Petrol-driven Gresley A4?.

[Mickey]

Like i said that Ally Pally A4 looked alot 'sleeker' looking to me and i'm pretty sure that there was a fire in the 'fire hole' with abit of smoke coming out of the chimney and steam coming from the cylinders!. Still it must of left an impression on me cos i am talking about it 46 years later!. Micky

[mr B]

No matter what it was it would be interesting to find what happened to it, the one at Saltburn passed through several hands, storred for years in the local bus garage, then with lots of effort and bickering with the local councel the preservation soc' got up and running. Then more ifs and buts with it been 15 inch or over, comming under more funny laws, up and running again, then the line was washed away when the local beck flooded. Finally new track, new station and smart new loco shed/workshop and purchasing loco ex Clethorpes railway 'Flying Scotsman' ( diesel again) under massive rebuild.

Mr B .. Still loco spotting !

Steam weekends at Saltburn Miniature Rly durring May.

[Mickey]

One thing i am 100% certain about is that the Ally Pally A4 was in 'green' livery. Still like i said it was along time ago and maybe i am thinking that the locomotive looked alot more detailed than it really was?. I wonder if any of these 5-A4s have individual 'history records' that someone somewhere has kept on them that mite say where they operated over the last 50 odd years that would be interesting?. Like i said that Ally Pally A4 left an impression on me. Micky

[Atso]

Don't quote me on this but has anyone checked to see if its still there? I used to work for Ally Pally in my teens (late 1990's) at the ice rink there (soon to close for a refurb) and got to work on several 'clearance' projects around the grounds. During my time there I assisted with clearing out the theater ready for a restoration project. Here we found quite a bit of equipment used by the BBC dating from the earliest broadcasts through to 1970's bits and pieces, an original projector and under the stage (which we shouldn't have been on as it was highly unstable!) a news paper dating for the 1890's (which I understand now graces on of the senior manager's office wall).

Other interesting items I came across during my time there included the original proving model for the sites rebuilding after the fire in the 1980's some original blue prints for the builds original layout and some 'salvaged' door fittings complet with burn marks!

While I never went down there I heard many stories about WW2 items still being located in the 'dungon' levels including laths and other equipment as well as beds used by POWs or workers (this was never made clear which).

While slightly off topic my point is with the large amount of bits and pieces in storage there it is not impossible that the 'A4' is amoung them...

[Mickey]

Blimey that would be a find!. If that old Ally Pally A4 was put into storage and had been forgotten about!. Micky

[Andy W]

The loco at Alexandra Palace was a 15" Barlow built in 1950 and named Duke of Edinburgh. The Industrial Railway Society have it as a 4-6-2DE and it left London for a Safari Park on Merseyside as long ago as 1971.

It is now reported at the Windmill Animal Farm near Burscough in Lancashire, not that far away from where it was built. The animal farm has it's own 15" railway and a fair number of 15" locos.

H.N.Barlow seemed to have built a number of these engines at his workshop in Southport during the late 40's and early 50's, confusingly with no works numbers and duplicate names!

[Flamingo]

Here are three photographs that I took of the minitaure railway at Southport on 30 May 1980.

According to the Wikipedia link on the previous page. the A4 outline Barlow loco Prince Charles was built in 1954. It is believed to be similar to the original one Duke of Edinburgh which may have been at Alexandra Palace, but unfortunately I cannot remember anything about the line at AP.

The freelance styled Golden Jubilee was built by Barlows in 1963 and the Western type diesel by Severn Lamb in 1971.

[Mickey]

Hey!. I like that Western diesel-Hydraulic whoever built that got it right. Micky

[mr B]

Nice set of picky's, from what I can see from the trusted computor, Southport purchased "The Duke of Edinburgh" ex Ally Pally and was last running there in 1993 (?) seems a bit late, as the preservation boys would have stepped in.

Mr B

[Andy W]

I think the Southport "Duke of Edinburgh" is their original, built in 1948.

Someone, who knows a bit more about these locos than me, says that the 1950 one worked at a Safari Park at Knowsley from the early 1970's until the early 1990's, when it was replaced by a newer machine. It was then purchased by it's current owner.

Confusingly the Southport machine has also been reported at the animal farm. Again my Barlow expert tells me that the Southport machine is numbered 4468 and the ex-London machine was at one time numbered 4498.

It's all getting far too complex for me!

Still, it's nice to know that the loco is still about.

[Mickey]

Nice to know that the old A4 is probably still around. I like the no 4498 that she once carried. Micky

[mr B]

All together now.....

top left, Prince Charles-Southport.
top right, Princess Anne-Buttlins Skegness.
Bottom left, Duke of Edinburgh-Southport.
Bottom right, Prince Charles;Saltburn.

Mr B ... Steam weekends at Saltburn durring May.

[Flamingo]

So which of those 4, if any, may have been at Ally Pally? Or is there a fifth one which we have yet to see?

[mr B]

?

Mr B

[Mickey]

I still reckon that the A4 that i remember seeing looked pretty much like a scaled down version of the real thing rather then the one's in the pictures, admittedly it was 46 years ago and at the age seven i hadn't then started drinking WATNEYS or DOUBLE DIAMOND beers (to suffer from blurred vision?) before my visit to Ally Pally that day. Micky GNR/NER/LNER all the way...