100% Authenticity

Recently I visited the GWR, and if your wanting 100 percent accuracy it was 100 per cent out, my train was an 8 coach MK1 rake hauled by a GW 2-8-0 freight loco so totally wrong it should have been a GW b set and most likily a small prairie, but I didn't mind, because this is 2018, not 1955, on the way we passed a SR MN now that had no right to be on a GW line, but again I didn't mind, we passed several modern diesels on shed, again, totally not original, but we are in 2018, then we reached the new station at Broadway, and this unfinished station did look very authentic, but when was it built? 1902? no rebuilt in 2017-18, my point is we can recreate authentically correct for what we think is right, but how many of us are that old that we can actually remember how it was, very few, and they are getting fewer year on year.

 

I know what you mean about the noise. Don't think I'll hear again the sound of a pair of 33s lifting 2500 tonnes up to the canal bridge as they re-started from the token machine as they came off the Grain branch, or a pair of 37s re-starting a train of 30 Freightliners after a loco change at Willesden.

 

Oh absolutely, earlier this year my Dad and I had an enjoyable hour or so at Bridgnorth wandering around between 6023 and 60163 I loved it and I know Dad does, you can really appreciate the size of these things when your allowed to get close under supervision in environment like that. Plus if we want to get those younger than myself involved (the future) having locos like 60163, 46100 etc visit places like the SVR, NYMR can only be a good thing. Totally "unauthentic" but when you see how happy it makes people what price can you put on that?

 

I recall some time circa 2006 I was seeing a woman who lived in York near Holgate Bridge, and one evening we had decided to head out to a pub somewhere up Leeman Road. As we were walking up to the pub, somewhere near where the Transpennine depot is now, a random Deltic zoomed past on the Up line with some sort of charter rake.

Now I'm not old enough to remember Deltics on the main line (even though they were visible from my bedroom window when I was a toddler), and the electrification and signalling were of course completely inauthentic. But on a warm, quiet late summer evening with nobody else in sight, it was a magical moment.

 

What a very silly posting, Was on the I.O.W. today for a private preview prior to the Gala when I.O.W.S.R and E.S.R. members met to socialise and had a very good time. It demonstrates how groups can co-operate to their mutual advantage. 46447 is too long for Wootton headshunt and thus could not be used in regular service. She goes back to Cranmore next week with best wishes.

PH

 

Proust's Madeleines

The slightly metallic smell of a mark 1, the sound of the compressor on a Cig, the ticking of the spirax valves at a depot visit to Toton in the 1980s, the burble of the atomiser on an oil fired ffestiniog engine, the jangle of the wires on the boats in the Harbour and the sound of the flanges on the rails, more musical than a squeal as the train runs down hill in the late afternoon. The light at a European railway station on a summer morning. The booming old fashioned voice that says 'mind the gap', I told my sister that there was a man who lived in a cupboard at the station and it was his job to say 'mind the gap' she believed me and to this day whenever I hear that I smile at the fact my sister believed me.

 

Browsing through the volumes of the Book of the Black 5s it looks as if the ones fitted with speedometers were were allocated to the Midland division at the time, im not sure if that is significant. Could it be that they were more likely to be fostered for express passenger work?

 

I was on The Swanage a few weeks ago.

Due to a failure we had a 33 instead of steam, the coaches were green & the 33 Blue (I think)

Not authentic from the outside at least but it was driven in such a way as to be inside the train a marvellous recreation of the Cardiff to Portsmouth line in about 1980

 

On the subject of Proust’s madeleines. The discussion in the FR thread reminded me that I associate the taste of ready salted crisps with FR buffet cars. I guess it must have been the only flavour they had when I was a child and probably the only time I ever ate them.

So an authentic FR experience is red carriages, green oil fired locos, passing at dduallt and RG, and ready salted crisps. I suspect that if I ever go back to North Wales, the nearest thing to authenticity will be a packet of crisps.

 

They're not the same. Less oily, and with a modern packet you can't see the crisps inside.

 

Plus you don't get the little blue sachet of salt any more ...

Tom

 

Interesting but a little confused viewpoint, the general thrust of which I agree with. But....

'...we passed several modern diesels on shed, again totally not original...' There aren't any 'modern diesels' on the GWR just a nicely restored fleet of heritage locos which reflect a past era of loco hauled trains on UK railways now long gone and representative of the final era of British locomotive building expertise in the 1950s and 60s. The oldest (D5343) will be 60 years old next year and the others are all between 58 and 53 years old. Several are perfectly authentic for the line too (the 20, 37s, 45 and 47) - which leads into the question - should a heritage railway be set to reflect just one point in time? No - to me it should reflect a number of different eras if it can, to broaden its appeal.

 

Hedgehog flavour was but a brief flash in the pan too.

Cross-fertilising @Monkey Magic 's Ffestiniog memories with another thread: I think it's terrible that Port issues tickets on a thermal printer* nowadays. Everyone knows that proper nostalgic Ffestiniog tickets should be printed by dot-matrix on tractor-feed paper, by a computer program written in Apricot Basic.

* someone will be along shortly to say "actually it's laser", I just know it...

 

I would tentatively agree, excepting the 47 in the modern freightliner livery, I really don't like that, far too modern; 1995!

Actually Martin our trains are closer in accuracy length-wise than most! The choice was either a 1 coach autotrain or 7 or 8 coaches, the latter is more practical these days! As for a MN, you could argue it's more authentic on a GW mainline than an SR branchline...

 

Alex, An MN is only authentic if its slipping out of Waterloo at the head of 13 coaches heading for weymouth , or Exeter.

 

We can usually manage the slipping bit... (usually accompanied by a driver yelling "Bloody Southern muck!" )

 

And how about all those Southern Pacifics working to places like Padstow?!

 

Remarks like that young man, will end up with you taking a bath in an oil bath !!

 

You've fallen into the same trap! Time moves swiftly on...that 'modern Freightliner livery' disappeared 20 years ago! Not that I like it much either!

Today is tomorrow's heritage. The only constant is change.

 

And how about all those Southern Pacifics working to places like Padstow?!