Jubilees (plus other off topic meanderings which includes cats, stone roses and commers)

Double chimney Bahamas ???............Pah, I'll take a single chimney Jubilee any day of the week.................................and lets not forget the mighty 45581 B&O

 

Not forgetting Mars and Dauntless also... regular Calder Valley locos

 

This was a favourite in London, seemed to be used a lot so obviously in good nick often seen on shed at Willesden. I took this as I got off a Bakerloo Line train at Watford Junction in 1962. It was awaiting the right away with a Birmingham - Euston train.
Our mission was to bunk Watford shed hoping to see the 2Ps allocated there.

 

You forgot Glorious.........

 

And the Buxton commuter train favourite 45705 Seahorse

 

B&O and Seahorse. Happy days and memories come flooding back.

 

Mills churning out smoke...proper fog..acid rain..black stained grit buildings..being caned at school ... certainly happy days..oh and Commer 2 strokes...

 

A decent engine, the TS3. A bit noisy but . . .

 

I've a lot of experience on TS3's (Commer 2 strokes), coming over the Brecon Beacons on a dark snowy night the TS3 decided to de coke itself, hell, it was like Vesuvius erupting, I was only a young lad, I didn't know what was happening, so I shut it down and waited for it to cool down. I was told when I got home I SHOULD have revved the nuts off it and let it give itself a good clean out.

 

Those that knew Bihar & Orissa will never forget it as long as they breathe. A legend to rival Scotsman.

 

What a perceptive idea!

Aesthetically before 1903 under Jonson the old Midland Railway was something quite remarkable and might well have managed to leave some echo in J K Rowlings's imagination.

It is difficult to convey just how impressively beautiful its locomotives and the trains behind them were and they were not gaudy but very well proportioned, beautifully finished - the locomotive paint
specification was 13 coats of paint and varnish, among which which the actual Midland Red was one coat under the varnish and translucent enough to be affected by several coats of reddish undercoat beneath which gave depth to the effect - very well cleaned to an apogee in the 1890s. The rolling stock also went very well as locomotives, the carriages were spacious - third class compartments sat 4 on each side versus five or six elsewhere, indeed often five and a gap now - comfortable and riding well. Indeed it was not unsuccessful as an overall business and had a crisis basically because it attracted more traffic than it could well cope with: modern overall management analysis squeezed out how fine it had been to behold.

"With a tall chimney": boilers grew too big for any length of funnel to get under the loading gauge: they were pitched up to bulge over coupled wheels and they simply grew in diameter. The proprtions were not the same afterwards. I am not surprised given it was a modern steam locomotive that J K Rowling chose something with a Swindon No 1 boiler, it simply had the longest chimney likely and was not obscured by smoke deflectors - moving to airflow effects, with some length between the chimney cap and a small diameter smoke box front the GWR never came to require smoke deflecting plates. Also despite despite Churchwards pretty ruthless early angularity and reduction of the painting to two coats in the erecting shop - presumably to lose the paint shop - the bright metal was kept; copper chimney cap, brass safety valve cover & splasher trim which probably helped to ensure some survival of good cleaning. Large boilers were unavoidable: one obvious solution to more traffic was longer, heavier trains but at the same time to provide passenger amenities not just corridors, lavatories, heavier dining cars needing washing up water for more than one sitting, they acquired "all modern retarders" steam heat & dynamos - ie train weight went up at the same time as train resistance. (Larger boilers eventually showed as advanced disproportion in the chimney atop a Baby Scot - though they went well, especially after having taken a little time to warm up, whatever they looked like. Personally I quite understand the outcry against Churchward's new look which included Patrick Stirling in person and is attested by Holcroft who was set to mitigate it but handsome is as handsome does: City of Truro may not compare for elegance with a Dean single but how very well a No 4 boiler would steam - either on a City or the remarkable and recurrent exploits by 43xx 2-6-0s.)

 

Would it beat 45611 Hong Kong leaving Kettering for St Pancras. Please see photo ,Boxing day 1956.

 

Regarding the Midland Red, I have been told that the 'alternative' name, Crimson Lake is a 'contraction' of Crimson Lacquer, which would be a translucent coat. I understand that Burrell showmans engines were 'undercoated' in blue prior to the Crimson lake finish coat and varnish.

 

Why was 45581 a legend? Is it because it was the last one at Farnley Jct? Was it a particularly strong loco? It's always interesting when particular locos are favourites. What makes it more legendary than 45565 for example?

 

Hearing Bihar and Orissa going from Huddersfield up to Standedge was something rather special, I believe.

 

A question for any of the old hands who may have worked on them. Performance wise was there any difference between the earlier engines with vertical throatplate short fire boxes and the later ones with long firebox?

 

Not sure where you got that from.

"Lake" usually refers to a pigment made from an organic compound as apposed something like vermillion which comes from a mineral. Crimson lake was traditionally made using a substance called Carminic Acid found in the Cochineal Beetle.

Not all "Lake" colours have the word lake after them, just to make them easy to spot.

 

It had a reputation as a good ‘un. There was even an article on the loco in one of the mags a few years ago. Railway World from memory.

 

As I posted, it is what I have 'Heard' (Been told?) maybe I was told eroneously, but I have seen old blue undercoat on a Burrell belly tank which was finished in what Burrells referred to as Crimson Lake.

 

Well B&O cost Huddersfield station a cat. B&O , from a standing start at Hillhouse with a Footex special gave the station a damn good rattling and the aforementioned cat was seen running and terrified, never to be seen again. The good people of Huddersfield could hear B&O for a long time going up the valley to Standedge.
All the Jubilees gave good service and towards the end, exceptional service.