Sarah Siddons on the Met

Really? A similar notice was posted in the Historical forum, but someone claimed that it was called off.

Its the 20th May, 1200 ex Harrow, i havnt heard that its been called off.

Excuse ignorance but who owns 20 227?

Reminds of the Class 15 BTH locos that had tripcocks fitted to run over the Northern on goods trains and also the Central.

Does 20 227 still have the "Traction" nameplate, named after Traction magazine.

It was supposed to run with people on board on 20th May, however i beleive this has been put back slightly as these runs that i have posted about are for familiarisation purposes.

The launch date is now 10 June

Is it actually going to run atall this week, because I havent seen it about. (However the TRT used its path this morning from Ruislip Sidings, so my photo journey wasnt wasted

i was expecting to run this today through rickmansworth but no sign, anyway heres a link to whom she actually was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Siddons i wonder if in 100 years time we'll have stock called angelina jolie?! (imagine being able to boast that u've been on angelina jolie!!!)

Read up about JOHN HAMPDEN, he of L 5 fame, as it is very interesting. Mrs Sarah Siddons has quite a history if you look into it. Mind you, there's a lot of JOHN in SARAH now I gather, or has been since the Brake Block Test team needed to acquire parts in the late Seventies!

Hope these trains do run with No. 12 - it would be great to see it out on the mainline again.

In the meantime, just to whet your appetites, here are another couple of shots of said loco:-





Click on the images above to take you to larger images with captions on my site, if you so desire!

Regards,
Geoff

In 100 years time, if you're still alive (I won't be*) and if ms Jolie is, both of you will no doubt look a bit worse for wear and I doubt too many people will gasp in awe at your achievement ;D

Seriously though, the amount of telephone calls I've taken recently from now out of the closet enthusiasts about these runs. The numerous times I have faxed the (now obviously fictional) timetable notice to certain staff.

* Imagine being here in 100 years time and someone like Colin posting a link to this post and I have to add a few smilies and laugh as I say "Ha ha got me, but we didn't know what advances science would make did we. I always was the cynical sort..."

There are some interesting shots of the locos as constructed, in the Vickers Photo Archive, at:

tinyurl.com/2ddcos

The two T stock cars are now preserved at the Spa valley railway minus their traction gear (motors) ect.

There were originally 18 of them. They had de-icing tanks inside which dribbled fluid onto the top of the current rails. The location of the rail was detected by a link attached to the pick-up shoe so that the fluid would only flow if the current rail was below the loco. They also had serrated rollers and brushes.

They were freezing cold to work on and were not good to run over detonators (don't ask). They had hand operated window wipers. They had the original Westinghouse brake, GE66 motors, control equipment and bogies of the 1903 motor cars that they were converted from (in 1938-9) until the early 1960s when they had the master controllers replaced by ones ex F Stock and e.p. contactors ex T Stock.

They only had one brake cylinder so, if this went AWOL, you were stuffed. A motorman named Johnny Sobers from Northfields had this happen to him as he ran down the bank into Hammersmith EB Picc early one frosty morning. He managed to stop at Barons Court with the guard winding on the handbrake. Johnny was related to the famous cricketer Garfield Sobers.