Black 5 for Speedbird591

[Tomliner]

Ian wrote

! I love Black 5s - did you take any photos?

Silly question! Come on - get some posted!

I only took a few Ian and not particularly good ones.Here they are.The first was at Edinburgh Waverley and the rest were at Ayr.EricT

[Garry Russell]

Nice shots Eric

I like the bottom one....

[speedbird591]

Hey! Thanks, Eric! I wasn't wrong about you having a few up your sleeve

I really like those shots as they capture the atmosphere of being close to a steam engine. And isn't that Black 5 just so perfect? I know there are bigger and more iconic engines, but those 5s used to be ubiquitious. They could pull anything from an express to a local to a freight and that's why I like them so much. When I was a kid, when a train pulled in, it was most likely being pulled by one of those. It's what a real working steam engine looked like.

Thank you very much for those, Eric. I'm very grateful

Ian

[DaveB]

Any particular reason why the name plate ont' front end isn't on the first shot I'd always presumed they were screwed on

ATB

DaveB

[airboatr]

screwed on

ATB

DaveB

that would be screwed up then?

The North Yorkshireman - awesome

thanks for those Eric, thats definetly one of the things I would see if I made it over there.

[fighterpilot]

Very nice shots of a great engine. Black 5's certainly were ubiquitous Ian about 842 built in total I believe. The plate on the front Dave is a headboard giving the name of the train rather than the locomotive and so just slide onto the lamp brackets. Here is an impressive collection of them I photographed at the nrm in York. http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7838/dscf3073.jpg

Richard

[DaveB]

Cheers Richard

You often see loco's like this in exotic/historic/melancolic pictures with name plates in situ and the presumption for 'non-train' buffs is that they wore them all the time rather than for poses. Another myth dispelled

ATB

DaveB

[airboatr]

well thats half the fun gone for me then

[Fodda]

You often see loco's like this in exotic/historic/melancolic pictures with name plates in situ and the presumption for 'non-train' buffs is that they wore them all the time rather than for poses. Another myth dispelled

Headboard names predominantly name the whole train and route. There were loads in the past, especially on prestige routes and well known runs. For instance The Pines Express service ran from Manchester to Bournemouth on a set route (unless track work meant a diversion). It's always nicer to say "We're off to Bournemouth on the Pines Express... " than "We're off to Bournemouth on the 11:15 from Manchester Picadilly..." for instance.

Although named locomotives could and would be used on these routes, you could never guarantee (or want) the same engine to run it continuously. And as time went on better and newer engines would be used on the route.

Mostly confusion arises over the best known named route in the UK, the Flying Scotsman. The 10am departures from Edinburgh and Kings Cross were officially named as such in the 1920s and the famous loco of the same name was actually named at the same time to publicise this pretigious journey (the route had been unofficially known as the Flying Scotsman for donkeys years before that).

The headboard therefore shows the route run and is easily detatchable to put on another engine, whilst the locomotive nameplate is bolted to the side of an engine (usually). The headboard would be used for every trip to impress anyone seeing the train pass and young lads would scribble furiously when they thundered through stations.

Lots of heritage runs and rail-clubs have headboards for charters etc... So they're very common on modern steam excursions where sometimes the train will run over an old named route. (Pines Express steam trains are still around during the summer months).

This image shows a beautiful BR green class 55 Deltic carrying the headboard for the route even though no Deltic was ever named Flying Scotsman in their own right.



Hope this helps.

[DaveB]

Gary.. I am impressed

Well done that man and tksVM

ATB

DaveB