User talk:Ianbutton1

I have just registered, as I have some historical material on train workings during WW2, and am not sure how best to submit this. Is this wiki the right vehicle for mentioning this?

My father John ("Jack") Button worked for the GWRGreat Western Railway as a clerk at various SVRSevern Valley Railway stations from the 1930's until 1941, and was a very keen railway enthusiast & observer. He noted all the steam locos he saw, including information on the working (if known), the location (station/platform/running-line etc), no of carriages & so on. I have his log-book covering June 1940-September 1941. Basic information is clear, but there are various symbols to indicate whether tender/bunker-first etc, so much remains to be deciphered. Is this material likely to be of interest? The LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway J25 locos are noted quite frequently, and obviously wartime observations are relatively scarce. How best to submit this - as scans of his logbook pages? Thank you.

Hello Ian, and welcome. There's reference to the J25s and other locos on Locomotives used on the Severn Valley Branch in commercial service. There's also some information on the period at The Severn Valley Railway under GWR/BR ownership. All material is of interest, and this is an open edit Wiki so you can add material yourself, either as a new page and/or with a summary of the data on existing pages. You can upload scans of the pages too. A reminiscence on Tales from the Severn Valley might be good. If you've any questions, do ask.

If you eventually decide to archive his material, pre-preservation material is usually held by Kidderminster Railway Museum and David Postle might be a good person to speak to.

It's also prompted me to ponder whether pages for the SVRSevern Valley Railway in each of the two World Wars might be an idea?--Patrick Hearn (talk) 11:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Ian and welcome from me too. Yes, the information would be very much of interest as Patrick says. Just to add another suggestion, I know that a while ago Graham set up a drop box (I think it was) account to hold scanned images of things like old maps so that we can get shared access without having to upload everything onto the Wiki itself. There are presumably quite a number of pages involved so if you can do scans it might be worth doing the same. We may be able to use the same account - he'll probably see this but I'll drop him a note to check. --Robin (talk) 14:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your replies, Patrick & Robin. I will try to scan and upload a page or two. My father was a GWRGreat Western Railway employee on SVRSevern Valley Railway from 1938, and this logbook covers the period 17/6/40 to 26/9/41. The records comprise 148 pages, with 2 columns of 22 lines per page - i.e. about 6000 sightings. It isn't purely SVRSevern Valley Railway, it includes a few trips away and weekend trips back home to Crewe. I understand (from my father's diary) that his previous notebook was lost, but I have the others covering 1928 (age 13, living in Crewe) - 1964 (end of rail commuting when our local station closed at Churchdown, near Gloucester where he was working in the BRBritish Rail or British Railways WR District Commercial Office). More later, when hopefully I will have learned how to do wiki editing. --Ianbutton1 (talk) 18:37, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello again - I have uploaded three files - two scans from the 1940 log-book

and an interim key to help decoding

--Ianbutton1 (talk) 18:11, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

My eye is drawn to 3650 at Small Heath on 27.8.41 - locomotive preserved at Didcot and former visitor to the SVRSevern Valley Railway--Patrick Hearn (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Ian. There's a wealth of information there, but as you say the tricky bit is decoding it all. Looking at the entry on 29 August 1941, NE257, 8.20 Sal, f, at Bridgnorth 1.30. Adrian Turley's The Railway at Kidderminster in the 1940s p. 106. confirms that 257 was one of three J25s allocated to Shrewsbury and used on goods trains to Kidderminster and Hartlebury. The post-War timetable still showed an 8.20 goods departure off Shrewsbury's Coton Hill yard which got to Bridgnorth at 12.33 and left at 2.10pm. That appears to confirm that in column 2 Sal is Shrewsbury (Salop) goods yard (with Sy being Shrewsbury passenger station), the station and time shown is the origin and that f is freight. --Robin (talk) 20:10, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ian, I note your father briefly rose to temporary Station Master at Highley: that page has a table of early station masters and if you have more information from his diaries it would be good to add it. Thanks--Patrick Hearn (talk) 21:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Robin & Patrick, Thanks for your comments - I must get Adrian Turley's book! And I'll look into father's Highley Temp.S.M. dates - it might have been just 1 day when the SM was away! I have GWRGreat Western Railway 1937 & 1938 WTTs Nos.12 (Shrewsbury-Worcester-Hereford-Newport) & 15 (OW&WOxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway), and maybe more stashed away somewhere. Among my father's ephemera is an interesting 1942 B'ham/Worcester Divisions "Working of Coaches" notice that (besides the main carriage diagrams) shows the AEC railcar duties (3 cars from Worcester daily, just 1 on Sundays). I have started trying to find a way of transcribing father's SVRSevern Valley Railway observations - my first idea is a spreadsheet with all the workings (from the 1937/8 WTTs) as rows, and dates as columns, and entering the loco number from father's notes into the appropriate cell. Not too many changes in workings over the years, but still far too many holes! Different sheets required for UpIn reference to the direction of travel means towards the major terminus (i.e. towards Kidderminster on the present day SVR) & DownIn reference to the direction of travel means away from the major terminus (i.e. towards Bridgnorth on the present day SVR) workings - though directions look to swap over at Bewdley: Bewdley-Kidder was DownIn reference to the direction of travel means away from the major terminus (i.e. towards Bridgnorth on the present day SVR), and Bewdley-Bridgnorth was also DownIn reference to the direction of travel means away from the major terminus (i.e. towards Bridgnorth on the present day SVR), it seems - all very confusing. Maybe I can find a better way. In searching for WTTs I have also just found Michael Clemens website - very interesting, and the front-page photo was taken from my very first train-watching bridge, as we lived just out of view on the left of the photo (though we had moved before that photo in 1964). Also - 1 correction to my "key" - "Wr = Worcester/Woofferton" should read "Wn = Wolverhampton/Woofferton" - Wr is correctly shown a few lines higher. And yes, I agree the towns are origins, not destinations. --Ianbutton1 (talk) 23:07, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

How's the transcribing coming on Ian?--Patrick Hearn (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello again, Robin & Patrick. I have just uploaded scans of the Winter 1937 GWRGreat Western Railway working timetable for both parts of the SVRSevern Valley Railway (Kidderminster-Woofferton in Section 12, and Shrewsbury-Hartlebury in Section 15). Hope they are accessible, legible and of interest - having these available online might save somebody a trip to National Archives at Kew. They do give an insight into the likely workings as recorded in my father's observations from 1940 onwards. I also have the same for winter 1938 service, and some post-war dates as well, if they would be useful. If the scans are not very legible (I had to resize them severely for the upload) I can email the original scans, but they are too big to upload. Unfortunately, my computer is too ancient to be able to upload them to Graham's folder in Flickr. --Ianbutton1 (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Ian. Robin and Graham tend to do the timetables bit. I co-edit the SVRSevern Valley Railway newsletters and it's editorial week so I've a perfect excuse to duck this!--Patrick Hearn (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Ian - we were a bit light on 1930s timetables so that's very useful. Graham's on a roll with preservation era timetables at the moment so I'll have a go. I've started the relevant page here. --Robin (talk) 15:21, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Robin, Thanks for setting up the page. I've uploaded 1938 WTT (just Section 12) and 1945 WTT (Section 15 but excludes coal trains etc), and also pages from a 1942 notice that shows the AEC railcar diagrams from Worcester. Do we need new pages for these years, and do all the new pages need linking from the Timetables page? Sorry, I'm not sure yet how to progress beyond editing my own Talk page & simply uploading files into the ether. --Ianbutton1 (talk) 15:16, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ian, thanks again. There's no particular rules about what pages get created and what gets linked where, it just sort of happens as people see fit (and being a Wiki, anyone can change things if they want). There was already a 1945 page with the timetable for the early part of 1945 so I've added your October 1945 timetable there rather than start a different page. I'm still deciding whether to put the railcar one under timetables or Railcars or maybe both (we have a page for Railcar 22 which ran on the Branch in service). If you do want to start editing, there's a page on Tips for contributing to the SVR Wiki as Patrick mentioned. Feel free to have a go, you're unlikely to break anything and somebody can always help tidy up if something does go wrong! --Robin (talk) 12:08, 7 November 2021 (UTC)