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Excellent idea to set up that kind of archive. It looks a really interesting site. I wish I had more time to explore it because the very first picture I looked at made my eyes pop!

In your LNER/Catesby Tunnel group there's a shot of an A3 heading towards the tunnel and that engine is identified as 'Windsor Lad'. Now, talk about 'prize cops' (this subject was raised on another thread about the Gresley 'Hush Hush' 4-6-4) - well, Windsor Lad on the southern part of the GC main line would deserve to be rated as one of the biggest prize cops of all time! This A3 Pacific was allocated to Scottish area sheds for the whole of its life. It hardly visited the south even on the East Coast main line, let alone the GC section. It might have come south on extremely rare occasions on a running in turn after overhaul at Doncaster, but as your picture shows the engine is certainly nowhere near in ex-works condition - in fact the very opposite.

There certainly were a few A3s on the GC section but most of those I can think of had the older GN-style tenders with coal rails. The engine in the picture has the later LNER design of tender which is correct for Windsor Lad. Flying Scotsman itself was on the GC line for a time and it had an LNER type tender.

Are there any details of the date and occasion of this picture that would confirm the identity of this A3 as Windsor Lad? I'm really intrigued because not only must it have been one of the prizest cops of all time in that location but also because someone managed to take a photo of it.

I lived at the southern end of the Kings Cross main line from the mid 1940s until regular steam workings finished in 1963. Appearances of Scottish A3s in the south were like gold dust, and during my years in the area I had only 2 definite sightings - and one of those was at Peterborough. Windsor Lad was a Scottish based A3 for its entire life. To learn of a possible 1949 visit by this engine to the GC line just about beats everything.

Martin Beckett

Martin - The photograph is also reproduced in Philip Weston's 'The Weston Collection' a slim card cover book of photographs taken by his father. The book only reproduced a fraction of the photographs in his collection and was published in 1983 by Wyvern Publications (cover price £4.50 which was a lot in those days). Phil sold several postcard sized photos to me and one or two much larger prints too. My postcard sized photo has no other information other than that seen in the book.

Very interesting and user friendly site. Great to see so many photographs. Well done!

Martin Davies

I really enjoyed looking at the old photographs. My Grandfather (George Everitt) was the Senior Railway Clerk at Snow Hill, while his brother Bill was Station Master at Knowle before moving to Tenby in South Wales. Another member of the family, Joe Gurney, was station master at Banbury.

Stephen Harper-Scott

I am playing a railway station tea shop proprietress in a Noel Coward play and wondered if you might have pictures?

Anne Byrd - agbyrd15@sbcglobal.net

Anne - I have found this photo of May Jordan who was manageress of the refreshment room at Stratford Old Town Station from 1915 to 1934. May was mother of Arthur Jordan who was author of book 'The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway'. Hope its of use.

Your images at Longdon Road, gwrl531-33 were taken by Dr. Jack Hollick on 29th April 1934. I have the negatives plus several others of the line taken that day. Jack Hollick was a good friend to me hence my having a large chunk if not all of his box camera negatives when he died. They might not be his - because he was out that day with three other men, including D.S Barrie, C.R.Clinker and a London Stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Justice Broderick.

In the view Jack took at Longdon Rd. Barrie is nearest then Clinker then Broderick. In the view at Stretton with a man, that's Clinker. They all walked along the track together so they might all have taken near identical pictures and then one of these gents negatives could have ended up with John Smith (Lens of Sutton). But anyhow, judge for yourself. Jack was always generous with prints and loans of negatives to make prints. He was close to Clinker and Barrie and they were all interested in recording and publicising railway history.

If you were to send me a list of 'Warwickshire wants' I might have the odd one or two. I have some taken by Peter Barlow on a day out on the SMJ behind 9017 (date?) including inside Fenny box, stations, odds and ends - you know how it goes. What really hurts me, even after all this time, is the way I allowed almost all of my best beloved railway to slip through my fingers - I just stood there and looked at it! Amazingly stupid.

Now that I've got out the negatives, I see that there are the 1934 set and a 1950s(?) set taken on an REC visit to the line with a 2474 views of the train at Shipston, stations from train, and one view of 1335 on the branch platform at Moreton in the Marsh. I shan't send these unless you want me to but perhaps you know the dates of these visits?

Adrian Vaughan

Adrian kindly sent some photos, as referred to in the text, which I will add shortly as part of the revamp of the branch. They will be useful additions to others from Rogers Carpenter's collection which is due to be revamped following Robert Ferris' work on Claverdon and my completing the MR route to Barnt Green.

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