Heywood was an enthusiastic campanologist, as well as a talented amateur engineer - here's a quote from the Wikipedia article:
Sir Arthur also had a keen interest in campanology (bell ringing) and in 1891 he founded the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers. He often joined the ringers at Duffield St. Alkmund's church where he was a churchwarden and sidesman. In 1887 he augmented St. Alkmund's ring of bells from eight to ten.
Thanks for the information about Sir Arthur Heywood. I know both of the locations fairly well but had never heard of him. Another interesting snippet to add to my local knowledge (I don't think I will be shelling out £££ for the book though).
I also recently learned that Spath, which is not far south of Dove Leys, was the site of the first automated level crossing in the UK. The railway it served is long gone - in fact I think it only lasted a few years after the crossing was installed.
My dad was taken to Spath on a school trip to see the level crossing when it was installed. He was at school in Rocester at the time so it wasn't a massive school trip...
I've got one of the platform benches from Denstone station in my back garden!
ETA: half the family tell me it's from Denstone anyway, I'm tempted to side with the other half who suspect Norbury & Ellastone. It'll be one or the other.
Probably not a railway enthusiast unless he had a remarkable gift of prophecy, but his church is right by the main line, between it and the river, south of Duffield station.
Thanks for the information about Sir Arthur Heywood. I know both of the locations fairly well but had never heard of him. Another interesting snippet to add to my local knowledge (I don't think I will be shelling out £££ for the book though).
I also recently learned that Spath, which is not far south of Dove Leys, was the site of the first automated level crossing in the UK. The railway it served is long gone - in fact I think it only lasted a few years after the crossing was installed.
My dad was taken to Spath on a school trip to see the level crossing when it was installed. He was at school in Rocester at the time so it wasn't a massive school trip...
I bet his class were thrilled.
Nice to have a bit of railway history - did one of your family work for the company, or were the fixtures and fittings being sold off at some point?
Quite a number of half-barriers were installed after Spath, but they were "paused" after the Hixon disaster. The MoT hadn't properly realised the consequences of placing the onus of safety onto drivers rather than on the railways.
Thanks for the information about Sir Arthur Heywood. I know both of the locations fairly well but had never heard of him. Another interesting snippet to add to my local knowledge (I don't think I will be shelling out £££ for the book though).
I also recently learned that Spath, which is not far south of Dove Leys, was the site of the first automated level crossing in the UK. The railway it served is long gone - in fact I think it only lasted a few years after the crossing was installed.
My dad was taken to Spath on a school trip to see the level crossing when it was installed. He was at school in Rocester at the time so it wasn't a massive school trip...
I bet his class were thrilled.
Nice to have a bit of railway history - did one of your family work for the company, or were the fixtures and fittings being sold off at some point?
My family were farmers/landowners in the area. My guess is ‘probably’ the latter….
An Interesting Fact about Duffield - it's not far from Derby, onetime HQ of the Midland Railway, and the district was home to a number of Midland Railway officers.
Congenial neighbours for Heywood, no doubt, and handy for the Works - a number of important expresses stopped at Duffield to accommodate the Company's bigwigs (and friends).
The station is still open, and is nowadays also served by heritage trains of the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway (the former Wirksworth branch).
Are we adding chain drive and oil baths? I think the fire safety officer may have a view…
No, I was thinking more of the *ahem* experimental streamlining applied to one of the Schools class.
Mercifully, I haven't found an online image, but there is an official photo in DL Bradley's Southern Railway Locomotives Volume 1. The thing looked absolutely hideous (the casing was mocked up using plywood!), and, although Bradley doesn't say as much, it's hard not to think that Bulleid was poking fun at the SR directors...
Are we adding chain drive and oil baths? I think the fire safety officer may have a view…
No, I was thinking more of the *ahem* experimental streamlining applied to one of the Schools class.
Mercifully, I haven't found an online image, but there is an official photo in DL Bradley's Southern Railway Locomotives Volume 1. The thing looked absolutely hideous (the casing was mocked up using plywood!), and, although Bradley doesn't say as much, it's hard not to think that Bulleid was poking fun at the SR directors...
Agree re Bulleid’s motivations. The interesting one is actually Collett, who had no time for it at all and famously spent about two minutes with a model and some plasticine before streamlining the few locos the GW did. That was entirely because the directors were ordering him against his wishes, and the results looked odd.
However…
AIUI recent work on LNER streamlining and what the Big Four were up to in the 30s has suggested that Collett was the sort of consummate professional where his half-***** effort was nevertheless technically pretty good!
I understand the logic behind LNER streamlining was that experiments with an A3 at high speed had thrown up an issue of smoke obstruction of the driver's view of signals - the high speed making stopping distances more of an issue. The A4's streamlining threw the smoke away from the driver's line of vision.
Of course, there was a huge fashion fad around streamlining at the time. Manchester even had buses that were supposedly streamlined, although the effect was largely achieved by the bus livery. I don't recall this livery, but in photos it looks rather odd. It was the 'latest thing' and no doubt 'cool' in its day.
I understand the logic behind LNER streamlining was that experiments with an A3 at high speed had thrown up an issue of smoke obstruction of the driver's view of signals - the high speed making stopping distances more of an issue. The A4's streamlining threw the smoke away from the driver's line of vision.
Conversely the "air-smoothed" Bulleid Pacifics in their original form were not only very hard to see out of but also had problems with smoke clinging to the boiler. Both the boiler front and cab were modified more than once to help things along.
I think one of the greatest streamliners was the New York Central Dreyfus-styled Hudson.
Ostensibly at least the speed record run of Mallard was a braking test. I believe that the high-speed 1930s trains were a pain to run as they needed two block sections to be kept clear in front of them. The British choice of vacuum brakes didn't help as it took several seconds for the brakes to come on at the rear of the train (I'd imagine that the "Coronation", being longer and heavier, was harder to stop than the "Silver Jubilee"). Quick-release air brakes would have been much better (the Westinghouse "triple valve") - nowadays brakes are actuated electrically and simultaneously.
While we're talking brakes, one of the reasons that the Polmont train accident was so bad (a push-pull Edinburgh-Glasgow set hit a cow) was the inequality and timing of braking force between the carriages at the front and the loco at the back.
Except perhaps in the case of the A4s, whose streamlining makes them look absolutely superb, the others were lemons. The LMS Pacifics looked like dumpy toys, Collett on the GW made a strong point for not having streamlining, whilst Bulleid was simply taking the mickey with the Schools *experiment*.
His own Pacifics looked good at first - Channel Packet must made a sensation when she appeared from the Works - but the various tinkerings with the boiler front etc. didn't improve their appearance IMHO. Ron Jarvis did a splendid job of rebuilding them...
The notion that any Manchester bus or trolleybus might ever have reached a speed where streamlining would be any use at all is really quite weird. I doubt the two streamlined Sandringhams got much opportunity to reach speeds between London and Norwich where it made much difference either.
The notion that any Manchester bus or trolleybus might ever have reached a speed where streamlining would be any use at all is really quite weird. I doubt the two streamlined Sandringhams got much opportunity to reach speeds between London and Norwich where it made much difference either.
Well, quite. It was all a bit of a trend in those far-off days...although Gresley does seem to have got it right on the A4s, certainly as far as looks are concerned!
I doubt the two streamlined Sandringhams got much opportunity to reach speeds between London and Norwich where it made much difference either.
Agreed, purely a fashion statement, especially as the GE section line limit was 80mph.
And then there were these (British built) delights for Iraq. I don't know what the Iraqi track was like, but with 5'9" drivers they were hardly high-speed machines. https://tinyurl.com/xw8ybmnx
Wow, @Baptist Trainfan thank you for that. I'd never heard of them before.
Perhaps it's even more remarkable that they appear to have been ordered, built and delivered during the Second World War when here the Big Four were supposed only to be building utility engines for the war effort - something which Bulleid notoriously swung in his own favour by arguing that the Merchant Navies were mixed traffic engines needed to move traffic in the build up to D Day.
Good comment, especially as they were quite ordinary underneath the cladding: https://tinyurl.com/ycxpxtbv. I wonder if the need for Iraqi oil meant that HMG allowed them to be built?
Mind you, they didn't all get to Iraq: one is lying somewhere at the bottom of the sea (?torpedoed).
The cladding must have made the various bits and pieces difficult to access (as indeed was the case with the original *streamlined* Bulleid Pacifics), but, with the cladding, these Iraqui Pacifics were handsome engines, like many locomotives built in Britain for railways overseas.
Bulleid is said to have been able to charm the birds from the trees, which helped him get the ahem *mixed traffic* Merchant Navies built in the middle of WW2, so maybe the Iraqi railway people took a lesson from him.
Back to Sir Arthur Heywood, and I confess to having shelled out for the book (thank you, ERNIE) recommended earlier by @Sighthound. A slightly less expensive copy than the one he mentioned was available via the same online emporium, and it arrived (a week early!) today.
A truly Monumental Tome, so heavy that I shall have to rest it on a table or something whilst reading it, but having just glanced briefly through it, there are some wonderful photographs, as well as a wealth of information on the people involved, not just the railways themselves.
I particularly liked the snap of the 9-inch gauge terminus at Dove Leys (disused at that time), with a young Stanley Unwin (the comedian), his parents, and a couple of other lads, present. They have, it seems, swept and tidied the station, with its splendid signal-box spanning both tracks, without the knowledge of the estate staff...
The photo must have been taken round about the time that Arthur Heywood inherited Dove Leys from his father. Alas! Arthur's grandiose plans never came to fruition, but the 15-inch gauge Dove Leys Railway would have been another gem. A freelance *what if?* model, maybe? Not sure what scale it would be, but I sort of see the standard-gauge exchange sidings as 0 gauge (7mm to the foot). Suggestions?
While we're thinking of the fifteen-inch, there is also the Sand Hutton railway. This started out as a garden railway pre-WW1, with a Bassett-Lowke Atlantic (now at Ravenglass) and a couple of "sit-on" carriages - it didn't have a turning loop so the train had to return to base in reverse. The owner, Sir Robert Walker Bt., had plans to develop the line as an estate railway after the War; this would have been very expensive so, when the opportunity came to buy redundant eighteen-inch equipment from the Deptford Meat Market, he bought it and regauged the track. This equipment was serviceable but far less refined than the B-L stock, however a guard's van and a rather splendid carriage were bought from Robert Hudson & Co. The line, about 7 miles long, was never completed but did flourish for a few years; it ran a passenger service (with buffet facility) on a couple of days a week, connecting with mainline trains to York. Goods, apart from estate produce etc, was mainly bricks from a local brickworks, transhipped to the main line. However the brickworks closed in c.1927, Sir Robert died at a young age and the line closed c.1930.
Yes. The SHLR was very much a Heywood railway in principle, but with completely different locos and stock. I have a nice booklet (by Ken Hartley) published around 1964, which gives a concise history of the line.
Sir Robert died in 1930 (he was not quite 40), but the railway lasted until 1932. No doubt, had he lived longer, the railway might have survived too, but by 1930 motor transport was well-developed. His 15-inch gauge Atlantic is Synolda (named after the first Lady Walker), but one of the Hunslets was named Esme (after the second Lady W...).
All his Hunslet locomotives were scrapped, but a similar one (it was a standard design) dating from 1898 has happily been preserved in its native Leeds. A superb 5-inch gauge model is available (for a huuuge amount of £££!):
I have had the pleasure of driving a home-built (not by me!) 5-inch gauge model on 7.25-inch track, the loco resting in a converter truck designed on the principle used by the narrow-gauge Guinness engines to work on broad-gauge tracks in Dublin's fair city.
It worked well.
I daresay the prototype 18-inch gauge Hunslets were just as much a pleasure to drive and fire as the model, and the larger 2-foot gauge Quarry engines. Indeed, I doubt if Hunslet ever built a Lemon...
All depends on the springing, I suppose (I don't think the Meat Market wagons had any!). In any case, an 0-4-0 with such large overhangs front and rear would be quite lively ...
You'll remember that Talyllyn had to gain a trailing truck for stability; while the Penrhyn main line Hunslets gained front trucks on the Festiniog. ("Charles" is still an 0-4-0).
This all makes me think of the heritage line operated by Lord Belborough. I’m not entirely sure of its route, but it partly ran through his Winkstead Hall estate (where the engine shed was located). He worked it with fairly enthusiastic support from the estate staff.
This all makes me think of the heritage line operated by Lord Belborough. I’m not entirely sure of its route, but it partly ran through his Winkstead Hall estate (where the engine shed was located). He worked it with fairly enthusiastic support from the estate staff.
Hehe...I take it you're not referring to this line:
Hmm. No. Wicksteed is a name I associate with children’s playground equipment.
(Oddly perhaps, Wicksteed owned a foundry and as well as playground gear they made a good range of really heavily-built power hacksaws. I just had to fix the one we use at work for cutting up steel joists - it's a really nice old thing.)
Apropos of streamlining, some of you may be familiar with this BTF film, dating from 1954, about the Elizabethan express - non-stop from King's Cross to Edinburgh (dep. 930am) to Edinburgh (arr. 4pm):
The locomotive is A4 class 60017 Silver Fox, hauling what I think might be a rake of LNER Thompson-designed coaches in the blood-and-custard livery of the time. The engine, I guess, is in lined green, and, of course, is nice and clean.
The film includes some splendid lineside shots, as well as clips showing the crew change (via the corridor tender) and the use of the water scoop.
The opening shot of a crowded concourse is, I think, Victoria (Eastern side), and the spoken commentary, partly in rhyme, is rather cheesy, but the film on the whole is a fine piece of work.
Apropos of streamlining, some of you may be familiar with this BTF film, dating from 1954, about the Elizabethan express - non-stop from King's Cross to Edinburgh (dep. 930am) to Edinburgh (arr. 4pm):
The locomotive is A4 class 60017 Silver Fox, hauling what I think might be a rake of LNER Thompson-designed coaches in the blood-and-custard livery of the time. The engine, I guess, is in lined green, and, of course, is nice and clean.
The film includes some splendid lineside shots, as well as clips showing the crew change (via the corridor tender) and the use of the water scoop.
The opening shot of a crowded concourse is, I think, Victoria (Eastern side), and the spoken commentary, partly in rhyme, is rather cheesy, but the film on the whole is a fine piece of work.
I did enjoy that. Thank you. Well made, and the same engine and carriages appeared to be making the whole journey! I agree with your verdict both on Thompson designed coaches and on the commentary.
That was in the days when the best expresses served meals properly, and 1954 was not long after rationing would have finished.
Apropos of streamlining, some of you may be familiar with this BTF film, dating from 1954, about the Elizabethan express - non-stop from King's Cross to Edinburgh (dep. 930am) to Edinburgh (arr. 4pm):
The locomotive is A4 class 60017 Silver Fox, hauling what I think might be a rake of LNER Thompson-designed coaches in the blood-and-custard livery of the time. The engine, I guess, is in lined green, and, of course, is nice and clean.
The film includes some splendid lineside shots, as well as clips showing the crew change (via the corridor tender) and the use of the water scoop.
The opening shot of a crowded concourse is, I think, Victoria (Eastern side), and the spoken commentary, partly in rhyme, is rather cheesy, but the film on the whole is a fine piece of work.
I did enjoy that. Thank you. Well made, and the same engine and carriages appeared to be making the whole journey! I agree with your verdict both on Thompson designed coaches and on the commentary.
That was in the days when the best expresses served meals properly, and 1954 was not long after rationing would have finished.
There's a brief glimpse of some very toothsome looking cakes being loaded into the train - some sort of dessert, I assume, as the arrival in Edinburgh would be far too early for tea...but in good time for a proper Scottish high tea...
How very civilised, though. Six-and-a-half hours from London to Edinburgh was pretty good going for 1954 - I don't know how long it takes by train these days (somewhat less, I daresay), or how it compares with road, now that there are motorways.
On traditional train meals, I recall a very substantial breakfast (kippers) on the morning train from Glasgow to Oban in November 1973, and a very good dinner on an HST from London to Plymouth in April 1978.
[Six-and-a-half hours from London to Edinburgh was pretty good going for 1954 - I don't know how long it takes by train these days (somewhat less, I daresay), or how it compares with road, now that there are motorways.
The fastest is 4 hours with one stop.
On traditional train meals, I recall a very substantial breakfast (kippers) on the morning train from Glasgow to Oban in November 1973, and a very good dinner on an HST from London to Plymouth in April 1978.
Motorail to Scotland, c.1990, served very good meals, included in the (expensive) fare.
There are still good meals to be had - at price! - on certain trains between London and Plymouth/Penzance and between Cardiff and Manchester/Holyhead (https://tinyurl.com/2hyyh6wb). The snag with the Welsh option is the stock allocation: these trains should have Mk4 loco-hauled stock but that isn't always what happens!
Comments
Sir Arthur also had a keen interest in campanology (bell ringing) and in 1891 he founded the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers. He often joined the ringers at Duffield St. Alkmund's church where he was a churchwarden and sidesman. In 1887 he augmented St. Alkmund's ring of bells from eight to ten.
My dad was taken to Spath on a school trip to see the level crossing when it was installed. He was at school in Rocester at the time so it wasn't a massive school trip...
ETA: half the family tell me it's from Denstone anyway, I'm tempted to side with the other half who suspect Norbury & Ellastone. It'll be one or the other.
A local lad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkmund_of_Derby
Probably not a railway enthusiast, though he might have liked bells...
I bet his class were thrilled.
Nice to have a bit of railway history - did one of your family work for the company, or were the fixtures and fittings being sold off at some point?
My family were farmers/landowners in the area. My guess is ‘probably’ the latter….
Congenial neighbours for Heywood, no doubt, and handy for the Works - a number of important expresses stopped at Duffield to accommodate the Company's bigwigs (and friends).
The station is still open, and is nowadays also served by heritage trains of the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway (the former Wirksworth branch).
There are some photos on the Friends of Dronfield Station website:
https://www.friendsofdronfieldstation.org.uk/gallery/
The one occasion I went to Dronfield, c.1972, I had to catch a bus from Sheffield. It took ages!
It's the AGM imminently - would you like me to ask for Dolgoch to be treated to Gresley streamlining?
Stanier?
Or Collett?
Are we adding chain drive and oil baths? I think the fire safety officer may have a view…
No, I was thinking more of the *ahem* experimental streamlining applied to one of the Schools class.
Mercifully, I haven't found an online image, but there is an official photo in DL Bradley's Southern Railway Locomotives Volume 1. The thing looked absolutely hideous (the casing was mocked up using plywood!), and, although Bradley doesn't say as much, it's hard not to think that Bulleid was poking fun at the SR directors...
Agree re Bulleid’s motivations. The interesting one is actually Collett, who had no time for it at all and famously spent about two minutes with a model and some plasticine before streamlining the few locos the GW did. That was entirely because the directors were ordering him against his wishes, and the results looked odd.
However…
AIUI recent work on LNER streamlining and what the Big Four were up to in the 30s has suggested that Collett was the sort of consummate professional where his half-***** effort was nevertheless technically pretty good!
Of course, there was a huge fashion fad around streamlining at the time. Manchester even had buses that were supposedly streamlined, although the effect was largely achieved by the bus livery. I don't recall this livery, but in photos it looks rather odd. It was the 'latest thing' and no doubt 'cool' in its day.
If anyone is interested there are several images of 'streamlined' trolleybuses in this book:
https://www.mdsbooks.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/Ashton_Manchester_TB.pdf (Rather generously available for free on t'internet.)
I think one of the greatest streamliners was the New York Central Dreyfus-styled Hudson.
Ostensibly at least the speed record run of Mallard was a braking test. I believe that the high-speed 1930s trains were a pain to run as they needed two block sections to be kept clear in front of them. The British choice of vacuum brakes didn't help as it took several seconds for the brakes to come on at the rear of the train (I'd imagine that the "Coronation", being longer and heavier, was harder to stop than the "Silver Jubilee"). Quick-release air brakes would have been much better (the Westinghouse "triple valve") - nowadays brakes are actuated electrically and simultaneously.
While we're talking brakes, one of the reasons that the Polmont train accident was so bad (a push-pull Edinburgh-Glasgow set hit a cow) was the inequality and timing of braking force between the carriages at the front and the loco at the back.
His own Pacifics looked good at first - Channel Packet must made a sensation when she appeared from the Works - but the various tinkerings with the boiler front etc. didn't improve their appearance IMHO. Ron Jarvis did a splendid job of rebuilding them...
Well, quite. It was all a bit of a trend in those far-off days...although Gresley does seem to have got it right on the A4s, certainly as far as looks are concerned!
And then there were these (British built) delights for Iraq. I don't know what the Iraqi track was like, but with 5'9" drivers they were hardly high-speed machines. https://tinyurl.com/xw8ybmnx
Perhaps it's even more remarkable that they appear to have been ordered, built and delivered during the Second World War when here the Big Four were supposed only to be building utility engines for the war effort - something which Bulleid notoriously swung in his own favour by arguing that the Merchant Navies were mixed traffic engines needed to move traffic in the build up to D Day.
Mind you, they didn't all get to Iraq: one is lying somewhere at the bottom of the sea (?torpedoed).
Bulleid is said to have been able to charm the birds from the trees, which helped him get the ahem *mixed traffic* Merchant Navies built in the middle of WW2, so maybe the Iraqi railway people took a lesson from him.
Back to Sir Arthur Heywood, and I confess to having shelled out for the book (thank you, ERNIE) recommended earlier by @Sighthound. A slightly less expensive copy than the one he mentioned was available via the same online emporium, and it arrived (a week early!) today.
A truly Monumental Tome, so heavy that I shall have to rest it on a table or something whilst reading it, but having just glanced briefly through it, there are some wonderful photographs, as well as a wealth of information on the people involved, not just the railways themselves.
I particularly liked the snap of the 9-inch gauge terminus at Dove Leys (disused at that time), with a young Stanley Unwin (the comedian), his parents, and a couple of other lads, present. They have, it seems, swept and tidied the station, with its splendid signal-box spanning both tracks, without the knowledge of the estate staff...
The photo must have been taken round about the time that Arthur Heywood inherited Dove Leys from his father. Alas! Arthur's grandiose plans never came to fruition, but the 15-inch gauge Dove Leys Railway would have been another gem. A freelance *what if?* model, maybe? Not sure what scale it would be, but I sort of see the standard-gauge exchange sidings as 0 gauge (7mm to the foot). Suggestions?
Sir Robert died in 1930 (he was not quite 40), but the railway lasted until 1932. No doubt, had he lived longer, the railway might have survived too, but by 1930 motor transport was well-developed. His 15-inch gauge Atlantic is Synolda (named after the first Lady Walker), but one of the Hunslets was named Esme (after the second Lady W...).
All his Hunslet locomotives were scrapped, but a similar one (it was a standard design) dating from 1898 has happily been preserved in its native Leeds. A superb 5-inch gauge model is available (for a huuuge amount of £££!):
https://forest-classics.net/jack_locomotive.htm
I have had the pleasure of driving a home-built (not by me!) 5-inch gauge model on 7.25-inch track, the loco resting in a converter truck designed on the principle used by the narrow-gauge Guinness engines to work on broad-gauge tracks in Dublin's fair city.
It worked well.
I daresay the prototype 18-inch gauge Hunslets were just as much a pleasure to drive and fire as the model, and the larger 2-foot gauge Quarry engines. Indeed, I doubt if Hunslet ever built a Lemon...
You'll remember that Talyllyn had to gain a trailing truck for stability; while the Penrhyn main line Hunslets gained front trucks on the Festiniog. ("Charles" is still an 0-4-0).
Indeed - the 2-foot gauge 0-4-0STs are lively, too...and some recently-built replicas are 0-4-2STs for tha very reason.
BTW, an article about a rather nice model based on the Sand Hutton line was in February 2011's Railway Modeller:
https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/33284/page/76?term=sand hutton
Hehe...I take it you're not referring to this line:
https://wicksteedpark.org/rides/wicksteed-park-railway/
(Oddly perhaps, Wicksteed owned a foundry and as well as playground gear they made a good range of really heavily-built power hacksaws. I just had to fix the one we use at work for cutting up steel joists - it's a really nice old thing.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBazn_tbVw
The locomotive is A4 class 60017 Silver Fox, hauling what I think might be a rake of LNER Thompson-designed coaches in the blood-and-custard livery of the time. The engine, I guess, is in lined green, and, of course, is nice and clean.
The film includes some splendid lineside shots, as well as clips showing the crew change (via the corridor tender) and the use of the water scoop.
The opening shot of a crowded concourse is, I think, Victoria (Eastern side), and the spoken commentary, partly in rhyme, is rather cheesy, but the film on the whole is a fine piece of work.
Neither would WH Auden or Ben Britten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EZxJ9Bkoeg
It occurred to me belatedly to ask whether you were referring to Wilde's possible displeasure at Victoria Station, or to the film's cheesy commentary!
(I do NOT own shares...
Not yet, though - it'll take me ages to read...
I'm sure you'll enjoy it, though. Fascinating stuff.
The former: "The Brighton Line" - "The line is immaterial!"
That was in the days when the best expresses served meals properly, and 1954 was not long after rationing would have finished.
Yes, of course! I should have read your post more earnestly.
There's a brief glimpse of some very toothsome looking cakes being loaded into the train - some sort of dessert, I assume, as the arrival in Edinburgh would be far too early for tea...but in good time for a proper Scottish high tea...
How very civilised, though. Six-and-a-half hours from London to Edinburgh was pretty good going for 1954 - I don't know how long it takes by train these days (somewhat less, I daresay), or how it compares with road, now that there are motorways.
On traditional train meals, I recall a very substantial breakfast (kippers) on the morning train from Glasgow to Oban in November 1973, and a very good dinner on an HST from London to Plymouth in April 1978.
Motorail to Scotland, c.1990, served very good meals, included in the (expensive) fare.
There are still good meals to be had - at price! - on certain trains between London and Plymouth/Penzance and between Cardiff and Manchester/Holyhead (https://tinyurl.com/2hyyh6wb). The snag with the Welsh option is the stock allocation: these trains should have Mk4 loco-hauled stock but that isn't always what happens!