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Painting: Peter Annable (MGRA)

Mike Musson Collection

Guest Book: add a comment

I welcome your thoughts on the site as well as receiving any comments on the captions or photographs. The site's webstats show that whilst several thousand people visit each month, with more than one hundred visitors spending over an hour viewing the site, only a handful make the effort to submit an entry. It has taken several years to develop this site for your enjoyment so will you now spare just a few minutes to say whether it was worthwhile? So please make the effort now to make an entry as your contribution to this site.

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Wonderful site, keep up the good work. Now, a question. How could I find out what colour rolling stock was used by the London & Birmingham railway before it became part of the LNWR?

Neville Philpott

Phil - Many thanks for your kind comments about the website. Regarding your query regarding the livery of L&B coaches if you look at this image it might help. Its from London and Birmingham Railway Centenary souvenir produced in 1938 by the LMS and one would assume that the LMS would have the records to be able to illustrate the rolling stock of the period. As you will see the coaches carried different liveries reflecting their class of carriage. Hope this helps.

Following my response to Dave's earlier entry Dave replied with the following.
Dear Mike - I am sorry I don't have any photographs I could pass onto you. My brother who I haven't seen in years and is two years younger than me was the photographer. As we were sons of a railwayman we used to travel around quite a bit train spotting so his photos tended to be at Bristol, York or Kings Cross. I just remember Saltley, Aston and Monument Lane as sheds that you would go past as a kid and try and scribble down as many numbers as possible in a few seconds. I did go round Saltley and Aston a few times as I was older.

Aston was a strange shed as I don't recall it having a turntable as there was limited space. From what I recall it seemed to provide motive power to north bound trains out of New Street., i.e. Glasgow, Blackpool. One of the biggest events was when the ex Cardiff Canton Britannia's (Morning Star, Ariel etc) were moved there after Canton went diesel. Mind you, the Brits seemed to spend a lot of time on freight work from what I can remember around Bescot.

Saltley, of course, was where the freight locos that came into Washwood Heath Yard were serviced. They also had the mechanical stoker fitted 9Fs for the Washwood Heath -Carlisle run. I have seen photos of the odd Royal Scot on Saltley shed but I don't think from what I can recall in my Ian Allan book that they ever had any "namers" allocated.

Monument Lane was somewhere that I never went around. Of course now it's a housing estate but again I think it was mainly a freight shed with servicing locos off freights coming into Monument Lane Goods.

I think you are doing an excellent job. When I watch programmes like Time Team trying to uncover history long buried, people like yourself perform an invaluable task in making history available now. It's just such a pity that so much of the stuff we used to produce ourselves is now produced elsewhere.

One final point, there is an excellent book out on Bournville Sheds in Birmingham. My daughter bought it me for last Christmas. It's The Railways of Cadburys and Bournville Shed. It is mainly devoted to the internal railway system that Cadburys used to have BUT I was delighted to see that the portion on Bournville sheds was much bigger than I anticipated. It gave the history of the sheds, the types of locos it had allocated and the "turns" it covered. The photos even went back to the 1920s. Unfortunately, I lent it someone recently and haven't had it back yet. Once again, congratulations on a job well done.

Kind regards - David Dalton

Wonderful site that keeps the memory of steam alive. Thanks for allowing people to see it. I am an ex-Burton-on-Trent boy living in Australia.

Phil Banton

As a former resident of Warwickshire when Birmingham was part of the county, I really love this site. I used to train spot at Shirley station as a kid. I am now 64.

Barry J Purslow

Congratulations on an excellent site. I too came on it purely by chance. I found the sections on Saltley and Monument Lane sheds fascinating. A big thanks to you.

David Dalton

This website is excellent, and a valuable tool to those writing about railway history. It must have taken an enormous amount of work and knowledge.

Geoffrey Kingscott - Author of 'Last Train from Trent Station', 'Lost Railways of Nottinghamshire', 'Lost Railways of Leicestershire & Rutland', 'Lost Railways of Derbyshire' and 'Lost Railways of Northamptonshire' (due out in October 2008).

Robert Hayles has provided a response to my reply to previous entry as follows:
Hi Mike, next chance I get I will go into the collection and see just what is in there. From memory there are pictures of me as a 4 year old in 1954 on the miniature railway, it was gone well before 1960, as I regularly travelled to Rugby to spot about that time.

Rugby was an interesting junction at that time, we went mainly for the GC trains, by that time it was V2s, B1s, 9Fs, WDs etc, with a regular WR Hall every Saturday. On one occasion it failed to turn up and had a SR unrebuilt West Country instead. The West Coast mainline rarely produced anything unusual but was still fascinating. My father has had several photos published and held an official lineside pass between Lichfield and Tamworth in 1953, the document is in the collection.

I am moving property to be nearer my work in North Staffs and will live back in Cheshire where I was from 1992-2004, close to another favourite railway spot, Crewe. The other series of photos that will I'm sure interest you is the tragic smash of 1955 which wrecked most of Sutton Coldfield station. Apart from Steam locos my other passion is Birmingham City Transport and I own a BCT Double Deck bus dating from 1952.

Regards - Robert Hayles

I spent my happy days as a trainspotter in the mid 50's early 60's with my late father. Spent lots of time at Rugby, including entry into the sacred testing plant. My fathers photo collection includes pictures in the testing plant and one unusual shot of a Duchess on the 'Royal Scot' on Coronation day complete with a commemorative smoke box disc. Plus an A3 on GC viaduct and the prototype Deltic at Rugby Midland. One of these days I will get the negatives out and scan them on to my AppleMac with a view to publishing. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

P.S Do you remember the live steam miniature railway where the new platform is ???

Robert Hayles

Hi Robert - Thanks for sharing your memories and wetting our appetite regarding your fathers collection of photographs. You could always consider practising publishing one or two on the site!!!

Although I did live near Rugby in the 90s I never heard of the live miniature railway.

Hi, I've literally just stumbled across your website, well done! My interest is the GC and Rugby in particular and so feel I should add a word or two concerning the two photos of the howitzers being loaded. I first saw these as part of a large framed 'montage' hiding in the back of Rugby library in the early 90's. Other photos showed troops on the way to the station and on the Hillmorton Road bridge outside the booking office.

Interestingly one showed artillery horses being loaded into cattle vans. All the loading photos were taken in the GC goods yard, around the loading dock which was situated at the rear of the yard and which had an end loading facility, very useful for big guns! Construction of the ordnance depot at Barby wasn't started until June 1943, by the way. Hope this helps.

Cheers - Tony West

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