Calstock & Gunnislake
Mark Lynam
Calstock
Courtesy Google Earth Street View
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Its takes about half hour walking along the road, which hardly has any traffic as its a dead end road only serving a few farms. There is a shorter route through the woods North of Bere Alston station going along a public footpath. The footpath continues alongside the river and under the viaduct. There is also a public footpath though the farm yard to connect with the road. Thanks, Mark Lynam.
Trevor Tremethick
I heard about your recent earth tremor and couldn’t help remembering Jethro’s old joke about it doing £10m of improvements! What a boy he was.
I was looking through my old slides and found this that i took nearly 50 years ago, when 50027 had recently arrived at Long Rock for crew training. The St. Ives unit is on the left in shadow. March 31, 1974. I think 1642 was an Old Oak Common engine.
You can see right through the old steam shed! How times have changed!
Best to all Trevor
A very interesting insight
Andrew Vines
The recent interesting account of D600s in Cornwall by Andy Oxley, courtesy of Peter Murnaghan, deserves some qualification. It seems that their unreliability in the early years (including an engine failure on the inaugural press run) stuck with them all their lives, at least in the enthusiast world, and even today is sometimes regurgitated on social media. After all, we love a good story, and all the better if it involves the hated diesels which had delivered the first blow to the beloved GWR steam! However in 1968, following their withdrawal, the WR Traction Controller at Paddington, Mr B L Wilson, felt moved to set the record straight, stating that their performance was latterly no worse and no better than other locomotives on the same route, noting that they were frequently entrusted with the down 'Limited'. Their withdrawal was because of a reduction in fleet numbers and the associated considerable savings in stores etc. No doubt if anyone, he would have known the reality.
Their workings were restricted more to Cornwall from 1962, and whilst the specific reason has not been documented, it should be noted that they, and the pilot scheme D6300s had a very different cab layout from other diesel hydraulics, with a BTH control cabinet set at an angle to the right of the driver's seat. Both pilot scheme classes would have presented an operational inconvenience in terms of training footplate staff widely across the Region, given they were so few in number. I suspect this was the real reason why they were restricted to Cornwall, although it should be noted that they also worked east as far as Exeter on occasions, presumably when there was a Laira crew available to ensure their return. Interestingly there is also evidence of them occasionally working further east than Exeter in their later years, and not just on visits to Swindon works or the journeys to and from South Wales detailed by Neil Phillips. No doubt such occasions were rare, and would have involved the use of a pilotman.
As Andy Oxley observed, they were frequently used on parcels, along with freight and milk, and they were latterly regularly used on class one passenger turns. As well as the down 'Limited', the 1A77 12.00 Penzance-Paddington and 1V33 down 'Cornishman' appeared to be regular duties in Cornwall.
Incidentally, I have it on good authority that their famously heavy construction was the reason why D601 stood for so long in Barry scrapyard. Around 1970, Dai Woodham himself stated that the first one (D600) had been such a nightmare to cut up that they weren't going anywhere near the other one any time soon!
Andrew Vines
Mick House
1) 66 113 & 097 approaching Apex Bridge having just passed over Wheal Busy crossing.
2) 66 113 & 097 having just passed under Apex Bridge.
Bill Elston
Precious little to report from this neck of the woods these days.
However I caught Voyager 220018 on 1V52 Edinb - Plymouth ,
followed by HST 43097 and 43153 on 2U20, Penz - Cardiff
Get 'em while you can!
Take care, Bill. Elston.