The Golden Arrow, 9th-11th October.

The timings for Day 1 now on RTT:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U63877/2015/10/09/advanced

Change to original plan. Not going via Canterbury and Deal.

 

Due to be hauled by 70000 according to
Icons of Steam.

 

A rather early start. Do hope all booked on it can get up in time for that!

Shame it's not following the via Tonbridge route. But as it's due to pass very close to home I may go out and see it. I can just remember the days when 70004 or 70014 used to haul the Arrow.

 

Remember seeing 70004 on the Arrow. Don't know whether fact or fiction, but I read somewhere that the name 'Britannia' was suggested by the doyen of railway photographers - Rev. Eric Treacy.

 

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An interesting article but I don't think the times are correct, probably some confusion with English and French time. There's no way the outbound arrival in Dover to Departure from Calais could have been 1hr 25mins. The reverse journey 2hrs 10mins looks more accurate, unless it's uphill!!

Wanted to be on board on this weekend but could not avoid other conflicts.

 

Crikey. What year was that? Surely in the 1950's before the electrics took over? Happy to say I was a very little toddler then. Were you too? Just curious as your experiences in the heyday of Southern steam is without parallel on this site.

 

Big Brother Don has a lot more than me, he was my mentor and "tour leader" back then. He's just a bit busy writing books about those days and for HR at present to post much detail here.

I was just about out of short trousers, I think, when the last steam Golden Arrow ran in June 1961.

I have posted the photo of that last up run here before, it's from a Brownie 127 and in very bad light so very poor. But I still remember taking it and very pleased now that I did. Who would have thought back then I would be posting it anywhere 54 years later! Not a Brit by then, but a rebuilt Bulleid.

34101, Appledore, (or applecore as we used to call it!), drifting down the grade to Bromley South.



I still feel sorry for those the other side of the bridge who got blocked by the emu, itself now long gone into history. Big Brother Don made me stand the side of the bridge I was because he said I'd get less blurr from the 1/25 second shutter speed by being more head on! Good man then, damn good man now.

 

its a pity the IOS cant renumber 70000 as one of the southern Brits for the day or are they i hope its running with the full Regalia .

 

Brownie 127 was my first camera too. I bought it in 1961 and got similar results as yours of the last Golden Arrow. Just a thought, do you think the Stewart Lane drivers were over the moon at never having to get their hands dirty again?? Or perhaps there was a tingle of sadness that it was all gone overnight?

 

A thought that has only just crossed my mind:- considering how unhappy the French were that before the opening of St Pancras International, the Eurostars ran to a terminus in London named after one of their most important military defeats, it's interesting that one of the two Brits allocated to 73A for this prestigious working was named after the victor of the said battle! Pity the other one couldn't have been 70008 rather than 70004. I don't think the Black Prince was exactly flavour of the month in France after the battles of Crécy and Poitiers during the mid-14th Century

 

Too kind. I am actually a drunken lecherous layabout!. Here is my shot of the down GA in its last week with steam. The times varied and for a while it was 2pm ex Victoria. I think that's when it was worked by the Brits.

Don

 

The very thing happened in 1994, 70000 as 70014 .

 

I think that is the very bridge I first saw the "Arrer" in the summer of 1956 and the grand old age of 9, when much against her better judgement my mother let me go spotting with a friend and his two older brothers. We lived near Grove Park at the time. I can still remember the sight of an immaculate 70004 passing by and so I caught the steam bug in its most chronic form for which, I'm pleased to say there is no known cure.

 

70004 and 70014 were at Stewarts Lane from June 1951 to Sept 1958 for working the Golden Arrow. I think it was then a Merchant Navy turn, two being allocated to The Lane until May 1959 when light pacifics took over.

 

Winter 59/60 Victoria 1300 Folkestone 1438/1510 Calais 1740/1802 Paris 2140. 7h 40

I thought Stewarts Lane had 35001/27/28 but possibly not at the same time, and there was some swapping around when they were rebuilt.

I was standing on the Dulwich cricket field between Herne Hill and West Dulwich for a proportion of my misspent youth. One of the highlights was the up Night Ferry often with an E1 (31019 or 67) and a Merchant.

 

Yes SL had three MNs for most of the 50s permed from the three above plus 35015.

 

I think the Bulleid Pacific would have been a WC or BB, the Night Ferry usually ran via Maidtone East where MNs were barred. The E1 was needed for getting the heavy train up Bearsted Bank

 

You are right I overlooked 35015 which I can't understand it was a picture cop in my ABC

 

Have seen a MN on it coming through Bromley South. With a 4-4-0 on the front. Might have been a weekend working when the normal route wasn't followed. I wouldn't normally have seen it during weekdays.

I have what I think is a Brownie 127 neg somewhere, possibly my first every photo, with a very blurred MN part way out of frame!