Railways around Coventry

Hello, Full Steam Ahead at the Severn Valley Heritage Railway The Guest Loco Arrives for a Spin on the Turntable.

Hello, Part of our local rail services move into public ownership. All part of the government pledge prior to their election. The record of public sector ownership which is not a monopoly, (ie, it faces competition,) doesn't have a good track record. The government has had direct control of our national railways since 1923, with the grouping act, but they remained in private ownership. Public ownership started in 1948, but by 1956, it was losing money. There's no one right answer to this in my opinion, as a private company would cut the loss making lines, which the government would have to subsidise for them to remain open. Similar to bus subsidies now for uneconomic routes. The difficulty is where there's a change in fashion of travel, public ownership tends to be slow to take advantage of turn around. We will see.

Another Coventry related gem found today in the museum at the Chasewater Railway at Brownhills. In the time when railway wagons were privately owned it was important for them to have a return address and also the nearest railway station. This wagon would have been returned to Foleshill Siding on the London & North Western Railway. It would then have been tacked on to the next train of empty wagons which were being returned to the colliery.

Hello, That's fabulous, thank you. Vans being loaded at Longford Park, inside the security gates. Even during the BR, days, van & wagon maintenance was kept to a timetable, with their numbers being assigned to a depot. The two weathered vans here are allocated to Hounds Hill. I must do some tree maintenance, looking at the washed out colour of the trees. Looking in the opposite direction.

Philip - I hope that you are also keeping up with track maintenance and are making sure that lineside vegetation is kept in check. Today on the Chasewater Railway one train was delayed for almost two hours by a points failure in the terminus station and the following train had to return because of a trackside fire caused by the previous train rushing to catch up on the timetable. Like all good stations they also had a bus parked outside.

Hello, Another cracker of a picture. Aldridge Transport Museum 2025, Walsall, West Midlands, I believe that single deck is kept. I will try, I will really. Having an early night to night. Just had homemade lemon & honey hot drink, as my head cold is coming out. Might be kept indoors tomorrow. Best wishes to you all.

In times past these privately owned wagons were a good advertisement for the various collieries. These wagons represent the collieries from around Brownhills. In the Coventry area the outgoing coal trains would consist of loaded wagons bearing the liveries of all of the pits in the Coventry and north Warwickshire coalfield. I presume that the little plates were some sort of official registration of ownership and where the empty wagon was to be returned. The distinct liveries also prevented other users from 'borrowing' the wagons once they had left the local area.

Hello, This kind of plate, often several along the chassis of a wagon.

And in those days you never saw mindless, moronic, stupid, unintelligible, meaningless, pointless, vandalistic, wanton, sacrilegious graffiti and/or paint sploshed all over the wagons and anything else belonging to the railway company. We was taught respekk for other people's property, we was. I am using the modern spelling of the now archaic abstract noun "respect".

Britain's railways were first nationalised in 1948. Prior to this every coal train leaving or arriving at Foleshill Siding, or even Hounds Hill, would have had a brake van similar to this at the rear end of the train. The train guard rode in this brake van and it was his responsibility to use the brake in his van to help slow the train down on steeper gradients. This photograph was taken today at the Northamptonshire Ironstone Railway which is situated within the Hunsbury Hill Country Park on the outskirts of Northampton. The railway offers a short ride in a brake van for £5 adults (£4 concessions); it has a small museum dedicated to both the railway and ironstone quarrying; there are model railways ranging from Z Gauge up to the bigger garden stuff; and there is a small tea room attached to the railway plus a bigger cafe in the country park only a couple of minutes walk away. Both are very reasonably priced. The country park has lots of footpaths around this ancient iron-age hill fort site. Car parking is free!

Apologies folks I know I've asked this question (sort of) before.... Given that the CBS Arena finally belongs to the football club lots of questions are being posed on a fans forum regarding improving rail links from Coventry station to the arena. Does any very knowledgeable forumite know if it could be, given the frequency of West Coast Main Line traffic through the station?

Before I became a Signalman, I trained and passed to be a Guard. This was mainly on passenger trains, but, I did do the extra training to be a Guard on the rare occassion the railway ran a demonstration freight train: The primary responsibility of the Guard in the brake van, was to use his brake to keep the couplings taut, to stop them from snatching, as this could snap them. Approaching steep gradients, a long heavy unfitted freight train would stop at the top, then the brakes applied on every second or third wagon. After decending, the train would stop again and the brakes released. The loco crew could communicate with the Guard in the brake van via the whistle. Before the battery bardic lamp became common, I still have mine: Paraffin hand lamps were the order of the day, and the hand lamp of a freight Guard had a considerably larger glass lens than that of a passenger Guards hand lamp, because freight trains were longer in lengh than passenger trains and the Guard needed the larger lens for the engine crew to see it.

Hello, I'm really delighted to be reading good news regards improved visitor numbers to our UK heritage railways. Four of the big operators are all reporting good figures. I was earlier quite pessimistic at such prospects, but maybe the stay at home holiday folk are boosting numbers. I'm sure that we all wish them well.

I recently rewatched the BBC Arena program from 1980 on the rise of the 2-Tone record label. I hadn't noticed this quick capture of the old Goods Shed captured as the reporter gets off the train from London - You can see the length of the shed on this brilliant image (I've shared this one before but so good it's worth a reshare) from the fantastic Warwickshire Railways website -

Thank you for the picture, Neil. Brill. I've added a sequence picture recorded on the same day