Bulleid Royal Navy Class light pacifics

Have to agree , I also think of the west country as being west of Salisbury , especially the sea side resorts along that side of the country, Bude , Ilfracombe on the northern Atlantic coast and Bere Regis, Sidmouth, Exmouth on the South western coast .

 

This absolutely chimes with me BB. When as a 6 year old I stood on the platform at Andover Junction (as was), and saw my first unrebuilt pacific - 34102 Lapford - like you I assumed this and its classmates commemorated towns of great significance - certainly larger than seedy, sleepy Andover! And as it turns out Andover was probably larger than two thirds of the places commemorated. One other memory of note - at that time Hornby's WC model was 34005 Barnstaple and so I naturally assumed Barnstaple to be more important and impressive than just about anywhere and that this was a real celebrity locomotive. When I finally saw 34005 I nearly wet myself with excitement. Yes to a small child the names did matter.

 

I saw 34005 in Nine Elms shed.....
and yes, I too had the Hornby model.....(have!)

 

It’s a question to which there is no answer, a bit like where does the Thames estuary become the English Channel

 

Well I've always considered Kent a forin country.
(We even have to pay a fee to get in and out of the place! )

 

Oh iot does if you ,look at the big picture. Bulleid planned a lot more but the Directors clipped his wings at 110.... 110, I ask you. How did he get away with it!

 

Another tranche of BBs would have got my vote. So many more squadrons to commemorate.

 

That's always been a mystery to me. What did they scrap before 1959? A bunch of Drummond 4-4-0s and the D15s. Oh plus the Atlantics (sob). Really they would have been better off if the last fifty had been Standard 5s. The twenty they had which replaced the Urie Arthurs seemed to be real workhorses on both the SE and the SW.

 

And plenty of two coach trains for them to haul in the SW!

 

standard tanks of class 2 3 and 4 would have been more sensible.

Bulleid's brief when he built the Leader was to provide a badly needed M7 replacement. He squandered that budget and then went to Ireland and did the same again. I'm not a fan, his locos didn't even work properly. It's my Opinion he wanted to be a Sir Nigel.

 

You jest but there was method in some of the madness.

 

Just a thought but if BR(S) had been given the BR(W) lines west of Salisbury instead of the other way round, could have scrapped a lot of the Swindon tin in favour of lots of Bulleids.

 

One thing that comes out of this thread is that the SR clearly had a more intelligent class of customer than the GWR.

I have long had this image of an aged, titled GWR director boarding a train at, say, Didcot expecting to be whisked off to somewhere like Newquay because that's what it said on the side of the loco and ending up at, for instance, Newbury instead.

Result: complaint to the Chairman and a wholesale removal of 'confusing' nameplates.

 

That's to deter you carrot crunchers.

 

Why no Brown Willy?

 

Doesnt the Urban Myth talk about an old lady sitting at Portsmouth Harbour who was approached by a member of staff who had seen her sitting there for some while and asked her where she wanted to go 'Ventnor, I've seen boats for Brading, Ryde & Whippingham but the one for Ventnor hasnt come in yet.'

 

Now what might a half way sensible M7 replacement look like?

 

Reading one of the magazines sometime ago. One town council has put their West Country name plate back on display. I was wondering how many other town councils still own their West Country name plate.

 

If you are sticking to steam, an Ivatt 2mt tank.

Tom

 

When I went close past Eddystone there were no visitors and certainly no railway tracks