Here's something for the railway fans!

[stutterdog]

[quotenick="Trojan"] Phill_dvsn wrote: Here 45407 is less lucky, she gives up the ghost big time on a 1 in 36 climb in Cornwall.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO-2FOXB3_YKaput! What a place to stall, teetering on the edge of that precipice!! Serves it right for being named after a Lancashire regiment [/quI started work as an apprentice in1956-7 at Marston Radiators,Armley Road, and part of my job was taken up helping to build the raidators for the English Electric Deltic locomotives.The radiators were huge, about 6ftx6ft .The matrix was made in 2 parts for ease of manufacture I suppose.I helped to bolt the 2 parts together as well as fitting the top and bottom tanks.I am proud to have been part of the gang of lads who built these iconic loco's.

[BLAKEY]

stutterdog wrote: [.I am proud to have been part of the gang of lads who built these iconic loco's. "Good on yer" stutterdog - ALYCIDON rules OK ??

[BIG N]

Meant to reply to this a few days ago lol.The class 40,s were always my favourite loco in the BR blue era and living as I did in Huddersfield was lucky enough to see them on a regular basis and travel many miles behind them too. being brought up in a railway family I too had a love of all things railway and spent most weekends chasing favourite locos travelling the country in my persuits.As a child I lived virtually on top of Paddock cutting to the West of Huddersfield and could virtually identify the class of any loco from the moment it left Paddock tunnel just over half a mile from our house and began its climb to Standedge tunnel, just from the exhaust beat alone.I well remember the first working of a Deltic on a pennine when they got ousted from the East coast, I was at home and plainly heard it burst out of the tunnel on its storming run up the valley, there was no mistaking that sound yet I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. I promptly rang my dad at work at Huddersfield station and asked him if that had in fact been a Delly on the Liverpool to which he replied "You heard it then, the place is still full of bloody smoke here".A quick check of the diagram's and it was planned to be at the station with a mate and his camera (I didn't own one in those days) for its afternoon return, only to recieve a call from a mate in Manchester to say it wasn't on the booked return. It turned out a newcastle crew had worked it to Leeds and a Leeds crew had worked it forward to Liverpool, both crew's having worked Deltics regularly, but the Leeds crew were booked back on the cushions and there were no Liverpool men with the traction knowledge, the Leeds crew flatly refusing to either work it back or pilot the Scouse men.As for the class 40's, I did thousands of miles travelling behind them over the years with one favourite trip always being the overnight Shrewsbury mail from York, this was a mail train in essence but always had one half brake, half side corriadore passenger coach on and in the later years was virtually always a class 40 on the front, was a great way of finishing a Scotland or North East trip off back to Huddersfield.One special memory of the class though happened one Saturday evening while returning home to Hudds from Dewsbury, I was travelling on a Transpennine DMU unit (class 126) and we were accelerating away from Dewsbury and approaching Ravensthorpe where the lines from Healy Mills joined us for the run to Mirfield, I looked across and there was a 40 on Red Bank emptys matching us for speed and looking like he was going to hit Ravensthorpe at the same time as us.Sure enough as we gained the 4 track section he swung along side and opened up the throttle as far as it would go, just as the pennine driver did the same.Now I don't know what the 40 had on but the Red Banks were never lightly loaded, but he had the mesure of us for sure yet when he drew level with the leading cab of our train he seemed to back off slightly and ran side by side with us for the two miles or so till the two lines parted company again. Anyone who remembers just what a 40 on full chat with a good load sounded like will know just what a thrill it was to listen to whilst being mesmerised by the 4 jets of red flame tinged exhaust coming from his roof - a memory for ever lol.All too soon we were peeling away to dive under the Calder valley lines and with a fair exchange of horns between loco and unit he was gone, but the memory lives on.

[BIG N]

AS for the Deltics, they were never really a favourite of mine probably because living so close to the East Coast main line they were so common.They were a nightmare on a rising grade or wet rail to get moving, as seen in that clip posted on here, the problem was you couldn't just open the throttle and let them find their feet, if they slipped too much the system would shut the power off and return the engines to tick over.You had to really nurse them gently to get the best out of them but the East Coast men knew how to do this and just how much they could get away with.When they were transferred to secondary work there were some terrible examples of late running and loco faliures, due in part to the age of these machines but more so to the inexperience of the crews driving them, some drivers even refusing to drive them full stop.

[Cardiarms]

Hoard of old railway posters for sale:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/8537539.stm