Railways around Coventry

I sat on that particular 9F's cab roof eating my sandwiches and watching the scrapmen cut a GWR 'King' or 'Castle' up, they had done all the boiler outer plates and were starting on the tubes, it was a bit sad but Dai Woodham realised there was money to be made and resisted cutting up the loco's while he had loads of wagons to scrap, luckily nearly all of those 97 locos I saw have now been rescued and most are running again on preserved lines so in a way we have to thank Dai for saving them a bit like Dr Beeching, if he hadn't closed so many lines there would not be the preserved railways which run on those closed lines. It's a funny old world

Hi again, I am going to put up some pics from my 1973 Railway world annual. The church outing was 1975. Also, the modern age there. & finally, The good news is that over the last two decades, I have seen the Duke over a dozen times, working specials & so on in all of its glory. In fact, it has out-performed anything that it did on BR, where it was treated as an unwanted orphan. There we go again, more food. I have just boiled a couple of eggs to make some egg & cress sandwiches for when Pam gets home in an hour. I love egg & cress, now see what you have done!

Ah you got there before me,as the 'Duke' had gone by 1979 and there were no diesels (Warships/Westerns) left. The story of the Duke of Gloucester 71000 is fantastic, the amount of dedication that went into it (like all restorations) was amazing and with this they as you know found design flaws and actually got it steaming better than original. I remember it being restored at Loughborough GCR in the early 80's right up until painted in primer for its first steaming since the BR days. This was an old goods van converted into a workshop for just scraping and finishing the new valve covers & cylinders, note the propshaft for the Caprotti valve gear, I took this at the GCR approx 1981. As for food and railways, well my 9F cab roof sarnie eating was my very own 'Orient Express' restaurant

Otherwise known as the 'Unicycling Lion' as opposed to the 'Ferret 'n Dartboard'

From what I can gather the tenders were; Tender coal: 10 tons Water: 4,000 gallons Assistance: Steam powered coal pusher Water pick up gear: LMS standard type Andy

Have a look at this site on 6233 Duchess of Sutherland, click on 'Apr 11', it shows them working on the coal pusher, as I understand it all the class were fitted with them.

Hi all The lack of coal pushers was one of the reasons that the Princess Class were generally kept off the through Anglo-Scottish services. I have no way of confirming this, but I understand that two of the Coronation Class had a Berkeley mechanical stoker fitted, as well as the steam operated coal pusher. I am always up for learning.

Looking at the picture it's amazing how many coaches they pulled in those days, looks like 12 to 13 on. Even though it has the 'Banker' engine pushing it the fact it got up there when most modern loco's only pulling 8 or 9 coaches still struggle. Would sure cure overcrowding if they hauled that many today.

The present day Coventry station was built to accommodate 19-coach trains but by the time it was finished few trains had that many coaches any more.

Seems crazy that most stations have the platform lengths but no longer pull a train of carriages long enough the utilise the platforms. Look at Rugby (Midland) those platforms were/are so long they had a switchback (I think that was the name) half way along the platform so if a local pulled in before an express then the express behind it could pull round the outside of the local and vice-versa, then when they re-structured the lines a few years ago they didn't include them, my description may be rough and others might be able to phrase it with the correct terminology but you get the idea I hope

The problem for Coventry station was that the rebuilding work was carried out during the period 1959-1962 when people were already switching from rail to road transport so the expected passenger traffic no longer existed. The partial closure of the station during that period probably eroded passenger numbers even further.

The proposal was made by an electoral candidate who received financial backing from the GWR just before a general election and abandoned immediately after the election. I doubt very much it was ever a serious proposal.

Agreed

Just found this page relating to 'Canley Gates' (more recently known as Canley Halt) from a link posted elsewhere by 'Chaingang' - Canley Gates Thought it might be of interest.

Hi & thank you both Canley Station came into existence in much the same way as Daimler Halt. There were binding rules that made the descriptive name given to a station, like 'Halt' which in this case relieved the railway company of commitments that it would have to to adhere to if it was called a station. Thank you for the link Tony.