Check the threads, I mentioned it last week!

Andy, re Operation Sealion.
By coincidence there was a bloke on the Antiques Roadshow last night, filmed at Bishops Auckland by the way, and he had got a complete set of the original German documentation on the subject, all in faded green folders. This had been prepared in the late 30’s and consisted of battle plans, marked up OS maps, ariel photos and strangely enough, lots of seaside picture postcards, all marked up with lots of arrows and notes.
He claimed he had obtained it via a relative who had got it out of Germany in 1944, but he was very vague on the subject.
The ‘expert’ was most impressed and reckoned there were only 4 such folders in existance, he put a value of £3-4000 on it but reckoned it should be in a museum.
Have you ever seen one of these things, it did look quite fascinating, even with my limited knowledge of the German language, I reckon I could spend hours going through that.
Pete.

Damn this standby computer, if I can find the discs for my scanner I’ll try and install it and put on some of my old pics.
The asterisk could refer to the fact that the loco had been withdrawn, every month my brother would scan the stock change pages in the back of the Trains Illustrated and underline the withdrawn locos in green, bit of a waste of time really as some of these would hang around for months afterwards, Annesley was a good place to find withdrawn LNER freight locos which were stored in sidings next to the Newstead Abbey back entrance, it was easy to dodge the attention of the dreaded shed foreman ( the one at Annesley was a miserable git) by scrambling up the bank and sneaking round, we would then go home to mark down these rarities in the good old combie only to find that my brother had already underlined them in green.
Oops didn’t realise the time, I have to go and pick up my missus, more later.

Peter,
IIRC I think Dai Woodham only received one LNER loco (which was saved) and as you say other yards were very quick at processing their supplies. The scrappy near Kettering was apparently too productive and actually scrapped the delivery loco too by all accounts!!
I have copies of both the books you mention both used although the combined one hasn’t got the owners name in, something I thought that most of the spotters did in those days.
ATB
Gary

The B1 was indeed the only LNER loco taken in by Mr Woodham. 2 B1’s have survived, 61306 was taken straight from service into preservation, 61264, which was at one time shedded in the Anglia region survived by a piece of luck. It was converted to a stationary boiler in the mid 60’s and used to heat the engine sheds or warm the carriages in the carriage sidings overnight. I’m sure it was the loco we came across at our local Colwick sheds during a visit in the mid 60’s. While the rest of the school party were trotting about taking numbers, my old man, my mate and I were given an exclusive tour by a couple of young drivers, this included driving an 8F, under supervision of course, to the coaling tower and on to the turntable then back to the shed. We were then allowed to remove as many bits as we could from the locos on the scrap line. Eventually we went to the depths of the running shed where the B1 lived, sadly plumbed up to the central heating system. One of the drivers produced a very large spanner and invited us to remove the shed and number plates while they kept watch for the shed foreman. Unfortunately they were well rusted in position and wouldn’t budge at which point I retired to the cab and pulled the whistle cord which jammed open and wouldn’t stop shrieking until one of the drivers climbed on the running plate and belted the whistle with the spanner, unfortunately this brought about the appearance of the shed foreman, but he was a pretty jovial character and thought it was pretty funny.
I was under the impression that on closure of Colwick shed that this loco was towed down to Bristol and used to heat the carriages there, which is why it survived until 1968 and was finally towed the short distance through the Severn Tunnel to Barry Scrapyard.
When it was eventually taken to Loughborough for restoration, the years of use as a stationary boiler had done it no favours and I believe that the boiler had to be completely replaced.
As far as the combined volume is concerned, yes it has my name and address in it still, my handwriting being appalling in those days. Generally speaking, the combie never left the house, it would have been a disaster to have lost it with all those numbers religiously underlined, it happened to a mate of mine, he was suicidal for weeks.
One day I took it up to junior school as part of a project, the headmaster hated my interest in railways and had a temper tantrum resulting in the knocking over of an ink well all over the book the results of which can still be seen, these days he would have got sued at the very least.
I believe that Ian Allen started up his empire just after the war and I have a copy of the first combined volume produced after nationalisation in 1948, it’s got a plain red cover and was the first spotting book of our neighbours son Graham up in Nottingham, he gave it to me sometime in the mid 50’s so it’s been in the family a long time.
Incidentally one for Hornchurch, the Britannia, Oliver Cromwell, was the last surviving pacific on BR and worked one of the last specials in 1968 up in the north west where I was lucky enough to have an uncle living at the time who worked on the railways and was visited as often as possible.
My last trip behind a Brit was on the Barrow-Euston, their last diagrammed regular working. While hanging out the front carriage window, he decided to fill up from Hest Bank troughs at speed, the resulting tidal wave swept into the windows and down the carriage, I escaped the deluge by pressing myself against the corridor connection, the rest of the passengers weren’t amused.

It makes a change to be able to discuss railways, something I’ve always been interested in after being frightened to death by a face full of smoke on a bridge 50 years ago.
If you want to find out which particular locos were on shed during your grandads time, I would suggest that you root around the second hand book shops and look for a publication called ‘Locoshed Book’, this is a small, pocket sized soft back published by Ian Allan, it lists every loco with their engine shed allocation and was produced every year throughout the great days of steam, I have a couple of them somewhere but where?
Another book to look out for is the famous Ian Allan ‘Combined Volume’, the spotters bible, again a pocket sized book but with a hard cover. I have my edition of 1961/62 in front of me and I have seen copies from several years in second hand book shops.
You may be interested to know that compared to the Western, Southern and Midland regions, very few LNER steam locos have survived.
The reason for this is quite simple, a scrapyard in Wales called Woodhams took on the last remaining steam locos in the late 60’s, being a bit of an enthusiast, Dai Woodham tried not to scrap them and subsequently, hundreds survived into preservation.
Unfortunately Eastern region steam, particularly in the Anglian region, succombed very early to diesels and many were scrapped locally, Norwich, Sheffield etc, few survived to the end of steam.
I would suggest that you take a trip to the North Norfolk Railway, they have some of the last surviving Eastern region/LNER locos left running including a B12, J15 and what might interest you, an N7 tank engine, which finished it’s days as a pilot at Liverpool Street and may have been actually driven by your grandad.
As for other surviving locos that your grandad may have had connections with, there is a GE 0-6-0 at Bressingham, a place worth visiting, a B1 4-6-0 that currently has a main line certificate and makes the odd visit to these parts and 2 Britannias, Oliver Cromwell and Britannia, both of which used to work the Norwich and Kings Lynn expresses. Britannia is currently out of service but Oliver Cromwell is being restored to main line condition and I reckon it will be thundering out of Liverpool St pretty soon.
When the Britannias were relocated from Stratford, they were taken en-mass to Crewe North, we went on a trip there with the school railway society in 1965 and were met with the incredible sight of 20+ Britannias simmering away around the famous Crewe Roundhouse, yes I have photos of this classic event but I’m using my standby computer at the moment and can’t publish.
Let me know if you want anymore info.
Incidentally, Evening Star spent most of it’s life around the Bristol area, often on passenger trains on the old Somerset and Dorset Railway, despite being designed as a freight loco, I gather that at speed, such a small wheeled engine gave cause for concern and a speed ban was put on it.
I would not be at all surprised if it was used for some sort of farewell to steam tour in the Anglia region, but my attempts at finding out have come to nought.

Thanks for the suggestions & reply Gary,
I guess by your banner/location you must be somewhere around the Downham Mkt/Stoke Ferry area ???

I’m trying to find out about routes & operating proceedures of Brittania class engines, Express trains & slightly smaller stuff, on the Eastern Region in the ’40’s & ’50’s.

My Dad’s Dad, used to drive large Locomotives (predominantly Brittania class steam) on Express routes, from London to Norwich and ??? other routes (yet to find out).
I know he drove the ‘Evening Star’, ‘Lord Hurcomb’, ‘Couer de Lion’, ‘Clive of India’ & ‘Brittannia’ etc, as well as a smaller loco’ called ‘Framlingham’, of which he is picured in (x 3) outside Clacton Station in 1949 (taken by his Fireman; we don’t have the neg’s).

Wouldn’t know the furthest point he travelled ?, how many weeks, months, years on each or any engine ?, are there any records regarding the machines & their Drivers ? (like a pilots log etc ?), or how many times a day they would cover which route ??? etc, etc…… that’s the kinda thing i’d like to know.

He died when I was 11, & I wasn’t interested in trains then – only aircraft.

I’ll inherit his 45 years service gold watch someday, & would like to know a bit more background on what he did regarding the paragraph above. :confused:

It’s unlikely that he drove Evening Star on the East Anglian lines, this was a 9F class, the last steam loco built for BR, based on the Western Region and only having a short lifespan, being soon withdrawn for preservation.
However there may have been some sort of rail tour involving this loco, which your grandad may have been involved with, however it wasn’t built until 1960.
I’ve also found info on such subjects in short supply on the net, I do have some original manuals on LNER operating proceedures and such like, but trying to track down info on particular loco’s on particular trains will be pretty hard going if not impossible.
I don’t have a lot of knowledge of Anglian steam activities as I spent my misspent youth in the East Midlands, I have vague memories of a holiday in Yarmouth in the mid 50’s when I can vaguely remember activities at Yarmouth Beach Station, but my only experience of steam in these parts was on the Stortford-Ely specials in the 90’s and thats another great story.
Anything you need to know about steam stuff, let me know.
Pete.

Would be interested in hearing more if you know it on this one – didn’t know any Marauders came down our way!

Adrian

Was this not the A-20 from Wethersfield which had one of the station cooks illegally on board. As it was fully fuelled and bombed up, I doubt whether any substantial remains were left of it. By coincidence, we were clearing out some cupboards on Sunday and I found my bag of fragments which we found on the site with a metal detector. These mainly consist of what I suspect are bomb casings including what appears to be the fusing ring.
One of my previous houses was only a few hundred yards from the site and I found a 0.5 cannon shell while digging the garden, I suspect that these things were whizzing all round Finchingfield after the crash.
Despite 60 years of intensive farming, the crater is still quite visible especially before the crops get going, the soil in the vicinity is quite dark as well.
Anyone have any details of the crew etc.

Incidentally AG, my 20 year association with Finchingfield will soon be ending, I’m hopefully off to Bocking in a few weeks.

I didn’t realise, despite several visits to Yeovil, that they had two Skyraiders. I love this a/c, it’s so butch, my memories of it are of three flying together at Legends once, the Airfix examples that went with the Victorious kit ( that I painted up as Gannets) and the out of time examples that flew over the fleet in the making of ‘The Longest Day’.
Did the RN take on this a/c as a stop-gap before the Gannet was ready for service.