On 27th August 2012 I ceased the sale of DVD's. I have however been making more regular submissions here and this will continue for the foreseeable future. Also, the clips posted here will be generally much longer than previously posted. I send out a huge thank you to all my valued customers and I hope you enjoy my new posts here:
I also remember that we arrived there quite a few times at Dover western Docks from Ostend by boat for holidays 😀and also for many Christmases in London with family. I loved that Dover Western station 😉very much, my mother 😍was from London and we lived in Ostend, we had quite a lot of family there in London. I have tears in my eyes that this is now all a thing of the past.😢Greetings from Ostend to the English 👍
Fantastic video of a unique part of British railway history! :D I was just wondering, would it be possible for me to use this footage as part of an upcoming documentary I'm creating about the history of the Class 73s?
I was 8 then. Very good memories of the occasional slam door train turning up at Herne Hill. All sorts of different ones. Some without aisles even. Some with fancy compartments. Some with luggage cars (I hitched in on elf those once!).
I was an Apprentice Electric Traction Fitter when the 504 were first introduced and worked on the maintenance of them. I can just about make out my old work bench on the left hand side of the shed. I wish I had quid for every brake shoe I put on those, first job every morning when a new unit came for service was to go underneath in the pit and check the brakes and replace any worn out Brake shoes. Happy days.
I was an Apprentice Electrical Engineer Fitter at the Bury MPD when the 504 stock was first introduced and I worked on them for 3 years. They were a vast improvement on the original Electric trains from 1918 which were being used when I first started my Apprenticeship. The electronics were miniature compared to the old stock but much easier to work on and fault find. Many happy memories of working on them and I wish I had a quid for every brake shoe I changed on them!
Been to Wallgate station many times in the late 80s and 90s but don't remember ever seeing those brown and cream liveried Pacer's there. The only ones I ever saw running between Wallgate, Manchester and Southport, as well as from North Western between Wigan and Liverpool, were the regular orange and blue Pacer's. Also I don't remember seeing that class at 2:40 at Wigan.
Allways reminds me of going to piccadilly to get the football special to London Eustion and the sounds of the fans echoing under the roof....great memories
The Victoria boat train to Dover Western Docks probably wasn't perfect. Because of lack of investment it was a bit shabby. But it was a 1000x better than the messed up broken system that exists now. Excluding Eurotunnel and Eurostar, it is utterly ramshackle and cobbled together.
I remember the 1980s and mountain hiking jaunts to Austria. Catch the boat train from London Victoria and on the Dover approach there were tunnel sections and the break in the sea side wall and that first glimpse of the Channel. When you got off the train you crossed the platform and go along that glass and wood wall past I think it was customs desk which was almost always unmanned. Then emerging on the dockside you'd see the ferry with the foot passenger access ramp for the first time. Just a memory now.
RIP John. Thank you for capturing and preserving some great video footage of the our railways that will forever be cemented in history. I have a deep personal connection with Manchester Victoria and the Bury to Victoria line. Since I was just 1 year old i used to visit my grandparents who lived in Whitefield. They had been there over 40 years throughout my fathers life before he married my mother. I used to ride the old style Metrolink trams that i believe came into service around 1992-3. This was the early 2000's and I remember just how wobbly the ride was along the original jointed track. Used to put a huge smile on my face as it was like a rollercoaster ride. My grandfather sadly passed away but I continued Visiting my grandmother who remained in Whitefield for another 6 years. I was in my teens and the Metrolink was going through phase 1 of its "major upgrade" with the roallercoaster jointed track replaced by significantly smoother and quieter welded rail. Me and gran would travel everywhere on the metro. To Bury for the ELR diesel galas in the summer. Or to Victoria to catch a train to Southport for the day out. These were usually either the Northern blue and purple Class 150's, a 156 or (to my delight and my grans disappointment) a bouncy old pacer 142/144. Some of the best summer holidays of my youth revolved around the grotty smelly underground carpark that is Manchester Victoria and I loved every moment of it. Credit also to my trips to Liverpool from Piccadilly on a timeless 158 always a good day out. So thanks again John for making and uploading these videos for the world to enjoy and reminisce in good memories.
AS an ex Western Region signalman the bell codes bring back so many memories. Seems like a busy old box. Such a shame that the signalman is not using a duster as we always did not least to keep the leavers prestine and shiny.😄
Good evening, it is not yet entirely clear to me whether those old electric block systems (Absolute block system, if I am not mistaken) with a wooden case were or were not influenced by the passage of trains for the purpose of occupying and freeing the section (block) towards to which and from which the train was respectively headed or from which the train came. Furthermore, it is not clear whether there is an electrical connection between the lever that controls the opening (switching from Danger to Clear) of the starting signal and the apparatus with wooden case. In other words, was it possible to pull the lever that activated the starting signal towards you without first having received electrical consent from the next station? However, it is common ground that where there is a token block it is possible to activate the lever that opens the starting signal even before having handed over the token to the driver, unless there is an error on my part. Thank you very much for your availability and collaboration
Fascinating video! I am most curious as to what occurs at 3:20 From what I understand, a standard passenger train has been accepted from the box in rear, the train has entered the section, the train has been offered to the box in advance, yet when asking is line clear, he gets a warbled response. The signalman here seems confused, and calls attention(?) again. I am not aware of that bell being used to essentially “ask to repeat last code”, but that’s what seems to be happening. The box in advance then responds with 5 beats, which I don’t know the meaning of. The signalman here then passes that on to the box in rear. Why?
I wonder if you know the answer now 8 months later? You've got to remember these were professionals, they sent these bell signals day in day out every single day, and they generally knew what they were expecting to hear. You get used to your bell codes and can rattle them out very fast when you're in a hurry. Our signalman in the video indeed sent 3-1 (is line clear for a class 2 train (ordinary passenger train)?). The response that comes back is 3-1. It's fast, but there's no doubt about it, it's 3-1. Line is clear for a class 2 (ordinary passenger train). As you say call attention is then sent: New message. Our signalman acknowledges. 5 is indeed sent. 5 means is line clear for a class 6 train? (today that's freight with a maximum speed of 60 mph and I think it would have been by 1990 as well, but train classifications have changed over time, once upon a time 5 beats on the bell was is line clear for a class 5, D headcode train (express freight, livestock, perishable or ballast train, partly fitted, with the automatic brake operative on not less than one third of the vehicles), but that's going back a lot further than 1990, it's just to give you the idea that some of the meanings have changed over time). There is no way to ask for a bell code to be repeated. The rules simply say that you must not consider a signal to have been understood until it has been correctly acknowledged by repetition. Usual procedure if you're not sure is to wait for the bell code to be sent again, although you can usually work it out because as I say you know what you're expecting. If you acknowledge a code wrongly it will simply be sent again until you acknowledge it correctly. There is 'last train incorrectly described' but that's for when you have sent the wrong description and need to correct it.
Does anyone recognise those demonstrating the model?..I trained on this in 1974/75..and when Victoria had its 150th anniversary, had the chance to have another go, with my eldest son, being tr lad(sort of)..but I did tell him what to enter..I then had a third chance to play on this at the MRM in York, when I went on a visit organised by the Museum of Science and Industry, and thus completed working all of the frames on this model railway..
What confuses me a lot, how engrineers were driving those wagons during the dark period of the day? They basically have no lights in front. Imagine how it was to drive 101 in the last roudtrip for the late autumn day in bad weather or in the winter night with snowfall or blizzard. Crazy.
Such extraordinary variety of rolling stock and traction. The last of the great days. Tracks still clickity-clacking. Everything still filthy. So much more exciting to young and old eyes.
Great work! You made a B/W aficionado think he is watching a vintage super-8 footage. But the returning white vertical streaks gave the modern video away. Overall this retro-processing
Thanks very much. As of 2023, nearly 30 years ago. Frightening, but a great piece of railway history captured. Love the way the Eurostar comes off the west end curve.
I was a box lad at crewe south in 75 for 2 years, when I reached 18 I had to do a man's job, there were only 3 going at crewe at the time, signalman, guard, porter, didn't fancy signalman after 2 years at crewe south made me allergic to bells, buzzers and phones ringing, and definitely didn't fancy the others so I transferred to saltley DD to get on the footplate and do my traction training and eventually became a driver so I went from "bloody fucking drivers don't know where their going" to "bloody fucking signalmen don't know where we're going" 😅
