Thank you Mr. Scargill.......

Into May came along full BNB season 25.05.1984 Freedom of Scotland Forged ? Cheap tickets? I don't know what the score was here because I seemed to be doing freedom moves but going home at night and not getting very carried away.

Perhaps the excitement of pairs of 20s and 40s out on the Carstairs- Edinburgh "portions" blinded me to the delights of the type 2 move Mossend-Elgin ( 1S81 and the 4Exx trains further on) or the glorious far north route.

09:06:00 Home Arrochar 37039
09:45:00 Arrochar Glasgow QS 37175
11:20:00 Glasgow C Carstairs 86246
(turned down 47 348 on a portion)
The 47/3s suddenly appearing on SCr was the real symptom of what was going on with the coal industry. Some of these locos had probably never worked a passenger other than maybe a couple of "drags" or failures.

There were two portions to cover though!:

13:06:00 Carstairs Edinburgh Waverley 40047

14:17:00 Edinburgh Wav Haymarket 47203
1500 Haymarket Edinburgh 27042
15:10:00 Edinburgh Wav Carstairs 47423
16:03:00 Carstairs Glasgow Central 86311
16:50:00 Glasgow QS Home 37108

40047 if I remember correctly, had produced on the Ft WIlliam sleeper! The portion forward through low level to mossend or whereever. Unbelievable to see a 40 at Dumbarton! Anyway it could have been the redoubtabvly 074 that night, but I seem to remmeber being pleased to bag 047 on this run becuase I had turned down a late night risk to take the sleeper forward in 82/83 some time.

I guess I was happy enough with bagging 40047 because I went hame fur ma tea.




26.05.1984
07:24:00 Home Glasgow LL QS 303
09:50:00 Glasgow QS Dumbarton C 37022
10:33:00 Dumbarton Glasgow QS 37039
11:20:00 Glasgow C Carstairs 86324

11:20:00 Carstairs Edinburgh Wave 20009 + 20175
14:17:00 Edinburgh Wav Haymarket 47707
1500 Haymarket Glasgow QS 47707
1556 Glasgow QS LL Home 303

The 11:30 stranrær, usually a 27 or 47/0 was a HUGE 47336, prompptly turned down because of the much finer music of a pair of twenties awaiting us at Carstairs, relieved from Longannet coal duties no doubt. 47 348 was there again, think it was an fugly flashing lamp version. It's batteries died so the duff bashers, especially that annoying fat ginner Ulster guy were "bowled out" and "withered" much to our amusement.

The twenties were hell!

So much so I turned down most likely 37108 again and took a 303 home for my dinner ! Bashing then was not all about a limited number of locomotives to get max mileage out of as it became so in the 1990s. It was more about lines in the book and big NBs with some "top men" only turning out to cover big producers.