through the mild chaos of the Carlisle station environs.

 

[lostwin(m)]

25/10/86. The driver of 47641 draws the engine in to attach to the Edinburgh portion of an express at Carstairs.

 

[Sun Chariot]

21/06/86. I think I was trying to contrast the future against the dull metal boxes of the present. In the end, the APT perhaps could be compared to a Delorean car, a futuristic dead end - the angled styling is not too dissimilar either. The contemporary French TGV has aged so much better. Car 370 003 in shot.

View attachment 147578

I'm now playing "remember those cars?"

Facing the APT, right to left, are an Austin Allegro, Vauxhalll Astra, Morris/BL Marina, Ford Escort and (I think) Triumph Acclaim.

Facing the wall, right to left is a bit trickier. The one with just the sunroof visible, I have no idea. The Austin/BL Mini is a giveaway. The vinyl roofed hatchback I first thought was a Renault 14 but I'm not convinced. The last, is another Ford Escort. I dread to think how much a Mk3 XR3i or RS go for these days!