A very long shot here, railway people - but a spanner (large for home, small for certain kinds of workshop!) has come into my posession. Stamped 3/4 and 7/8 (not AF, so presumably WW), about a foot long, no makers mark but stamped roughly with hand stamps '200 LYR'. Funny initials for an owner - I wondered about Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
I've cracked it! I asked a friend who is knowledgeable on all things L&Y, and drew a blank. Stretching the imagination could make you believe that LYR refers to the abandoned Longyearbyen mine railway in Spitzbergen. Possibly not... but that is an appealing story.
I have a caliper rescued from scrap at the Inverness locomotive depot, similarly stamped RMK. I was told it had belonged to one Roddy McKenzie. Perhaps your spanner is something similar.
Nor me, but for me that might be influenced by a dislike of the ra-ra fake patriotism that the name is supposed to inspire. I suppose they don't want to retrieve British Railways, British Rail, or BR from the lost property office of history but the 'Great' is totally unnecessary and smacks of Faragism.
Changing the subject completely, here's a short film I've not seen before made at Waterloo in the latter part of the Second World War. It was probably for foreign consumption and goes out of its way to suggest life was able tio carry on more normally than one might imagine.
There's a nice dating touch towards the end when a Merchant Navy appears obviously in black, not green and with the original front end of the 'air-smoothing'.
As someone in a reserved occupation the young railwayman would have been excluded from the armed forces, which is why he is pointedly shown changing into his Home Guard uniform.
One wonders how much the film influenced John Schlesinger's "Terminus" of 1961, also filmed at Waterloo. I note that one of the script writers was the feminist/socialist Jill Craigie, who later became a director in her own right and also the wife of Michael Foot, leader of the Labour Party.
Who on here likes the new Great British Railways livery? Not me, for one!
I don't think it's all that 'great', but the shades of red and blue at least look darker than the erstwhile (and ghastly) Network SouthEast livery. That cannot but be a Good Thing.
Who on here likes the new Great British Railways livery? Not me, for one!
I'm glad they are keeping the familiar barbed wire logo, but livery? That's just cheap packaging. The current Scotrail livery, to my eye, is one of the best ever, looking dignified both close up and at a distance.
It occurred to me that they could have gone back to using some of the Old Colours, preferably without all the fancy spiky bits (which hurt my eyes...), but in a simple two-tone scheme:
1. Red and Cream (aka Blood and Custard!)
2. Green and Cream (like the LNER steam railcars)
3. Garter Blue and Cream
4. Chocolate and Cream
5. Orange and Cream (like railcars in Sweden)
6. Yellow and White (like Lisbon trams)
Yellow ends are de rigeur these days, of course, for the sake of safety, but would go well with any of the above schemes.
I agree that the 'Great' is superfluous and faragist.
TBH I'll tolerate them plastering GREAT BRITISH over everything if it pacifies the flag shaggers and stops them trying to burn people alive.
Well, yes. I hope They (GBR) don't insist on flying Union flags from every staffed station, though.
In all fairness, I don't have a problem with what's left of the railways being re-nationalised, if it leads to better trains and services, and less £££ in the pockets of private companies...
One is that disability regulations require doors to have a certain degree of contrast to everything else. So one could have (for instance) Garter Blue and Cream carriages with red doors. (BTW am I the only one who rather likes the latest East Midland Trains livery?)
The other is that we're still not getting back to a single unified system with infrastructure, trains and everything else all under one roof, so to speak. To my mind it's not a complete nationalisation.
One is that disability regulations require doors to have a certain degree of contrast to everything else. So one could have (for instance) Garter Blue and Cream carriages with red doors. (BTW am I the only one who rather likes the latest East Midland Trains livery?)
The other is that we're still not getting back to a single unified system with infrastructure, trains and everything else all under one roof, so to speak. To my mind it's not a complete nationalisation.
Yes, the doors would have to be in a contrasting and easily-seen colour. Blue and cream with red doors would look attractive, I think!
No unified system as yet, agreed, but isn't that the ultimate aim? Even so, it would still leave room for regional variations.
Over here on the left hand side of the map we see and hear far too much of the boastful MAGA poison, so seeing GREAT on the trains is unpleasant. Surely we can do better than that? One recalls Samuel Johnson: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Apologies for tangent - somewhat sensitive to this topic.
Over here on the left hand side of the map we see and hear far too much of the boastful MAGA poison, so seeing GREAT on the trains is unpleasant. Surely we can do better than that? One recalls Samuel Johnson: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Apologies for tangent - somewhat sensitive to this topic.
Point taken, but it may also be a throwback to the days when many British railway companies had the word 'Great' in their official name.
The LNWR had two very patriotic locomotives called "Greater Britain" and "Queen Empress". As they were Webb compound 2-2-2-2s, the names were divided across the two driving wheel splashers.
The LNWR had two very patriotic locomotives called "Greater Britain" and "Queen Empress". As they were Webb compound 2-2-2-2s, the names were divided across the two driving wheel splashers.
One of the L&NWR engines was red and the other was cream - my maternal grandfather saw them on the main line past his school in Pinner in 1895 or so (he was born in 1886). He said there was a blue one too, but I read somewhere that they decided they would make do with the standard black.
[...] The uncoupled driving wheels were problematic as the two pairs of wheels could be rotating in opposite directions on starting, if a locomotive had previously backed onto its train. The arrangement appears to have been adopted due to lack of space [...]
Webb didn't like coupling the driving wheels together on his passenger compounds, so nearly all of them were 2-2-0s or (later) 2-2-2-2s. His last design, the "Jubilees", were 4-4-0s.
However his goods compound locomotives were eight-coupled; and his simple locomotives such as the "Precedents" or the "Cauliflower Goods" were coupled.
I agree with him! The question though is whether this is Boris boosterism (i.e. "the great railways of Britain") or a statement of fact ("the railways of Great Britain"). I suspect the former!
I seem to remember seeing 1950s footage showing BOAC and BEA aircraft taxiing in after landing, flying a Union Flag from the cockpit. Perhaps train drivers should hoist a flag as they enter a terminus.
No, no - under faragism, the flags will already be there...
There were several pre-grouping railways with 'Great' in their title (and the GW, of course, continued with it - they had to, or Brunel and Gooch would have come back to haunt them...), to wit:
Great Western
Great Eastern
Great Northern
Great Central
Great North of Scotland
...and over the sea in Ireland they had:
Great Northern of Ireland
Great Southern & Western
Midland Great Western
...followed post-grouping in 1925 by:
Great Southern Railways (not a typo - that was the official name)
I can only come up with one major railway using the word 'Grand' in its name - the Grand Junction Railway from Manchester to Birmingham, from 1846 part of the LNWR.
Can any of you think of any other 'Greats' or 'Grands'?
Exactly. This is why I like Scotrail's public face so much. Its slogan, "Scotland's Railway", implies a sense of ownership and does it in a dignified manner.
AIUI, there was some talk of combining all Scottish railways into one entity around the time of the grouping in 1923, but, as you know, they were divided up between the LMS and the LNER.
I wonder if the combined system would have been called 'Great Scottish', or something similar?
Can any of you think of any other 'Greats' or 'Grands'?
Great Indian Peninsula Railway, Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway (not UK of course!)
Ah yes - and there was also the Great Southern of Spain, an English company originally, with some lovely British-built 2-6-0s (broad-gauge, of course, and perhaps looking more Irish than English!).
AIUI, there was some talk of combining all Scottish railways into one entity around the time of the grouping in 1923, but, as you know, they were divided up between the LMS and the LNER.
I wonder if the combined system would have been called 'Great Scottish', or something similar?
Reading the Rails of Sheffield emails is a bad habit, I know, but it can be interesting. Are there any collectors among the brethren gathered here who can explain why Wrenn 00 models are going for such bizarre prices? Today there is what appears to be the old Hornby Dublo N2, a poor caricature of a model and the worse for being painted in Southern Railway colours, for sale at £795. I am sure that when new it was a fraction of a tithe of that amount, and there are other Wrenn models for around £600. What can their attraction be?
Edited to note that there is also a Wrenn A4 for £995.
Reading the Rails of Sheffield emails is a bad habit, I know, but it can be interesting. Are there any collectors among the brethren gathered here who can explain why Wrenn 00 models are going for such bizarre prices? Today there is what appears to be the old Hornby Dublo N2, a poor caricature of a model and the worse for being painted in Southern Railway colours, for sale at £795. I am sure that when new it was a fraction of a tithe of that amount, and there are other Wrenn models for around £600. What can their attraction be?
Edited to note that there is also a Wrenn A4 for £995.
It's a mystery to me, too. About 20 years ago, I knew a chap who had a collection of Wrenn locomotives, and wanted to sell them. He was asking what seemed even at that time ridiculous prices - £70 or so - but without success.
AIUI, they were simply the former Hornby-Dublo 2-rail models, with tension-lock couplings, and (as you say) some weird liveries. Each to their own, but I don't see the attraction.
Reading the Rails of Sheffield emails is a bad habit, I know, but it can be interesting. Are there any collectors among the brethren gathered here who can explain why Wrenn 00 models are going for such bizarre prices? Today there is what appears to be the old Hornby Dublo N2, a poor caricature of a model and the worse for being painted in Southern Railway colours, for sale at £795. I am sure that when new it was a fraction of a tithe of that amount, and there are other Wrenn models for around £600. What can their attraction be?
Edited to note that there is also a Wrenn A4 for £995.
It's a mystery to me, too. About 20 years ago, I knew a chap who had a collection of Wrenn locomotives, and wanted to sell them. He was asking what seemed even at that time ridiculous prices - £70 or so - but without success.
I don't really get 'collecting', but long long ago (late 1950s) I had a three rail Hornby Dublo 0-6-2 tank that was painted in GWR colours, i.e. plain green with GWR written on the tanks, and with a GWR safety valve cover. I think it dated from the 1940s/early 1950s. It produced an effect of looking a bit like something from South Wales. I have seen, back in those days, the same tank in LMS livery, plain black with an LMS number, and I would not be surprised if there was a Southern one produced at the same time.
The first post war tranche of Hornby Dublo locomotives were a blue LNER Sir Nigel Gresley, no. 7, without the valance, a red LMS pacific, Duchess of Atholl without smoke deflectors, even though no LMS Pacific were still painted red after the war, and the LNER tank, but in more than one livery. In due course, these were updated into BR liveries, and the exLMS Pacific acquired smoke deflectors and a new name, Duchess of Montrose.
So I suppose my question is, is the one offered for £795 a Wrenn repro one, or an original Hornby Dublo one, either still three rail or possibly converted two? If it is an original, I can see why to collect it might be valuable. If a repro one, do such things have an independent value if very few of that run were ever made?
Am I right in thinking that the A4, the Duchess and the N2 were retooled at some point in the 1950s?
I agree about the South Wales "look" except that the GW-style safety valve covers only appeared on Barry/Rhymney Railway locos that were rebuilt with tapered boilers. So, paradoxically, the original N2 style body might have been more appropriate for a GWR liverr!
To be fair to the original Hornby versions, despite the crude detail the overall dimensions and scale were not bad at all, a constant source of grief to those of us who owned the Triang Princess - a hopeless case at any distance.
Randomly, you lot will know more about this than me. I've been selling off my childhood Hornby stuff (it's not been used in 40 years, and the layout is long gone), and two startling things happened. One was that I managed to identify what the six-driver (can't say coupled as it had no rods) Airfix chassis was from within about 30 seconds (a GWR Prairie), and the second was that two people bid on it!
One day the proceeds may go towards a tiny Thaxted...
Apropos modelling, I've been doing a bit of tweaking of the scenic effects on a couple of my little 00 shelf layouts - more like 3D Impressionist paintings than anything else - and have enjoyed using some really old Britains white metal trees. These are actually two-dimensional - that is, flat! - but are pretty accurate renditions of the prototypes, and go well at the back of the layouts, against the backscene.
They can often be found on eBay, but are (I admit) not exactly cheap.
Comments
I have a caliper rescued from scrap at the Inverness locomotive depot, similarly stamped RMK. I was told it had belonged to one Roddy McKenzie. Perhaps your spanner is something similar.
Changing the subject completely, here's a short film I've not seen before made at Waterloo in the latter part of the Second World War. It was probably for foreign consumption and goes out of its way to suggest life was able tio carry on more normally than one might imagine.
There's a nice dating touch towards the end when a Merchant Navy appears obviously in black, not green and with the original front end of the 'air-smoothing'.
As someone in a reserved occupation the young railwayman would have been excluded from the armed forces, which is why he is pointedly shown changing into his Home Guard uniform.
I don't think it's all that 'great', but the shades of red and blue at least look darker than the erstwhile (and ghastly) Network SouthEast livery. That cannot but be a Good Thing.
I'm glad they are keeping the familiar barbed wire logo, but livery? That's just cheap packaging. The current Scotrail livery, to my eye, is one of the best ever, looking dignified both close up and at a distance.
1. Red and Cream (aka Blood and Custard!)
2. Green and Cream (like the LNER steam railcars)
3. Garter Blue and Cream
4. Chocolate and Cream
5. Orange and Cream (like railcars in Sweden)
6. Yellow and White (like Lisbon trams)
Yellow ends are de rigeur these days, of course, for the sake of safety, but would go well with any of the above schemes.
I agree that the 'Great' is superfluous and faragist.
Well, yes. I hope They (GBR) don't insist on flying Union flags from every staffed station, though.
In all fairness, I don't have a problem with what's left of the railways being re-nationalised, if it leads to better trains and services, and less £££ in the pockets of private companies...
One is that disability regulations require doors to have a certain degree of contrast to everything else. So one could have (for instance) Garter Blue and Cream carriages with red doors. (BTW am I the only one who rather likes the latest East Midland Trains livery?)
The other is that we're still not getting back to a single unified system with infrastructure, trains and everything else all under one roof, so to speak. To my mind it's not a complete nationalisation.
I wonder what will happen in stations run by Scotrail and Transport for Wales?
Yes, the doors would have to be in a contrasting and easily-seen colour. Blue and cream with red doors would look attractive, I think!
No unified system as yet, agreed, but isn't that the ultimate aim? Even so, it would still leave room for regional variations.
Yes, though I prefer cream to white (or is that a very light grey?).
Point taken, but it may also be a throwback to the days when many British railway companies had the word 'Great' in their official name.
Re. "Great" - don't forget the Railway Children: https://tinyurl.com/2aa4k57h
One of the L&NWR engines was red and the other was cream - my maternal grandfather saw them on the main line past his school in Pinner in 1895 or so (he was born in 1886). He said there was a blue one too, but I read somewhere that they decided they would make do with the standard black.
To be honest, this is the first time I've heard of 2-2-2-2s. Seems like a strange concept.
ETA: Wiki on compound locos has this:
However his goods compound locomotives were eight-coupled; and his simple locomotives such as the "Precedents" or the "Cauliflower Goods" were coupled.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/11/great-british-rail-boris-johnson-brexit
I seem to remember seeing 1950s footage showing BOAC and BEA aircraft taxiing in after landing, flying a Union Flag from the cockpit. Perhaps train drivers should hoist a flag as they enter a terminus.
There were several pre-grouping railways with 'Great' in their title (and the GW, of course, continued with it - they had to, or Brunel and Gooch would have come back to haunt them...), to wit:
Great Western
Great Eastern
Great Northern
Great Central
Great North of Scotland
...and over the sea in Ireland they had:
Great Northern of Ireland
Great Southern & Western
Midland Great Western
...followed post-grouping in 1925 by:
Great Southern Railways (not a typo - that was the official name)
I can only come up with one major railway using the word 'Grand' in its name - the Grand Junction Railway from Manchester to Birmingham, from 1846 part of the LNWR.
Can any of you think of any other 'Greats' or 'Grands'?
Exactly. This is why I like Scotrail's public face so much. Its slogan, "Scotland's Railway", implies a sense of ownership and does it in a dignified manner.
I wonder if the combined system would have been called 'Great Scottish', or something similar?
Ah yes - and there was also the Great Southern of Spain, an English company originally, with some lovely British-built 2-6-0s (broad-gauge, of course, and perhaps looking more Irish than English!).
Great Scott!
I gather that TPTB thought that a single company just operating all the railways in Scotland would not be financially viable, even in 1923.
Edited to note that there is also a Wrenn A4 for £995.
It's a mystery to me, too. About 20 years ago, I knew a chap who had a collection of Wrenn locomotives, and wanted to sell them. He was asking what seemed even at that time ridiculous prices - £70 or so - but without success.
Some models (or liveries) were produced in very small numbers, which may explain high prices.
The first post war tranche of Hornby Dublo locomotives were a blue LNER Sir Nigel Gresley, no. 7, without the valance, a red LMS pacific, Duchess of Atholl without smoke deflectors, even though no LMS Pacific were still painted red after the war, and the LNER tank, but in more than one livery. In due course, these were updated into BR liveries, and the exLMS Pacific acquired smoke deflectors and a new name, Duchess of Montrose.
So I suppose my question is, is the one offered for £795 a Wrenn repro one, or an original Hornby Dublo one, either still three rail or possibly converted two? If it is an original, I can see why to collect it might be valuable. If a repro one, do such things have an independent value if very few of that run were ever made?
I agree about the South Wales "look" except that the GW-style safety valve covers only appeared on Barry/Rhymney Railway locos that were rebuilt with tapered boilers. So, paradoxically, the original N2 style body might have been more appropriate for a GWR liverr!
https://railsofsheffield.com/search?q=wrenn&options[prefix]=last
To be fair to the original Hornby versions, despite the crude detail the overall dimensions and scale were not bad at all, a constant source of grief to those of us who owned the Triang Princess - a hopeless case at any distance.
The Triang Princess was awful, but they made up for it with later models (apart from their travesty of a 350hp diesel shunter).
One day the proceeds may go towards a tiny Thaxted...
Apropos modelling, I've been doing a bit of tweaking of the scenic effects on a couple of my little 00 shelf layouts - more like 3D Impressionist paintings than anything else - and have enjoyed using some really old Britains white metal trees. These are actually two-dimensional - that is, flat! - but are pretty accurate renditions of the prototypes, and go well at the back of the layouts, against the backscene.
They can often be found on eBay, but are (I admit) not exactly cheap.
I don't think I have the scale for the 3/4 of a mile between station and town!
I like you even more for it.