Category: Uncategorized

A new adventure for ellyBelly has begun – Glamour has come to ellyBelly Publications. Our first venture away from trains and planes has now gone live on our website, with more to follow in the future. Of course we couldn’t stray far from transport and industry just yet.

From Glorious Goodwood to a London Bus Depot, we’ve tried to keep to environments that appeal to our existing customers. We hope to add to our Glamour collections in the future, and all done in the best possible taste.

We are looking to offer these photographs as wall products too through our printing partner Loxley Colour. Prints will be delivered ready to hang up on your wall straight from the box!

Recreating times gone by provides a rich environment for the photographer, both from a heritage viewpoint and also for portrait photography. With this in mind, we will also be bringing what we call Vintage Photographs to ellyBelly Publications in the coming months.

Don’t worry, we will also be adding to our Railway and Aviation collections, bringing you the best images we can. Watch out for future news updates in this blog.

Robinson O4 63704 and Great Central D11 506 ‘Butler Henderson’ is seen being shunted outside Gorton works on 24th July 1963.

Butler Henderson and 63704 at Gorton works

This photo is another to feature in the upcoming book celebrating the photographs of railwayman Ronnie Gee. After the successful identification of the location of brand new 92125 in our last post, we are after some more help with this photograph.

The photograph (along with several others) shows an externally restored Great Central D11 No.506 ‘Butler Henderson’ being shunted from Gorton works along with ex-works Robinson O4 63704 as 24th July 1963. ‘Butler Henderson’ was moved to Romiley for a ‘photoshoot’ before being moved to the Clapham Transport Museum (the forerunner to the National Railway Museum at York). The ex-LNER engines have been moved from the works yard by the loco in the background. Judging by the lamp arrangement on 63704 it seems that O4 will take 506 to Romiley; but did it then take it forward for onward movement to London?

According to Yeadon (via brdatabase.info), 64704 was at Gorton for Heavy Intermediate repair in August/September 1961 and a Light Casual repair in March 1962; neither of which are July 1963! Given also the fact that Gorton Works closed in March 1963 I am beginning to wonder when this shot was actually taken!

I dont have access to a 1963 (or possibly 1961/1962) set of Railway Observer magazines so I am really looking for any information that can shed light on this movement. I can find nothing about the move of Butler Henderson to Clapham, so I have to go with the date being either late September 1961 or March 1962.

If you can help in any way I would appreciate it, either via Social Media or through the Comment box below. Yet again Ronnie Gee had used his railway network and knowledge to be in the right place at the right time to record this moment!

Brand New BR Standard 9F 92125 is seen on a running-in turn somewhere in the Stockport area on possibly 21st March 1957. Can you help with the location and date?

BR Standard 9F 92125 is on a running-in turn to Crewe; but where?

Brand new BR Standard 9F is captured in glorious sunshine by railwayman Ronnie Gee on a ‘running-in’ turn back to Crewe Works. Believed to have been taken on 21st March 1957, the train is seen somewhere near Stockport, but we are not exactly sure of the location. One possible location is thought to be Guide Bridge as the same train is seen on another photograph taken later in the day at Heaton Norris Junction. Can anybody help identify the location exactly?

The locomotive was delivered to Wellingborough Shed (15A) on 31st March 1957, but it was amongst many of BR’s later builds to have its working life cut short in the mad dash for modernisation; being condemned at Carlisle Kingmoor shed in December 1967 and scrapped in April 1968. Ronnie captured another new-build 9F on test at Longsight Shed (92080 in April 1956), and another new member of the class (92131 in April 1957) at Crewe Works still in it’s primer.

Given Ronnie’s position as a railway signalman, he was not only able to photograph trains from a prime vantage point but always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. No doubt his access to Special Notices was supplemented by information supplied by fellow railwaymen who got to know him over the many years he took photographs.

If you would like to be kept up-to-date with news about forthcoming books or new photographs then please subscribe to the Blog using the box on the right-hand side of the page.

If you can help to identify the location of this photograph then please use the box below:

Freightliner ‘Slug’ (Class 70), 70003, heads through Heaton Chapel station on 19th June 2017 with a very short 4L90 (MO) 11.17 Trafford Park F.L.T to Felixstowe South F.L.T. service.

Maybe it was a bit too hot for ‘Slug’ Photography

On Monday 19th June 2017, I had decided to use the clear summer skies to photograph the diverted freights through Stockport; by 11am I had already realised it was possibly a bit too hot as temperatures were already approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Having decided to find shade as much as possible, I managed to get this decent shot along with a few more. Class 70 ‘Slugs’ are a rare breed on the stretch of line between Slade Junction and Wilmslow, but with all freight being diverted from their normal route via the Styal line due to some issues with pointwork at the junctions feeding Manchester Airport, they are currently seen several times a day.

The 4L90 service is scheduled for a 1275 tonne train, so when only 4 wagons turned up I managed to get a decent composition as the driver opened up for the quick sprint towards Stockport. I’m not sure whether this is a normal load for this Monday Only (MO) train, but I might have to see if I can catch it again soon.

I’ll put some more photos in another post soon, but thought this one deserved to be seen on its own!

A Class 105 DMU (also known as Bog-Crates) departs from Stowmarket towards Ipswich on the 29th June 1978.

Bog-Crates and Semaphores

I started trainspotting in East Anglia in 1976; a hobby that started with the purchase of an Ian Allan Combined Volume after seeing Deltic 55006 ‘Fife and Forfar Yeomanry’ on a King’s Cross to Edinburgh express at a Northumberland Level Crossing. My normal spotting, however, was of ‘Bog-Crates’ in sleepy Suffolk.

Living only 200 yards away from the Cambridge/Ely to Ipswich railway line I had a good starting point for ‘cops’! My local station, Thurston, had been a manned station until January 1967, and until 1976 still had a coal train tripped from Bury St. Edmunds by the station pilot (normally a Class 08 shunter). Having a goods yard, Thurston also had a signal-box, which controlled the local semaphore signals.

The Ipswich-Cambridge trains were operated by Class 101 or Class 105 DMUs, although a notable exception was a train which started at Liverpool Street at 4am and made its way back to London via Ipswich and Cambridge. The DMUs were affectionately called ‘Bog-Crates’, a name I used but to this day I have no idea where it came from; other than the fact that the units were showing their age and had a toilet!

The picture above was taken by an Oldham photographer who visited East Anglia in the mid-late 1970s. The slide it is from has the processing date as July 1978, but no details of the date or service. In the deepest recesses of my memory I remembered that the at this time DMUs often displayed the day and date in the window of the unit, and this photo shows 29 and ‘Thurs’. Sure enough, the 29th June 1978 was indeed a Thursday, so I had the date of when the photo was taken.

All the photo shows is that the destination is Ipswich, but it is also displaying a ’64’ in the window; so is this the route, or something else? Can anybody answer this question? For a little help another photo shows the same ’64’ and a destination of Leicester, also on a Class 105 DMU, but not the same one.

If anybody can help then please drop me a line below.

Error: Contact form not found.

Enjoy the Class 90 locomotives while you can…

I’ve become a little disillusioned with the traction scene on the UK railways for a number of years. The decline of heritage traction coincided with the move to multiple units. The Voyagers and Pendolinos introduced by Virgin are charecterless, and in the case of the Voyagers are uncomfortable, cramped and seriously lacking in baggage storage. Thankfully, The Greater Anglia Class 90 locomotives still offer an opportunity for loco-hauled travel.

It look like the move towards soulless travel will continue with Greater Anglia’s move to a total Multiple Unit based fleet, and the introduction of the Hitachi trains on Great Western and East Coast franchises. This leaves only Trans Pennine Express buying locomotives and coaches (offering some degree of flexibility) for future loco-hauled travel.

The Class 90s currently offer the only full Inter-City loco hauled service between London and Norwich, so whilst it lasts and whenever possible I will be trying to travel behind and photograph the fleet.

Similarly the HSTs and Class 91s are soon to be relegated from regular travel, so again I will be trying to get haulage and photos of as many as possible before the onward march of “tubes” continues.

Photo Bashing/Timing Project

As part of the project to capture the last days of regular locomotive hauled travel I will also try and produce logs of journeys. Whilst travelling on an Anglia Ranger Plus ticket on 18th February I stumbled across and App for the iPhone called SpeedTracker. For £3.99 the app will produce logs of journeys including data output for speed, distance, altitude and time. In addition it also provides an accuracy figure based upon the GPS signal.

Having discovered the App late in the day, I only the had to use it on a journey between Diss and Ipswich, and the log of the journey follows below:

Date: Saturday 18th February 2017
Loco: 90002 ‘Eastern Daily Press: 1870-2010, Serving Norfolk for 140 years’
Coaching Stock: 11068/11101/10414/12151/12111/12137/12115/12093/12032
DVT: 82103
Weather: Dry

Using Microsoft Excel (which I am no expert in) I have also managed to generate a Speed and Altitude graph for the run as below:

The Speed Graph of the Class 90 run between Diss and Norwich by 90002 on the 1P41 13.48 Diss-Ipswich service win 18th February 2017.

The Altitude Graph of the Class 90 run between Diss and Norwich by 90002 on the 1P41 13.48 Diss-Ipswich service win 18th February 2017.

As can be seen from the log and graphs, the Class 90 had no problem in accelerating away from Diss and continuing to do so despite climbing. 100mph was reached and sustained for most of the journey with a slight slowing for the bends approaching Stowmarket. Unfortunately, the high speed running was interrupted by a Signal Check near milepost 73 near Barham Sidings. I suspect that it was due to a preceding container train, but from then on the journey was somewhat slow!

I hope to undertake more runs and will be bringing these to the blog as and when I can.

I would be interested in any comments people may have on these posts, and whether they are interested or not really bothered!

The Driver of Class 90 90002 steps onto the footplate to ready for departure with 1P41 13.30 Norwich to Liverpool Street on 18th February 2017.

Error: Contact form not found.

A crisp spring Sunday in 1973 sees a Western Class 52 diesel hydraulic idle off Brunel’s superb Saltash bridge as it heads the daily Penzance to Kensington milk train out of Cornwall into Devon and along the sinuous section of the GWR on the way to Plymouth and beyond.

The Westerns were withdrawn on 28th February 1977, 40 years ago!

The Diesel Hydraulic Westerns were withdrawn 40 years ago today. They had developed a following somewhat similar to steam engines that had been withdrawn only 10 years earlier, and were the first of the express diesel engines to be superseded by the High Speed Train (HST).

I’m not sure I ever saw a Western before withdrawal, as the Deltics were my thing living in East Anglia; but I’ve got a soft spot for them having seen them in preservation.  They seemed to rekindle the spirit of trainspotting and railway enthusiasm which had died somewhat after steam, probably because like steam engines they were kept in a decrepid state towards the end of their working lives.

Peter Hutchinson managed to take some evocative shots of the class when they still held sway on the Western Region, and his shots will be uploaded soon to the Lineside Photographics website.

Peter’s shot of this Western heading the daily milk train out of Cornwall towards London embodies everything about the Western Region; Brunel’s iconic Saltash Bridge, the Western Region’s decision to go it alone with diesel-hydraulic traction and a milk train. Whilst the bridge still stands, and some Westerns were preserved, the milk train is from a bygone age, replaced by articulated lorries.

The Westerns really started the new-age of enthusiasts ‘bashing’ trains, the Deltics quickly followed and then it was the Class 40s and Class 37s which seemed to be the last of the old-guard of BR diesels with a cult following. Oh for it to be 1977 again!