Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

It seemed to survive until 1969 in North Yorkshire in another programme, and with some remarkable survivors... S15's and N2 tanks I recall!

 

What yer mean Eek?.........

Its staying yellow, end of.

If you want it in any other colour, you'll have to cross the owners palm with lots of silver, tins of paint & plenty of man hours - because that's the only way it'll change!

 

In my experience this was not impossible even in the late 80s/early 90s, or maybe that was just on the days they were filming Morse

 

A brief preview clip for tomorrow nights Endeavour has been posted on Twitter. Is that Mr Bentley driving the Class 33?
https://twitter.com/EndeavourTV/status/964884700354547718


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Difficult to tell...I'm not going to ask him just now as he is on honeymoon at the moment!

 

That is Mr Bentley - the peak cap is a give away - that and his look of concentration!

 

Yesterday was the first working day at the railway for me this year, when it hasn't been cold and wet. The trains were back to normal running and there was a little sun which allowed me to take my coat off, for the first time in a long time. the Ivatt was on the Alton set and 45231 was on the Alresford set.

 

Enjoying tonights Morse episode so far, the railway features in quite a few scenes. Where were the abandoned station shots filmed? They made it look really authentic for the era and it had clearly once been a busy station.

 

Quainton Road (aka Buckinghamshire Railway Centre). Some of the other scenes were filmed in front of one of the restoration sheds there too.

Andy

 

Yes the body was found at Quainton Road, not Ropley...which of course DID have a body discovered there in a Midsomer Murders episode. I think that also featured 92212.
76017 looked particularly nice in the night scenes, nicely lit (atmospheric)

 

How many stations in Oxfordshire were ever painted in SR green?

 

Does it really matter, though? If you want to be pedantic, the supposed date of the events was June 1968, by which time all the Bulleid's had gone and steam was on its last legs. It didn't detract from the enjoyment of the story in any way. What did detract for me was the usual screen depiction of railway enthusiasts as obsessives, simpletons and loners.

 

I'm with you. It doesnt really matter, and I thought the railway looked very good, and it was actually refreshing that they used the diesel as that would be more "in period". I am totally with you that the screen depiction of the railway enthusiast was a big issue. Actually I thought the whole script was pretty woeful. The arrogant "robbery squad" were another stereotype, probably as equally inaccurate as the trainspotter = psychopath one. The plot was thin, and the development of it non-existent. The motivation of the trainspotting psychopath was not really explored, and the solution of the case was pure chance. I wondered at several points who in fact where the main characters. It was more like a soap opera at times. The "look and feel" was as good as ever, and the railway liberties taken were acceptable to a large degree, but I thought the script wasnt a patch on previous Endeavour series or Lewis and certainly not Morse.

 

I really enjoyed the episode. I wasn't sure what to make of the ending though.
My take is that the Stationmaster was the man murdering the young girls and the "eccentric" enthusiast knew what he had been doing due to spending so much time at and around the railway and went to tell his wife who then attacked the enthusiast in self defence. The enthusiast kept a scrapbook as he knew who was carrying out the murders. He also found the schoolgirls prefect badge whilst out walking. Perhaps we might get an answer in one of the next episodes as there was no motive to why the enthusiast was killing the girls.

Also I read an interview with the show creator and writer who said the MHR was supposed to represent the Varsity line between Cambridge and Oxford which closed in 1967.

 

A couple of glimpses of the overgrown linear scrapyard; not sure they were ubiquitous in 1968.

 

To my certain knowledge, yards at Horsham and Plumstead had them! A bit earlier (and slightly diferently), one line on the Ardingly branch was used to store 4VEPs ahead of introduction, whilst there are quite a few photos showing both Horsted Keynes and East Grinstead, which were used to "store" locos awaiting their fate in LBSCR days. Ditto sidings on the Steyning line which seem to have been habitually used for C&W kit awaiting the call to Lancing works.

Several locos requisitioned for WD use during WWII languished for a good while after use around locations like the Longmoor Military Rly once hostilities ceased, many never again turning a wheel in anger.

Lines of 'winterised' O2's lurked around nooks and crannies on the Isle of Wight in BR days and there exist many photos of the sad line of condemned O2's awaiting the torch at Newport in 1966/67 and derelict wagonry occupied sidings on the Freshwater line for years ahead of closure, whilst St.Helen's on the Bembridge branch was for decades where redundant IoW C&W kit (and at least one ex-IWC Terrier) went to die.

At Machynlleth, a semi-permanent line of derelict vans were positioned to obscure the stored Corris locos between 1947 and 1951.

They do say there's a prototype for just about everything!

 

Linear scrapyards were quite common in the sixties. Whole branch lines were used to store wagons awaiting disposal. There were quite a few loco dumps, as well, not just at Barry. Boness was a well-known one.

 

Kingscote as well in the late fifties after closure, where the up line was used to store rows of condemned wagons - very linear.

Tom

 

If you mean when he was walking past the linear scrap yard that was on the line he had just travelled over in the train as the linear scrap yard attracted his attention. I don't think they showed the rail head at quaiton road but I'm happy to be corrected.