Eye-catching black and whites

[JimH]

6 minutes ago, martc said:

I was wondering if they had some sort of rapid boiler, I guess someones job would be to shovel the coal in whilst it was on the move.

They never went very far so it was usually a case of throwing some coal on before you left and leaving it at that. Boiler water relies on having it pumping stuff (so no seawater) and the only water tank is a tiny copper tank (about 4 gallons) so the last thing you wanted to do was having it blowing off before you got set up. Then you were at risk of running out of water and popping a tube. There is an arrangement that lets you pull fresh water from a handy barrel if you are pumping sea water or rubbish that you don't want in the boiler.

That said, there is a footplate at the back with a grab rail and that was were the stoker travelled. It must have been a pretty wild ride for all concerned.

[JimH]

A lot of shells being filled at Chilwell. The last thing you would want to happen is for it all to go up in smoke.

That's torn it.

[JimH]

If anyone gives a flying toss about this sort of thing get yourself over to the BFI Player where there is a fair bit of very old and very, very staged films of these sorts of engines turning out. Just bung an appropriate term in the search box.

Start here: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-fire-brigade-turn-out-1900-online

You will notice that they all look a bit top heavy and might need to be taken gingerly on the bends.

 

ETA. This is a good one too. https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-metropolitan-fire-brigade-turn-out-1899-online

If you watch carefully you'll see that the iron shoes on the horses and iron bands on the wooden wheels struggle on the cobbles and tram tracks. Thngs must have got quite squirrelly.

If you watch this one beyond the ladder drill you'll see something somewhat odder than your average police dog display. This one features a Gem like ours.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-fire-drill-crystal-palace-1900-online

[martc]

Leicester, 1970. It's one of those Standards again, if only it was Livigno, the vans would have been so much better.

Neither are on the Tax/MOT checker. Not surprised about the Standard but the Coarse Hair must have been pretty young when it bit the dust, it would have been about a year old in the photo.

 

[LightBulbFun]

23 minutes ago, martc said:

Neither are on the Tax/MOT checker. Not surprised about the Standard but the Coarse Hair must have been pretty young when it bit the dust, it would have been about a year old in the photo.

well the cut off date for transferring a vehicle on the buff logbook scheme to the V5 scheme was 1983, so it might have still lived a normal life and just never got V5'ed

(especially I think most cars where lucky to see their 10th birthday back then)

 

also worth mentioning as a side note a lot of vehicles that did make it onto the computer system but had no activity after about 1981, got archived off the main system at some unknown date in the past

[martc]

11 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

well the cut off date for transferring a vehicle on the buff logbook scheme to the V5 scheme was 1983, so it might have still lived a normal life and just never got V5'ed

(especially I think most cars where lucky to see their 10th birthday back then)

 

also worth mentioning as a side note a lot of vehicles that did make it onto the computer system but had no activity after about 1981, got archived off the main system at some unknown date in the past

Thanks, for some reason I thought when the computerised system started in the mid 70s they only added 'current' vehicles (ie those that were taxed). So if, when you look one up today, they weren't recorded it meant they hadn't made it to 1974 or whenever.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, martc said:

Thanks, for some reason I thought when the computerised system started in the mid 70s they only added 'current' vehicles (ie those that were taxed). So if, when you look one up today, they weren't recorded it meant they hadn't made it to 1974 or whenever.

Yeah the V5 scheme started on the 1st of October 1974, so from that point onwards all new registrations where on the V5 scheme AFAIK, but for existing vehicles it was up to you to go down to your local VRO and transfer your vehicle to the new scheme

And the vehicle did not have to be taxed either, if it was off the road/not to be taxed at the time of being V5'ed, it would go into the "NOT LICENSED" taxation class and show as not taxed for on road use although still technically taxed to satisfy the computer requirement that to put a vehicle in a taxation class it needs to be taxed

[somewhatfoolish]

8 hours ago, JimH said:

And a colour one of it when we ran it in the early 90s. It's only ticking over here hence the rather pathetic dribble coming out the spout. Weegie types may recognise the location.

Having meandered off down a interweb wormhole I am amused to find that Trumpton in Glesca have one of those or very similar and they rolled it on the M8, sadly not while being towed by dobbin. Since restored to full health apparently, despite grievous damage.

[puddlethumper]

[Remspoor]

[Richard_FM]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah the V5 scheme started on the 1st of October 1974, so from that point onwards all new registrations where on the V5 scheme AFAIK, but for existing vehicles it was up to you to go down to your local VRO and transfer your vehicle to the new scheme

And the vehicle did not have to be taxed either, if it was off the road/not to be taxed at the time of being V5'ed, it would go into the "NOT LICENSED" taxation class and show as not taxed for on road use although still technically taxed to satisfy the computer requirement that to put a vehicle in a taxation class it needs to be taxed

This can get a bit confusing because it's possible to find cars that were last taxed in 1979 that are listed on the DVLA site, but some that were around into the  early 1980s don't produce any results.

[sheffcortinacentre]

There was a recent reshuffle with alias of untaxed since the 80's stuff archived by the DVLA.

[LightBulbFun]

49 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

This can get a bit confusing because it's possible to find cars that were last taxed in 1979 that are listed on the DVLA site, but some that were around into the  early 1980s don't produce any results.

thats generally pretty easy to explain if you look at the record of those untaxed since 1979 vehicles in a bit more detail you notice that most of those 1979 vehicles will have either V5's issued post 1981 or scrapped markers issued post 1981 and this will have kept them from being purged as their records where active post 1981

see for example REV453R  

 

19 minutes ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

There was a recent reshuffle with alias of untaxed since the 80's stuff archived by the DVLA.

interesting got any more info/a source on this? I have not heard or noticed any recent archiving going on?

(did not think they would have to given how much more data modern computer systems can hold)

 

[sheffcortinacentre]

I read it somewhere re the great "we didn't loose/they weren't stolen" logbook replacement episode of 2017ish, but I know checking various regs they no longer come up but did only a few years back

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

I read it somewhere re the great "we didn't loose/they weren't stolen" logbook replacement episode of 2017ish, but I know checking various regs they no longer come up but did only a few years back

interesting, from what I have seen the DVLA only issued new logbooks to vehicles that where currently active, so it would not have had anything to do with long untaxed vehicles

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dvla-encourages-motorists-to-get-a-red-vehicle-registration-certificate

do you recall any of the registrations you know came up a few years ago but dont now? it would be interesting to see if I can figure out whats going on there

[JimH]

11 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Having meandered off down a interweb wormhole I am amused to find that Trumpton in Glesca have one of those or very similar and they rolled it on the M8, sadly not while being towed by dobbin. Since restored to full health apparently, despite grievous damage.

Not quite. It was pieced back together so it looked OK. As far as I am aware that one hadn't run properly for a very long time so it was just mde to look rightish. IIRC they magaed to smash both the cylinder block and the pump on it which would have been a serious project to remanufacture.

In the end they were all finished off by their boilers which are all now very, very old. We were in the process of making a new one for ours but got distracted by another Sentinel. We'll get round to it once the Super is finished.

[JimH]

In case anyone gives a monkey's I've put some waffle in the Sentinel thread about our Merryweather. It was almost all in colour so didn't belong here.

 

[somewhatfoolish]

  

6 hours ago, JimH said:

Not quite. It was pieced back together so it looked OK. As far as I am aware that one hadn't run properly for a very long time so it was just mde to look rightish. IIRC they magaed to smash both the cylinder block and the pump on it which would have been a serious project to remanufacture.

In the end they were all finished off by their boilers which are all now very, very old. We were in the process of making a new one for ours but got distracted by another Sentinel. We'll get round to it once the Super is finished.

 

Sadface. You can't trust anything you read on teh internetz!

[JimH]

There is some less than detailed stuff about what they did here: https://sfrheritagetrust.org/merryweather-gem-steam-fire-pump/

The photos are crap but you should be able to make out what they did to the thing. The slightly weasel words that stand out are "and return it back to its condition prior to the accident" ie a non runner that hadn't had a fire in it for years. And I am not going even start on trailers that just jack knife out of the blue for no reason at all. *rolls eyes* You were given that thing to take care of and you smeared it along the motorway. Well done all of you.

There is no shortage of steam fire engines living in museums but I am really struggling to think of many that are left running now, mainly because the boilers have finally given up the ghost. Certainly all the ones which were going around when we were running our have all been confined to barracks. It was one of the main reasons for wanting to get ours finished.

[JimH]

Sorry. Not enough black and whites. Here's a much more fragrant (and more posh ) way of fighting fires. It's a 26 girlpower manual.

Sorry it's tiny.

[JimH]

Don't worry. The fire brigade is here now...oh.

[JimH]

I've not seen this one before.  Looking at the horses of the following vehicle they appear to be galloping and the way the Amoskeag is making smoke suggest that it isn't exactly idling. However, the gentleman hanging onto the steering wheel appears to be out for a Sunday morning stroll. Nine tons with a chassis that crude can't have been a barrel of laughs.

[barrett]

21 hours ago, martc said:

Leicester, 1970. It's one of those Standards again, if only it was Livigno, the vans would have been so much better.

Neither are on the Tax/MOT checker. Not surprised about the Standard but the Coarse Hair must have been pretty young when it bit the dust, it would have been about a year old in the photo.

 

To be pedantic, that's not a Standard at all. It's a Leyland 20, which should have gone a bit better with the 2.1l TR engine

[martc]

 

Brick Lane in that there London. No one seems bothered about the turbo charged Ovlov; it would have caused quite a stir if this was Sauchiehall Street.

[Remspoor]

[somewhatfoolish]

Somewhere antipodean?

[Richard_FM]

New Zealand by the look of the plates.

At one time the police in New Zealand used to have their own issue of plates, but the format that was introduced in the 1960s didn't had any reserved codes for them.

[martc]

[martc]

[JeeExEll]

'Where to Squire?'.

- ' errm, 1961 or 62 Manchester please'.

'Okey dokey, 61 or 62 it is then'.