More railway ramblings.

Just looked at a post on Facebook of a shunter having difficulty joining up the pipes between a steam locomotive and carriages.  His problems were compounded by having to connect not only the brake pipes but also the steam heating pipes.

Watching the video I was reminded of dark cold early mornings at Chesterfield Midland.  A train would pull in, detach a van,  shunt it into the bay platform, reconnect to the main train and then head off.  The shunter had passengers watching his every move as a delay would cause the following passenger train to be held outside the station much to the annoyance of passengers for Derby, Birmingham and Bristol.

In the 1970s-80s the railway carried much of the mail, often in the guard's van of passenger trains, or sometimes in a van the length of a passenger carriage added to a passenger train.  A train I caught from Birmingham New Street added a van to the front at New Street.

One train had a mail van at the rear.  One night at Derby there was a problem with a passenger carriage in the middle of the train. Rather than split the train and send the front portion on its way it was decided to detach the errant vehicle, join the train up and then send it on its way.  The reason for this manoeuvre was that the mail van had to go on.  Sadly, over an hour passed and the re-formed train failed to move.  An HST was pressed into service to take us on to Sheffield.  The van stayed in Derby.