By coincidence, there’s a letter in this months Railway Magazine reffering to the old GCR route being ressurected for high speed running, it would appear that on closure of the line, BR sold off it’s rights of way along the route, so it would be a financial nightmare to get them all back again and reopen the line, good planning ahead as usual.

On a sad note, it would appear that the Mk1 maroon carriage set used as The Hogwarts Express and kept at Carnforth, has been vandalised to the extend of 200 windows being smashed by youths, nice one, sort out the Muggles, Harry, or should we send them to the tender care of Voldemort, or maybe he did it.

Stormbird262

Please remove your little comment about the Poms being able to play cricket again, it annoys me, as we can’t. There’s only one team who can and I can’t bear to watch their superiority, though it’s worth it…. they are so good to watch in a technical sense, good luck to them, they deserve it, and thats from a real English cricket enthusiast and former village player, we deserve the kick up the backside, we have great players who can’t, you have great players who can, Gilchrist opening the batting is an inspiration, perhaps someone ought to try the experiment with Flintoff, after all was there not a modicum of success with Botham in the old days.
Now what was this thread all about, something to do with a/c I believe, the Mods won’t like this.

Ok, back on track, didn’t Frank Whittle have his jet engine designs so advanced in the 20’s, that had the government been so ‘understanding’ and believed and accepted what he said, that we would have had jet fighters prior to 1939 and that WW2 would never have happened due to our aviation superiority. Imagine, reheated Meteors and Canberras ranging over European skies in 1939, no contest, though I must admit that airframe designs may not have been able to cope, imagine a jet powered Gladiator. What possesed our government to give Whittle’s designs over to the Russians and US at the end of the war, must have cost a lot of lives over Korea methinks.

Has it been mentioned on the TV News, I’m not sure, but I think not, we were watching BBC and ITV news last night and they seemed to be more interested in some obscure US DJ who’s been sacked, big deal. What got my back up was that at the end of the ITV news, when they review the papers, you could clearly see a large picture of Neville Duke on the cover of what I think was The Independant, I went ballistic as he was never mentioned, my son, who had never heard of ‘The Duke’, but was given a lecture as a consequence, also agreed that it was ridiculous that a war hero and such an eminent contributor to the history and development of British aircraft was ignored in favour of some racist idiot in a cowboy hat.
Incidentally, I was quite surprised at how young Neville Duke must have been during his desert exploits, and, I was sickened at the way he had to sell his history to pay for his wife’s operation, people of his calibre don’t deserve such treatment.
Another sad loss to the world of aviation, at least he was in his element when he became ill.
RIP another lost hero.
Just seen Andy Saunders piece and it may indeed be the cover of The Telegraph that I saw.

Perhaps we should pull Mallard out of it’s inactive retirement at York and give it a go.

The Great Central Railway was built in the 1890’s and not only designed for high speed running, but built to a continental loading gauge with a view to connecting to France via a Channel Tunnel.
It ran from Manchester to Sheffield, then Nottingham, Leicester, Rugby and London, in other words, down the spine of the country.
What happened to it, inter regional rivalry caused it to be closed in 1966, some bits are still going, but not many. It had the countries first main line electric system between Manchester and Sheffield, but this was never extended or improved and was pulled up in the 70’s/80’s.
I’ve heard rumours that it could be reopened, well, if you want to knock down the buildings on the trackbed, evict the steam railway at Loughborough and destroy the centre of Nottingham including the tram system, then fine.
A classic case of lack of foresight, but isn’t that typical of our railway system.
The next time you travel up the M1 between Lutterworth and Leicester, the GCR used to run on the left hand side, it’s marked by a line of trees, in the old days we used to race Class 5’s on the Marylebone Semi fasts in an old van and generally win, though I have a timing log of a journey up there in 66 behind a sad, filthy Class 5 and we were getting up to nearly 100mph.
My enduring memory of this line was on a canal holiday a few years ago, following the line of the railway towards Daventry, we spotted an original GCR double arm signal post sitting alone and forlorne in the middle of a ploughed field, that sums it all up really.
Incidentally, the main engine sheds, main trackbed and repair works at Annesley in Notts have been suitably covered in colliery spoil, preventing any reinstatement of this facility, the colliery is now closed of course, thank you Mrs T for destroying our industrial heritage and future industrial growth, including the railways.

Aaah, Shipstones, an excellent pint in it’s day (afore said take-over by the brewers of truly disgusting beer, Greenall Whitley).

Several pints of Shippo’s, then a deep fried mackerel and chips from the Blue Dolfin on Mansfield Road….

…ey up mi duck!

Where did you go supping then as there weren’t that many pubs in the city centre that sold Shippos.
Shame to think that The Trip to Jerusalem probably sells Greene King now.
We always used to call in at Theodosis on Ilkeston Road for the traditional late night fish fest.
When I moved house recently I rediscovered a lot of Shipstones items recovered from the brewery by my mate when it closed, including a large framed photo of the founder which I believe used to hang in the boadroom.

There was also a Dakota flying over head toward the end of the day.

I spotted the Dakota flying low over Finchingfield heading south at about 16:30 yesterday, unfortunately the sun was behind it and I couldn’t make out the markings or even the colour scheme, anyone have any more info.

Good laugh, and well done, but are you sure it ain’t Stukas as well as Harvards, sure they’re in there somewhere, just trying to spot those cranked wings.