esngblog

We moved to Redhill from Camberwell in 1986, and in those days Redhill station was a far more interesting place than it is now.  These pictures were taken in 1990, when I would take the train-mad Michael (age 4) to the station on Saturday morning for an hour or so to watch the trains go by.

Even the Gatwick to Reading DMU’s were fairly interesting!

The best spot of any visit was a 47 in Mainline Intercity livery.  These ran round their train when operating the Brighton to (I think) Newcastle service.  I think this is what is happening here, but with the loco named ‘Royal Mail’, it may be a mail or parcels train!  I always thought that this livery suited the 47’s very well indeed.

Other liveries were available.   A Railfreight Distribution 47 distributing a single wagon southwards.

Another good spot was a handsome red Rail Express Systems loco.

A plain blue 47 shunts parcel stock into the sidings now removed for ‘Platform 0’.

Class 33’s were also regulars.  One is seen above and below in the rather unflattering general grey livery.  Even Network SouthEast toothpaste looked better than this!

Also common were Class 73 electro-diesels.  Here are two again in general grey.  Somewhere I must have pictures of them in their pomp – in Gatwick Express livery.  In the background is a rake of oil tankers, pulled out of the oil distribution depot siding to the south between Earlswood and Redhill.  This facility is now long gone, but the pipework for unloading tankers can still be seen by the track.

Looking at these pictures, apart from the buildings having changed in the background, the big difference is the lack of buddleia and trees that now block this view from the car park. 

Also missing from these pictures (I’m sure I’ve got some shots somewhere) are Class 37’s on the weekly coal train and placing tankers in the siding south of the station.  Plus the interesting selection of EMU’s, including the excellent ‘Jaffa cake’ livery, and MLV’s in Jaffa and also Post Office red running into the mail siding at Redhill.

Simon sent me some good photos of his weekend in a Toad (brake van or caboose to our overseas readers) last weekend…..

A few photos of our stay in a Toad at Northiam last weekend, including a spiffing meal on the Wealden Pullman in an SR boat train diner on Sunday.  The Toad brake wheel seems to have been repurposed as a table.

Good to see Mile’s plaque again.

A few more pictures….

A 4-LAV at Hassocks, near Brighton.

Redhill in 1985….

A few years earlier, an EPB enters Redhill…

Snow at St Helier station and overgrown track on the Lehigh Valley…

And now for the wagons.  Just a photo-dump, really.  Engineers wagons are often an interesting breed, sometimes being old rolling stock, like the ex-SR brake van, and sometimes rebuild, like the Rudd on old hopper wagon chassis.

A Seacow..

Not to be confused with a Sealion!

A Salmon….

Not to be confused with a Brill…

And an unidentified species!

A very shiny Rudd.  New or recently maintained, as it will soon be as dented and rusty as the others!

A Dace…

A Crab….

And a Seal…

A Bass…

Don’t tell them your name, Pike!

A veritable shoal of open wagons….

An interesting one, a Squid.  Is it really this colour, or has all the paint dropped off?

And finally a Flatrol (otherwise known as a Lowmac?)

You could have a lot of fun modelling all of these.  A fair bit of scratch building needed, I suspect.   We’ll move onto the Redhill pictures next.

The next set of photos come from an open day at Three Bridges CMD.  I had no idea when these were taken, except that they were filed with the other Redhill pictures.  But Google told me that the shunter 09009 was named ‘Three Bridges CED’ on 27/08/1990.  Google maps aerial photos show the electricity pylons that are in the background of some shots.  So that’s when they must have been taken.  I really can’t remember going there, or why I went!!!!  So here’s the locomotive in question, all spruced up and ready to be named.

And some underframe detail.  Bet that didn’t stay white for long!

A general view of the yard.

And pictures of the cranes on display…

And one hard at work….

A luminous tank wagon…

Some modern but battered vans….

And a rather nice, if rather tired, ex-Southern Railway brake van…

Next post will have lots of pictures of fishy wagons – engineers wagons named after sea life (a bit like Scottish National Party leaders) for the uninitiated.

Hunting (successfully) for interesting pictures of my daughter ready for the wedding, I came across a number of railway shots.  A lot come from Redhill, but there are some wider afield.  Todays selection start with a visit to Lahore, Pakistan, in 1990, for a water supply project.  An interesting trip, in the days when Pakistan was fairly safe to visit – I drove myself to work and there was an American Club that flew in all its corn-fed beef and chicken.  And Budweiser to drink that was even worse than the Murree beer brewed in-country specially for non-Muslim expatriates.  

The first two pictures are of an old locomotive and coach parked, if I remember correctly, next the station that I passed most days to and from work.

The next two are taken from the Railway Club golf course.  I walked round the course with a colleague and (mis)hit the occasional shot.  The railway ran next the golf course, and the bird watching was good – Hoopoes in the bunkers, and a stack of vultures circling overhead to penalise slow play.  You didn’t go in the heavy rough, in case of snakes, but you could pay a small boy a few rupees to get it for you and throw it back into the middle of the fairway.  Even I could play golf like that!

Driving to work, I crossed a modern hump-back bridge over the railway.  It had obviously been modernised and raised to clear the overhead on the railway, but the approaches had also become rather steeper.  Or perhaps it was originally a level crossing.  A likely true story going round was that a donkey pulling a load of steel reinforcement couldn’t make it to the top, and lay down and died.  A young gentleman driving his BMW sportscar at high speed on the wrong side of the road flew over the hump and was terminally impaled on the reinforcement.  The picture below gives you the idea (of the donkey.)

The second set of pictures are from a work visit nearer home.  Cuxton, next to the Medway estuary near the Medway bridge.  A fine old signal box and signals, and a ‘Jaffa Cake’ liveried EMU.  And a load of condemned hoppers parked on a siding.

After a totally hectic week, culminating yesterday by cutting the lawn with our new lawnmower before today’s rain arrived, I settled down this morning recover with some strong coffee and to watch the coronation.  (Yes, I know it’s no-mow May, but if I left it I’d have been flushing out the water buffalo.  I’ve left some long areas wild.)  I’d class myself as a mild royalist – I’ve dipped into the procession and watched the ceremony (partly to catch Welby’s sermon) until Charles was pronounced king – but would never considering going to London to see any of it all.  But I enjoy the pageant and style of the whole thing and some excellent music.

As for model railways, my approach at the moment is rather summed up by these two videos – a bit random and difficulty in making things work.  All in Bahasa Indonesia, but brilliant pictures of rickety sugar-cane railways.  I was surprised at how much Bahasa I identified, not having been in Java since 2017.   His whole channel is a fun watch.  The trackwork is even worse than ESNG at it’s best….

Well, still hunting for the wedding suit, but the new lawnmower is on order – just in time for no mow May.  A lot of time has also been spent planning what to take to the NCI Stuttgart meet in November, and rearranging the exhibits for our September show, to squeeze in another trader.

So the next couple of weeks may be a little short on posts, but I’ll be back.

I’ve seen this done in the larger scales, but perhaps not in ‘N’?

My only continental models are a box of these UK army express carriages….

How to use up those bits of flexitrack?

A little bit of forgotten railway history….

I must have another go at these couplings.  I failed when I tried before!

And here’ #1 bride, still in Berlin and looking pensive, with her glamorous assistants.  (Who won’t be at the wedding, as could you trust them in the Barbican Conservatory, with all those trees?)