Bashing Day 6.8.1983 Lowland Master Transcard

Bashing Day 6.8.1983 Lowland Master Transcard and a saver return apparently!

0848 Oban to Arrochar 37 108
0926 Arrochar to QS 37 051
(morning move to Paisley)
1350: glasg C to stewarton 25 210
1438 return 47 531
1530: Glas qs- Edinburgh Waverley: 47 711

17oo ADDEX : Edin - QS 37 172 ex Scarborough Hol'Ex

1800 Glas QS to WWavverly 47 7xx

2008 Edin Wav to Glasg QS 37 264 ADDEX

2129 Home 303






First in my new book of bashing only, and on a "scratch it" Ned card. A very mundane pair of syphons for the WHL, but I'd give my right leg to be able to pop out and have them any saturday now up the Arrochar bank.

1300 Glasgow C to Paisley 303, DMU return for some reason. This could have been the day the "partick purple heroes" returned from the end of the Marching season in N,Ireland and Perth Man blessed the train as it rioted through Paisley Gilmour. DMU was probably a suspect move : blame it on rupert,

1350: glasghow to stewarton 25 210. Ned move to avoid the desperate bail under the tunnel at Kilmarnock which could be dodgey as it became negative 1 minute at least on timetable.

1438 return 47 531: yuch. Better off covering something at carstairs and paying the excess if it dropped. Roarer days were numbered by then as well.

1530: Glas qs- Edinburgh Waverley: 47 711. Useful for something duffs, the shuvvers would get you to edinbuirgh 30 years ago faster than the plastic does today.

17oo ADDEX Scarborough : Edin - QS 37 172. Fairly huge, the 37 did a good job on the load 8 : blistering warm that day. Think it ran from the "secret" platforms, 13 or so at wavverlee. Hell as it eat a 27 out of haymarket which was toodling out on a dundee. Roars at it as we get up to 80mph on 8 with a large NB. Nice

1800 shove duff back to WWavverly for the second syphon of the day, the errant 37 264 on the 2008 ADDEX from scarborough or skeggie or the like ( please drop a note) Newly allocated to ED I reckon at that point , not large but no doubt some thrash.

home 2129 303. Lovely, a 303 to chill out on the deep, warm bench seats before they went plastic inside.

9.8.83. Three days later and a family trip to mallaig drops what was actually pretty big for then 37 028 vo: vacuum only brakes limited it, but it was not uncommon on passengers. Lucky to get a decent mileage

0917 Home to Ft William 37 028 vo
1245 Ft Bill to Mallaig 37 190 xbh
1610 Mallaig to Home 37 190

the latter at that time was actually a Mallaig - Glasgow on TOPS iirc!

0917 to Ft bull, 97.25 miles 37 028 required for haulage! Family day out, absolutely baking warm. The Mallaig Kettle services were underway and some move for the tin-can had resulted in a track bed/sleeper fire near tulloch or somewhere, resulting in a stop at some desserted station north of corrour which I fail to rememebr but have photos of no doubt!

1245 Ft Bill to mallaig 37 190. 1610 Mallaig : home 138.25 miles.

Big run on 37 190 which was at that point hell fire, later to become a poorer performer in outright thrash but still a reliable sister to 188, 191 and 192.

There were various eccentrics on the train and quite a few people just doing the day to cover the line for tourist reasons: "ada and bert" as we used to say. One middle aged teenager on a scateboard with an eaton tie and accent to mathc, and a randy 35 year old lady with a tuscan sun tan and a rich hubby with baronial pile in Arisaig eyeing up my obbvious virginity with some interest.

22.8.83 missed a whole weekend to something else, but back for something I guess many later comers in the bashing world would buy a tardis for: the pilot trains which were a class 20 for the up sleeper on monday mornings: being too lazy to get up at 4.30 (yeah, right, life is somewhere in there) the 20 was usually lashed up with a syphon on the down afternoon bill.

The 20 was fitted with a through steam pipe set up. Two were modified I believe in order to work the Mrk I dual heat sleeper. They were used to help over come wheel slip, being trailling loco both ways usually, but I have seen pics of it leading the down.

1718 to Garelochhead. 37 191

1800 Gareloch to Dumbarton 37 027 + 20 045

1849 Dumbarton to Arrochar 37 108

1942 Arrochar to Home 37 264



The double EE 20 / 37 combitwenty combination sounded pretty good. There was probably some precedent for using a 20 to prevent wheel slip, but the conversion to a through steam pipe was a master stroke for ED depot!!

followed by 37 108 Dumbarton . Arrochar 1849 and 1942 37 264 out again for me at least down at 1942. The bails were due to a slightly poor timetable with passes at Glen Douglas and N glasgow respectively. Later time tables became more straight forward with the only issue being the afternoon festering on the WHL which took us to cover all and sundry to return for the famous 1650 Ft bill run.

25. 8. 83
1718 - Gareloch head 37 039
1800 37 190 return.

I believe this fairly ned like move was due to Spock being introduced to the art of bashing. This I am sure, was in fact the night he gained the nick name from Gordon Sellers due to the small pinches in his otherwise non vulcan foundry ears.

To show I was a but bored with the WHL by now, I did this day to cover all the moves for wayward NB class 37s or new metals for 12CSVT


0730 Glas- Stewarton 26 015
0819 Stewarton - Glas 26021 + 26031 ( hee hee rat bashers!)

1000 Johnstone to GHlasgow 27014 + 37109.

Why? well I guess the 27 was either floundering or the 37 was needed back up. 109 was an english boilered syphon and large enough for us on that route. Very rare pairing: can someone confirm they were blue starred up that day?

1135 Glas- Kilwinning 37 017

: Not even pm yet and we are doing some017 was vbh if IIRC. Not actually big for strannies but a nice drop. Good run to Lodge zero town, with a pile of bashers on board including Perth Man and Rupert and probably brian reid and dobie. Dreadful Ayr DMU back unfortunately for no real reason.

1350 Glas- Stewarton 27 029.'

POS , all the sad mac rat bashers were out IIRC, for this toddle down to the faceless station in the midst of darkest nowhereshire. Rancid. Only saved parially by

1438 Stew to Glas Cen 26 030. Required.

Syphon bashers had a soft spot for the little Cromptons, probably as much to wind up the 27 bashers as much as for their use on the beloved far north route.

1550 to Kilmarnock 27 108

for 1630 Kilmarnock to Ayr: 47 413.

Covering this rake of mark Is in the summer was worthwhile as it could drop 37s, 40s and allegedly 31s. Carlisle were probably playing funny boogers keeping duffs on shed at that point as some sheds would do when an itinerant and desirable loco needed an A exam or water or the like. Okay it was a gennie duff, but still a loco derated due to inadequacies in build and more expensive than DP2s would have been!

Back home that night on 303s.

10-9-83 Another ned day. Up early for no bloody reason.

0624 303 which was direct to central for some reason (?)
0730 to Stewarton 27 012 for 27 023.

Ooh I should have gotten a TOPS report, but that was cheating unless you found one!!

0935 to johnstone DMU ( 101 IIRC p.o.s.)
1010 Johnstne - Central 47 211
1135 Glas Cen to Kilwinning 47 109
1350 Stewarton 26 038 for , yep of course 27 012 on return.

1634 (oban?) To garelochhead 37012 for 37 188 back to dunbarton for 37051 to Helensburgh upper, Walk move to Hel' Central to cover th 2038 something or other as far as lenzie because it was a duff and we had nowhere else to go 47 578 , puke!

2051 back was a by then getting rare 27004 for a 303 home at 2129. Phew. 14 hour day.

24-9-83 I think this was done either on a special green day ticket or by some fudge with fares as I was so poor back then that a tenner was BIG money for a days bashing.

0640 Upper to Tyndrum Upper 37085 + 37 108 ( probably loco rota swap at the Ft Bill shed or a failure)
0846 Tydrum lower to Arrochar 37 022 not yet 9 am and three syphons in the book. 022 was relatively little used.

0923 Arrochar to Oban 37188
1225 Oban to Upper 37 188

This is when it became my beast as it was a nice runner with plenty of thrash on the handle. I guess this was a family day or a special ticket, but whatever there was little time at Oban. I have some dodgey 110 and BW pictures of a day trip to Oban with "dobey" but I think it was a split head code 37. Dunno. 188 became my beast and he stuck to 264.


===================
ETHEL begins
====================

Ethel was ushered in in the early autumn timetable of 1983.

Here is probably the first saturday of it's operations.

1020 Upper to QS 37027
1350 - Kilmarnock 47 524 puke , why oh why? and wait for it: a DMU is put on in return as happened sometimes when 27s or 25s went pete tong.

1650 Glas- Helensburh Upper 37085,

for the walk move again due to the stoophid timetable fora 314 to get the 1851 Dunbarton 37 037 to ardlui. Nice number, decent loco recently released from Stratfor I believe at that time.

Ardlui home 1959 37 191 and ETHEL 2

12.10. 1906 to Ardlui 27 108 of all the cheek! for 37 043 with ETHEL one 1959 Ardlui back. Think I remember all the MacRat neds were out.

22.10.1983 0906 To arrochar 37 043

0945 Arrochar to Hel U. 37 190 leading a failed 175 ( dead as marked in brackets in my book)

175 was not in all that good a nick on Scr, with dreadful clag with flames, an over eager engine and some electrical issues including wrong field divert in engagement.

1150 Hel U to QS 37 027- The new move was needed to cover the down ft bill in case you needed it ( a ned fester beleive me) We made up for it in the evening timetable with crosses at decent places so you could cover the down oban before then taking the ETHEL at Ardlui.

1350 TO kilmarnock 47 595. New timetable made it possible again as it had been before. The old timetable had allegedly been tampered with either to foil MacRat bashers or to make it possible for Carlisle "men" to get some mileage up to Kilmarnock for a bail to return. Rancid 47, but at elast it would have been warm.

1428 Kilm - Central 27 056. this was a reasonable class 27. Nuff said. At one point you could bail at nitshill due to a dodgey signalling. Bad place to bail !


The Kilmarnock 1350 was an institution and filled tha afternoon gap if you weren't mileaging to Oban or Bill. Also it was more useful for Gen because you met "big" english bashers. Deltic Men amongst them. And they had gen and TOPS and some could influence which loco dropped on a chain reaction to potentially produce on an ADDEX or a Carlisle Stranie etc.

1650 t Dumbarton 37 027
1820 QS to Home 37 043

Guess I was bored that day and knew the result on the later workings down from Oban and Bill.

AYR Open day. 29.10.83

As far as I remember this was my last day with the purpose of actually spotting. There were a few hulks and regular 20s required for sight as it was difficult to see from the line or the gate and a real no go area for entoosiasts without it being flung open.

On the open day we got to go inside 37 017 and an NB with a "band stand" as well as a 27 but I think the 40 was locked.

0835 Central to Newton on Ayr 27040 ( special stop for the open day I dare say)
1450 Ayr to Central 27040
1650 to Dumbarton 37085
1733 Dumbart to QS 37112
1820 Glas - Ardlui 37 108
1959 Ardlui- Glasgow QS 37012 ETHEL 2
2159 303 home

A fairly thankless evening given the usual suspects out, but I was already on the ED boilered mileage way, hence the longer run into Glesga past my bed time. I was 15 in 1983.

12.11.83

0906 to Arrochar 37026
0945 Arrochar to Garelochhd 37112
10:49:00 Garelochhead Arrochar 37033 + 37 178
11:15:00 Arrochar Glasgow QS 37014

13:50:00 Glasgow Central (Carlisle) Barrhead 86101/47540

Very, very bizarre: either some bizzare mess on the diagramming and delivery of motive power, or more probably a diverted WCML train which took the diagram and status of the usual 1350 Central Carilse via Dumfries. We probably did a dodgey leap at barrhead on a signal, but it could have been a scheduled stop at some point for the Carlisle diesel run.


18:20:00 Glasgow QS (Oban) Arrochar
14:58:00 Barrhead Glasgow Central DMU
16:50:00 Glasgow QS (Ft William) Crianlarich 37112
19:09:00 Crianlarich Arrochar 37188
19:41:00 Arrochar Ardlui 37026
19:59:00 Ardlui Helensburgh Upper 37037
ETHEL 1

Well and truly back onto mundanity of being a 37 basher after one of the weirdest trains I ever did. More soon on the moves out over 1983.