4449 the story

I doubt they had any plans to repair the mk2s. Scrap them after 10 years and buy some mk3s instead was probably what they were thinking!

 

Guys. I have to stop this. Everything I'm reading is making me ill. I will not be able to sleep, with all of this wizzing around in my mind, I will not be able to sleep. Talk about reopening old wounds.

 

And either get a generating van or a ETHEL, or withdraw all the steam engines and use class 33, 37 or 47 to pull all the trains.

 

Do not beat yourself up over this, you were not the one responsible for these rather strange and short sighted policies. It is a shame that much of your efforts were wasted by others!

 

Relax mate, it was a long long time ago, there is nothing that can be achieved by getting wound up about it now.

 

Don't upset yourself John. It's a long time ago . Don't let "them" win!

I know what you mean though. I've been badly affected by all this over the years and I'm only now realising where a lot of my problems came from . I'm actually feeling better for getting it out there having bottled it up fro years

 

I think the problem was that for many years the Mid Hants was run by business people rather than railway people.

For example I think Margaret Parker (arch nemesis of the vintage carriage group at the time!) was the Manager who oversaw the huge influx of Mk2s. Im sure her background was in business, and the Mid Hants was her first experience of running a railway. So she just looked at the figures and decided Mk2s made the most financial sense. People dont care what they travel in so long as there is a steam loco on the front was the attitude.

All in the past now and we have to move on I suppose.

 

exactly, its done, its in the past, you can never change how things turned out,

 

And it was probably inevitable. No one has mentioned the elephant in the room- the fact that, by the late 80s, the MHR was in a dreadful financial state, with an overdraft approaching £1,000,000, major costs still outstanding from the Alton extension, and being dependent on local authority grants just to pay interest. The inevitable happened, an expected large grant failed to materialise, immediate liabilities could not be paid and receivers were due within days. New management was brought in, swingeing and painful cuts were made to expenditure, including paid staff being made redundant and assets were disposed of. All standard stuff for a business faced with a calamity, but without that happening, there might well not be a MHR at all today, irrespective of the type of coaching stock!

 

I can quite see where you are coming from and I agree that some of the things being said are getting rather close to the mark, but I feel that by closing this thread, you would do as much harm to the Forum as by keeping it open.
Could I suggest that, in order to maintain this discussion without causing embarrassment in the public domain, it should be merged with the "MHR Memories" thread in "General Railway Chat"?

 

I remember different coloured sets of that time well, the BSK is 34947 - a original southern region coach ex set531 (I remember thinking they painted a SR coach into Western livery!) and the Blood and Custard RMB is 1807 a coach used briefly by the SR in EMU formations (hence the B$ bogies) - both of these are still on the MHR, the last coach is a SK 25347 - this one moved on to pastures new around 1990.

 

I completely agree . possibly a Moderator could transfer all the non-4449 bits there and leave my story intact

 

Interesting reading about the Mk2s. Some friends of mine got married in Alton the weekend after the Southall crash, which meant that my journey from Slough (where I was living at the time) ended up as a ludicrous detour via Reading and Basingstoke. As a result my planned first trip on the MHR only went half-way, or I'd have missed the wedding. My abiding memory, apart from the loco (506) running without any lettering or numbers, was of travelling in a really shabby Mk2 with tatty NSE upholstery. It put me off going back there for a very long time, I'm afraid.

Interesting thread chaps, and I can see parallels with other railways...


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off topic, but you could have gone to W&E Central, short walk to W&E Riverside and on to the Southern that way...Staines/Clapham Junc/ Alton.... or would that not work?

 

I seem to remember that there was an hourly shuttle on the 'main line' in both directions and it was just a case of getting whatever turned up first. And that the original plan was to get a Waterloo train from Reading but then that line was also shut due to a suicide or something.


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Interesting that all of this about 4449 has come out of the woodwork after all these years. Was a VERY closely guarded secret at the time. I remember 4449 used to be up at M&4M in the cutting the Alton side of the station just after they’d started running to there. It then moved down to Alresford and the rest is history. To me work seemed to have stopped on it before it went to ALR though. I did used to make lists of what was in what siding from time to time and did so after the incident – not sure if I’ve still got the records.


There was another slightly later (80’s) prang which caused extensive damage to about 3 Mk1’s. The 08 had been shunting at ALR and three coaches had been placed in Sun Lane cutting while stock was shunted in the platforms. Once the shunting was thought to be over the 08 set off back to Ropley and smack into the 3 coaches in the cutting which had been forgotten about. IIRC the driver was injured in the incident – bumps & bruises I think rather than anything broken. There was quite a bit of internal damage to the coaches though.

 

I knew I had a picture of 4449 at Alresford, and I think this one is not long after it arrived.

 

and my Imp and......me!


gonna have to steal that.....

 

I'm hoping I'll find more as I go through my negative archives. I've just found one of 31874 just after it arrived from Barry, before restoration started in April 1974!