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Old and new bashing trips by Cowley

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fowler9

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It should be God with your username...

I would accept God. I think Erm would be a better knickname for Robbie after the none word he repeatedly said in any interview. Ha ha. He's still a hero from my younger days though. :D
 

Cowley

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I would accept God. I think Erm would be a better knickname for Robbie after the none word he repeatedly said in any interview. Ha ha. He's still a hero from my younger days though. :D

He was the man :D. The white line goal celebration still makes me chuckle.
 

fowler9

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He was the man :D. The white line goal celebration still makes me chuckle.

Yeah, naughty boy. I remember a few blue mates saying he was setting a bad example despite the fact the reason he did it was that they were all screaming from the stands that he was a coke head (Not a very good example to the kids they had with them). Mind you Gerard Houlliers explanation that Rigobert Song told him he was pretending to sniff the grass was hilarious.
 
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47403

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Wow Mr Cowley what a read thoroughly enjoyed that. A right ole trip down memory lane. You certainly have lived a life. Nirvana's Nevermind album, I had the cassette (one for the young uns to google) and played it so much, the tape snapped. I still think Negative Creep from the bleach album is their best ever song. Anyhoo I digress.

You had me hooked when you typed them utter words, Anyone who doesn't like 47s better look away now.

I was killing myself at the rigger hoying his bag off the train, then bottling the jump, probably a very sensible decision too and your attempts at freshening up too, made me laugh. Done that a few times at Carlisle on overnighters. Filling the sink, adding a large squirting of shower gel, to at least smell fresh, only to defeat the object somewhat, by drying yourself on the t-shirt you've just taken off.

Some cracking locos you had too. 47521 was always a bit of a banger and the 47/7s, all left me feeling jealous. Network South East livery looked smart on.the 47s but ScotRail was better. I was gutted when they shove got pulled from the Edinburgh-Queen St turns, every 6 weeks holiday, my mates and I done 2, what we called the big trips, one was always A trip to Edinburgh, either at the start or the end, we always looked forward to that, me especially, all day action on the 47s or McRats, also not a single peak in sight For my mate Cal and I to argue about, probably to the rest of the gangs relief.

As for the loco changes. I'm.fairly sure most were done, if not all, at Carstairs. I knew a lad from the North East(a mate of a mates mate) who used to travel down at least once a week, in his car for the late Blackpool workings, early to mid 80's, he used to park his car up and ride back n forth on whatever turned up but the 40's, were his main effort. He'd sleep inn the car for a few hours or his mates mam n dads caravan, then drive home.

Oh to go back to them days. Bet you were totally knackered by the end of that week. However It sounded like a right blast. Many thanks for sharing.


Ash Bridge, I remember the 31s on the Man Vic- Barrow turns, had a few from Preston - Lancaster, late 80's early 90's, if I remember rightly. Great fun.
 
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Cowley

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47403. Thank you very much for that, much appreciated indeed. It's been enjoyable remembering it all. Very different times back then.
I had Nevermind on tape too with Bob Marley on the other side, sums up the era bit I reckon...
 

Cowley

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Hello folks.
I've not been on any trips recently apart from the Exeter vintage bus day at the weekend (I put a bit about it on the bus section the other day, it was good fun). What has happened though is that my stepbrother Tom found a load of photos from some of our trips to places and also days around Exeter from 1986/1987. So I'm going to post some of them over the next couple of weeks as and when I get time. I'll put them into separate posts so that I can explain what was happening.
Those of you that don't like nostalgia look away now :)

The first one is of D200 visiting Exeter on the 'Desert Songster' railtour (August 31st 1987). It came down the Waterloo and headed back up the GWR mainline (I assume to London).
While at St David's it refuelled and the photos show it running to the shed and then on shed (I count 6 different classes on shed that day and there was probably a 50 tucked away somewhere too).
Tom and I managed to cab it while it was being uncoupled and he was so busy taking photos of the inside of the cab that the driver didn't realise he was still there and stormed off towards the level crossing before screeching to a halt and ejecting a very pleased with himself looking Tom at the end of the platform. :lol:

In platform 1 is 50007 waiting to head to Waterloo and Tom captured it as it was leaving. Note the blue and grey coaches which had Network Southeast stickers on them before the whole rakes were painted in their livery.
There were a lot of mixed up rakes at that time as sectorisation was starting to take hold.

Last thing. Thanks Tom for taking these photos when I was obviously far too busy nedding and frothing about to be sensible.
 

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fowler9

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Quality photos mate. First time I remember seeing D200 hundred was after getting off a service from Lime Street at Mossley Hill with my dad on platform 1 (A 304 I think) and D200 was cruising towards Liverpool through platform 4 light engine. I was very excited. I recall at the time the backdrop was a garage, which then became a bar and is currently a gym.
 
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Cowley

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Exeter spotting. 1987.
We would have taken a 142 in chocolate and cream livery (known to us as Skippers) in for a day spent usually on the end of platform 5 along with a multitude of other people also there for the same reason.
We usually bought a return to Exeter Central so that we could get the 50s on the Waterloo services and also the 33s (a pair of 33/2s on the Brighton train at that time) in the book for a pounding up the bank from a standing start.

These are some photos of a few interesting moments.

1 - Large Logo 47 and 50 at the west end of St David's.

2 - A pair of 47 on a china clay train (I seem to remember that the second loco was dead)
3 - Railfreight 31296 'Amlwch Freighter'. The first named class 31? Can't remember now.
4 - An unusual visitor at St David's, a very smart 56055. Well I think it is but half of the last digit's missing.
5 and 6 - 37230 which had bought the weekday coal train down from the coal yard at Exmouth Junction. The driver let us have a quick look in the cab.
We could see the train from our school and up until it started running it was fairly unusual to see 37s around Exeter.
 

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Cowley

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Quality photos mate. First time I remember seeing D200 hundred was after getting off a service from Lime Street at Mossley Hill with my dad on platform 1 (A 304 I think) and D200 was cruising towards Liverpool through platform 4 light engine. I was very excited. I recall at the time the backdrop was a garage, which then became a bar and is currently a gym.

Thanks mate, thought you'd like them. Very much our era.
It's quite hard to believe that it's thirty years ago this year.
 

fowler9

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Thanks mate, thought you'd like them. Very much our era.
It's quite hard to believe that it's thirty years ago this year.

Ha ha, tell me about it. I remember seeing HST's being built at a Crewe open day, not got a clue what year that was. Keep them coming, Exeter was a far away land for me then.
 

Ash Bridge

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I was on that train Mr Cowley, boarded it at Stockport and it originated from Preston. It ran by way of Wolverhampton, Rugby then round the Northampton loop turning off the WCML at Mitre Bridge Junc. to Kensington Olympia, here the 40 was replaced by a pair of 73s which then took us to Waterloo on diesel power. D200 then followed us to Waterloo where it backed on to the front of the train for the run down the Southwestern Mainline to Exeter (and what a run!) it went back up the Great Western main line as far as Reading where it ran round the stock to take us back via Didcot, Oxford, Banbury etc, it was a bit surreal standing next to a 40 at Exeter St Davids :) I have some very similar slides to your pics from that day, btw I think 55013 on the forum was also on this train.
 

Cowley

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Wow. That's excellent Mr Bridge. I think it was running a bit late by the time it got to Exeter and with the long single line sections I imagine that it was pedal to the metal time to stay out of the way of the normal services.
Do you remember 50007 being there then? Unusual to have two green locos in Exeter at the same time bearing in mind neither were 47s...
Fowler 9 - It could be 56053, I'll try and work it out tomorrow.
I'll try and put a few more on tomorrow too.
 

Ash Bridge

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Wow. That's excellent Mr Bridge. I think it was running a bit late by the time it got to Exeter and with the long single line sections I imagine that it was pedal to the metal time to stay out of the way of the normal services.
Do you remember 50007 being there then? Unusual to have two green locos in Exeter at the same time bearing in mind neither were 47s...
Fowler 9 - It could be 56053, I'll try and work it out tomorrow.
I'll try and put a few more on tomorrow too.

To be honest I'm afraid not, so I'm going to locate the slides from that day and see just what I photographed when we layed over at Exeter for the fuelling stop, who knows I may just have unintentionally captured a young Mr Cowley on 35mm film that day, small world isn't it?
 

Cowley

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That would be funny and I wouldn't be surprised.
Here's a few 47 shots from Exeter. The young fellow in the red jumper watching the 47 being detached from the HST would be me :), the 47 has assisted the HST over the banks from Plymouth, again mixed liveries everywhere.
(1500th post :o)
 

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Cowley

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More Exeter shots.

1 - 50007 arriving from the west with a fair degree of flailing from the front coach occurring.
2 - 50026 which was one of the early NSE repaints and retained its original NSE until withdrawal (it gained black windscreen surrounds at some point and looked pretty rough).
3 - 50044 which had just been painted in revised Network Southeast colours, late summer 1987 again.
4 - One of the first Swallow liveried power cars that we saw, probably about June 1987, nice to be able to still see one in the same colours thirty years later.

5, 6 and 7 - Saturday 5 September, the weekend after the D200 tour. 31464 on the 1353 Barnstaple - Exeter gave up the ghost not long after leaving Barnstaple and 37175 was dispatched to rescue it. 37175 was still looking very Scottish and made I fine sight.
The pictures show it arriving and then removing the dead 31 to the sheds.

Of course the amazing thing about all these photos is that all the locos apart from 31464 (although sisters 31463 and 31465 have survived), are still around and not only operational but in the case of a few of them, still operating on the mainline.
 

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Ash Bridge

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Excellent stuff Mr C, I don't know about you but I did prefer the revised version of NSE livery on the 47s and 50s like your shot of 044 Exeter shows. Here are some more that may appeal to you, 50032 prepares to depart St Davids for Barnstaple on the Taw Retour, September 1990, the second two shots after arrival at Barnstaple (Junc) 032 only had 3/4 weeks of mainline service left at this point, 50031 Hood is on the rear.
 

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Cowley

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Excellent photos. Courageous looks so rough! You just don't see such shabby stuff around these days.
 

GusB

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I'm not sure if I've ever seen a 50 in the flesh, as it were. I've seen photos of them in Perth, but it was before my time, and I'm not sure if they ever made it further north than that.
 

fowler9

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I'm not sure if I've ever seen a 50 in the flesh, as it were. I've seen photos of them in Perth, but it was before my time, and I'm not sure if they ever made it further north than that.

You are missing out, I love them.
 

Cowley

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I'm not sure if I've ever seen a 50 in the flesh, as it were. I've seen photos of them in Perth, but it was before my time, and I'm not sure if they ever made it further north than that.

049 and 031 made it to Wick and Thurso a few years ago. They even stuck Highland Rail logos on :).
Not my photo (wish it was)
 

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GusB

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049 and 031 made it to Wick and Thurso a few years ago. They even stuck Highland Rail logos on :).
Not my photo (wish it was)

Okay, I should have specified "in regular service"! I'll need to keep an eye out for similar trips in the future. Highland Rail... ah, those were the days.
 

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A few hellfire reads with photos there! Oh, how great it would be if it were still like that...

Ash Bridge - I certainly prefer the revised one too - the swish up the front looks pretty rubbish.
 

Cowley

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A few hellfire reads with photos there! Oh, how great it would be if it were still like that...

Ash Bridge - I certainly prefer the revised one too - the swish up the front looks pretty rubbish.

Thanks fq. You're right guys. The revised NSE is definitely the better livery but I've got a massive soft spot for the early one as it was such a surprise when I saw it on Royal Oak for the first time. Also the last remaining few in the original colours were proper scabby by the end and I like that kind of thing. Like 50032 in the picture at Barnstaple, it looks like it's been cleaning chimneys. :lol:
 

Ash Bridge

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Thanks fq. You're right guys. The revised NSE is definitely the better livery but I've got a massive soft spot for the early one as it was such a surprise when I saw it on Royal Oak for the first time. Also the last remaining few in the original colours were proper scabby by the end and I like that kind of thing. Like 50032 in the picture at Barnstaple, it looks like it's been cleaning chimneys. :lol:

I think even some of the long term stored out in the open 60s at Toton appear to be in better cosmetic shape than 50032 was at that time :lol:
 

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It's great seeing old photos like these! Especially as I know the area well and obviously know what it's like today!
 
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