The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Welcome to AiX Sh0wtime, the most well known art deco CT has to be the Beehive at Gatwick.

Welcome

It's sad to think that nice Deco control towers are still under threat, like the one at Waddington for instance.

Hello! Welcome to the forum.

Hi, welcome to the site. While doing my National Service in the RAF, I served a 3 month detachment at the Institute of Aviation Medicine in early 1961, and having attended many of the SBAC shows in the late 50s, I found it a very interesting place to be. While there, I lived in the RAE hostel down near the railway station.

Robin.

I have always loved maps and started noticing airfields showing on the 2nd series of OS maps in my early 20's, I am amazed by how much is still visible on Google Earth and tell people as often as possible that the Airfields building program matches - if not exceeds - the building of the Motorways that followed or the Railways and Canals the preceeded them. I also feel these overlooked airfields were built during a very short period so should rank amongst British civil engineerings great achievements.

Hi,
My name is Tony and I have just found this site - or should I say 'landed'? I found this site via a Google search for Buffer Depots.
My interest area is Buffer Depots and, in particular, how the one we now use as a steam railway museum at Quainton, Bucks (HP22 4BY) came about, when it was built and how it fits in with all the others.
I have read a thread on here on these and one correspondent suggested that there were 135 in the UK. Ours was numbered 450K and I know of other ex depots at 6 and 12 miles from us (Aylesbury and Tring). Aylesbury, like Quainton, was road and rail served whilst Tring is road and canal (Grand Union). There is a vast one at Steventon with, I think, 120 Romneys and two very large brick buildings. I dont know their numbers but all others are now industrial estates.
450K had 7 Romneys (now 6) each 36 foot by 100. Each is lined from 3 foot up with 2foot by 6 foot curved plaster boards. The floor is just flat concrete but it is thin - around 3 inches of concrete ontop of a single layer of old or second hand brick. Calvert Brickworks was 6 miles away and its clay pits are now lakes or used for landfill. The brick building incorporated a bomb shelter in one outer wall with a 12 inch roof slab, no windows of course but a grill just above ground level that could be kicked out. Entrance way was a double back route and walls were seperate from main structure - looked like a vertical cut each side. Only 3 bombs landed in the area and all in fields despite presence of Westcott Airfield (RAF) a mile away. At war end Westcott recieved many of the repatriated POWs with a local remembering that a Lancaster or Wellington was landing every 8 minutes for 3 weeks which must have been quite a sight!
The goods yard at Quainton (on the opposite side of the station from the Buffer Depot) was a Petrol Dump (PD9) where large tanks or barrels of petrol arrived, were taken away in barrels to remote local places (such as Waddesdon Manor) and decanted into jerry cans. They also handled pipes and one village lad had a holiday job labelling each pipe PD9. Later, after joining up, he was in North Africa and given the job of pipe laying across the desert and some pipes had PD9 on them!
450K has been adapted for its present role but still shows the signs of a Buffer Depot and was used until the 1980's to store potato, flour and sugar.
Does anyone know if there were another 449 depots? What did the K stand for?
Thanks,
Tony

Welcome to AiX toad57

Buffer Depots? Not quite my line but I am interested because a late aunt of mine worked in one during the war.

I know of several locations around the country where they were located and many original structures survive.

This story of a railway driver working at a depot is interesting:

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/22/a4319822.shtml

If you look at the thread Buffer Depots on this site there is a lot of info.