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Help with identifying location!

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Arglwydd Golau

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I've had this old damaged photograph knocking around for some time, it was amongst my father's small collection that he took himself, sadly many are of poor quality and/or damaged. Noticing how the forum sleuths are pretty adept at this sort of thing on occasions, can someone please help. All I can see is a GWR pannier tank and signal...should be easy?img304.jpg
 
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krus_aragon

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There are two engines in view, either side of the island platform, and the footbridge in the background is long enough to suggest that there are more platforms out of view to the left.

The semaphore signal is a lower quadrant one, which suggests a GWR station.
 

Peter Mugridge

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Did they have trams or trolleybuses in Llanelli?

There's definitely two trolley poles on top of that vehicle in the background, and wires above.
 

ChiefPlanner

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Did they have trams or trolleybuses in Llanelli?

There's definitely two trolley poles on top of that vehicle in the background, and wires above.

Horse drawn and then electric , - so yes ! - the more I think about it , I am sure it is LLanelly (i) - the pannier tank is in the bay platform forming a slow service to either Llandeilo , or Brynamman (West)
 

krus_aragon

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Here are two six-inch OS maps for corroboration:
1905 Shows the signal post and water tank(?) next to the bay platform.
1913 Shows the addition of a passenger footbridge at the level crossing, which explains the elevated viewpoint.

Unfortunately, the NLS don't have any of the 25-inch maps for this part of Llanelli online. Neither do any of the maps show the station footbridge, only the outline of the station buildings.
 

krus_aragon

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Here are a set of three undated pictures of the trolleybus stop at the railway station, from the back of Geoff Griffiths' "Llanelly Trolleybuses". Note the billboards which can also be seen in the OP's photograph, and also the absence of the streetlamp next to the rear billboard.

IMG_20181003_1451080.jpg

This set of pictures, while undated, are post-war, as the Karrier trolleybuses pictured were introduced in March 1946. That, combined with the fact that all Llanelli trolleybuses initially had cream roofs (until repainted from 1936), suggests the OP's photo dates from the period 1936-1945. Learning more about the demise of the streetlamp may narrow it down further.
 

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Arglwydd Golau

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Wonderful...thank you so much for sorting this one out....trouble is, I can't recall my father ever mentioning that he had been to Llanelli, so when I have a spare minute or two I will check in his old notebooks. From my knowledge of his whereabouts, it would be post 1936 and pre-1939. Of course, it might not have been a photograph taken by him.
 

Ash Bridge

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If I may add to what others have said above about Llanelli. Take a look at the wiki page for the station and you will find a recent shot of a class 158 dmu standing at the through platform with the disused bay platform face and near identical canopies clearly visible, from what appears to be the same location that your father stood. Even the dormer windows of the houses in the current shot can just about be espied alongside the bus in the vintage photo, apologies if the link doesn't work.



en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanelli_railway_station.
 

Arglwydd Golau

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Thanks, Ash Bridge, that does show the bay platform quite clearly....(link didn't work but I found it). I've only ever been through Llanelli once myself a few years ago and didn't notice it
 

MotCO

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Shall we have a 'Do you recognise this place' section?
 

Arglwydd Golau

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GEH168 (2).jpg It's a rather wet and stormy afternoon so if anyone wants to have a think about this attached photograph from my father's old Box Brownie...quite a decent shot for him of - I think - an ex-LSWR T9....but where?
 

krus_aragon

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Having spotted the third-rail electrification on the near line, I can safely say that I won't recognise the location, sorry. :(
 

Arglwydd Golau

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Having spotted the third-rail electrification on the near line, I can safely say that I won't recognise the location, sorry. :(

Yes, I'm afraid that it is not in Wales! He was sent off to school in Leatherhead from North Wales, and his earliest photos were of locations presumably in that area....I have absolutely no knowledge of the railway system in that area either!
 

30907

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It's Dorking, and the train (a Mid Sussex express, from the stock - the 4th coach is a Pullman or ex-Pullman buffet) is heading for London. A T9 could well have been on that route.
I was fooled by the headcode which from 1934 was for the Portsmouth Direct or Quarry and Horsham, not the Mid Sussex proper)
http://semgonline.com/headcodes/sheadcodes.html
You will be able to date the photo slightly more accurately from your father's school career!
 

Arglwydd Golau

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It's Dorking, and the train (a Mid Sussex express, from the stock - the 4th coach is a Pullman or ex-Pullman buffet) is heading for London. A T9 could well have been on that route.
I was fooled by the headcode which from 1934 was for the Portsmouth Direct or Quarry and Horsham, not the Mid Sussex proper)
http://semgonline.com/headcodes/sheadcodes.html
You will be able to date the photo slightly more accurately from your father's school career!

Many thanks, 30907! I've just been looking at a You Tube clip of Dorking in the 1970's and the building shown in the photograph is quite clear. My memory suggests that he was given the camera for Christmas when he was 16, so that was 1930 and the latest mention of Leatherhead in his notebook was in 1933.
I have a photograph from his schooldays at Leatherhead in which the boys are posing as if they were the First Eleven whereas it is in fact the Railway Club!
I may have a few more for you to identify from that area if you wouldn't mind! (assuming I can't identify the location myself!)
 

30907

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Many thanks, 30907! I've just been looking at a You Tube clip of Dorking in the 1970's and the building shown in the photograph is quite clear. My memory suggests that he was given the camera for Christmas when he was 16, so that was 1930 and the latest mention of Leatherhead in his notebook was in 1933.
I have a photograph from his schooldays at Leatherhead in which the boys are posing as if they were the First Eleven whereas it is in fact the Railway Club!
I may have a few more for you to identify from that area if you wouldn't mind! (assuming I can't identify the location myself!)

The date is about what I had guessed. Happy to try and identify stuff but it's not my part of the Southern.
 

Ash Bridge

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I've looked and looked, but still can't spot a headcode! Any clues?

30907 is referring to the discs displayed on the front of the T9 locomotive, a train identification system employed by the Southern Railway back in the day.
 

MotCO

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30907 is referring to the discs displayed on the front of the T9 locomotive, a train identification system employed by the Southern Railway back in the day.
Thanks - is it just the position of the discs which identify it, or is there some faint writing on them?
 

Ash Bridge

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I'm no expert here but I believe it is the position of the disc(s) that actually identify the train, six different mounting positions were available in total but I think no more than 2 discs were displayed at any one time, hopefully a Southern Railway/Region expert will be along to confirm?
 

30907

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I'm no expert here but I believe it is the position of the disc(s) that actually identify the train, six different mounting positions were available in total but I think no more than 2 discs were displayed at any one time, hopefully a Southern Railway/Region expert will be along to confirm?

Three was the maximum, though those tended to be the less-frequently used ones - such as positions 1,2,3 (inverted triangle) for Waterloo-Lymington Pier - or the 2,3,5 used on Sir Winston Churchill's funeral train.
The SEMG website I linked earlier has a selection of pre nationalisation ones but not for the early 30's.
The discs in the photo are blank, but it was common in BR days at least for the loco duty number to be pasted on one disc.
 

Ash Bridge

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An excellent explanation and most interesting to me also, far better than I could muster, many thanks!
 

Bedpan

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Two questions if anybody would mind answering them - (a) I had assumed that it must have been in ex LSWR territory by virtue of the fact that it was a T9 - was it the case that the pre grouping companys' locos migrated all over the Southern railway area after 1923, and (b) I think that the Royal Train had four discs - was this the only time circumstances that four discs were used?
 

30907

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(a) there was a certain amount of migration, but notvthat much IIRC. The Brighton around 1930 was short of decent mainline power, while the Western Section had a surplus, and I would have thought the T9s were well suited to the Mid Sussex (relatively light trains over the longest run on the Brighton side!) - and they were probably Fratton engines anyway.
(b) yes - and the only time Other Railways used all 4 lamps.
 
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