Hello from the Philippines

[billyboy]

Hello. i worked on southern railway for a few years. depot at Newhaven (sub depot to Brighton) where i worked as a fireman. Shifted a fair bit of coal on some trips too!
Interested in anything to do with steam on the Southern

[pavorossi]

Hello and welcome Billyboy! I to have a fondness for Southern steam, despite being deep in London Midland territory and being much too young to have experienced it first hand. What do you think about the looks of the Q1s? There must be somebody else out there who thinks they look good!

[billyboy]

Q1's eh1 Well they certainly worked well opn freight. built to pull and pull they would. had to watcg out for the regulator on those. it could be used from either side of the footplate. if you were a bit close when the driver pulled his up, your end wiuld strike you on the head. remember being on the recieving end of that a time or two...LOL

[pavorossi]

I never thought about that, and it was probably a point overlooked whilst it was on the drawing board too, did you ever get drivers doing it on purpose to the firemen for a joke? So other than the pacifics and Q1s which have already been mentioned, what classes did you work on?

[billyboy]

hello again. well we had quite a few to play around with in those days (pre beeching years) Schools class were common enough. everything from A1X, E4;s M7's. the great standard tanks. SE "C class's Brighton moguls (K class) the vulcans. N class and U1's. electric locos too, used on the Newhaven-Victoria boat trains with goods workings between.S15's ect. quite a few really, we were lucky like that on the southern. before i was an appointed fireman i used to go on loan to other depots like three bridges or redhill. even had a day at stewarts lane on loan once. Redhill was hard work though, plenty of fires to be cleaned there! we used to relieve the crews, take their locos into the depot and perform P & D work on them. therrefore i got to get to grips with a few strangers at times. Worked plenty of passenger runs from redhill to reading as well. But once i got appointed to a regular driver i got a better class of work and loco. thats when i learned to love the bullieds!...LOl

[billyboy]

the Q1's were not the most attractive of locos, but, they were good to work with. in comparison a good many freight locos, these baby's would work well, they steamed well too. when traveling to take over a train i was always happy to see a Q1 (Charlie) there as i knew we have a good trip. (soon learned to dodge the regulator...LOL)

[pavorossi]

Quite a list. I've never been on the footplate of an engine in steam, and the only two Southern engines I've seen are Tangmere (quite a regular up on my local line) and 30072 up on the KWVR (but not in steam).

[Trev]

Hi Billy, and welcome.

I'm a bit of a Southern steam fan myself, it's second only to the LNER as far as I'm concerned. Not old enough to remember the steam days, but I like the SR for the sheer variety of its engines; and its fairly strange numbering system.