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TRACTION issue 244


steverabone
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Welcome to TRACTION issue 244 which is published on Friday 2nd February.

 

This issue has something of a Western Region and diesel hydraulic bias, with three features covering that short period when the WR was just that bit different to the rest of Britain’s railways.

We start with an article by Alex Fisher about the life of the first ‘Hymek’ No. D7000. The ‘Hymeks’ had a very short working life, being the victims of changing motive power policy of BR, but must surely count as one of the most attractive of Britain’s diesel locomotives.

 

Next, David McPherson relates his experiences working at Swindon shed in the 1960s in the first part of a two part feature.

 

To round off our Western coverage we have some photographs of model diesels on the sea wall section of the magnificent 4mm scale layout at Pendon, which replicates the coastal line near Teignmouth in Devon. Normally Pendon is a ‘steam only’ layout but just occasionally diesels are allowed to appear…..

 

Dave Gommersall and David J. Hayes look back at the days of the ‘Enterprise’ freight network with an in-depth article about what became known as the ‘Birch Coppice Tripper’. Sadly changes in Britain’s railfreight business have largely ended such fascinating workings.

 

The series of articles about the maintenance of locomotives and rolling stock by Colin Boocock comes to an end in this issue when he relates the success of ‘Lococare’ initiative when staff were encouraged to be more involved. This resulted in dramatic improvements in the reliability of locomotives on the London Midland Region.

 

Another focus in this issue is on parcels and mail train operations. Stuart Egbeare recorded in detail the final months of the Portsmouth to Waterloo parcels trains in 1989 and 1990 whilst, over in East Anglia, Christopher Lenton set out to photograph the Norwich to Princess Royal Distribution Centre mail trains in the late 1990s.

 

The lines of the former Glasgow and South Western Railway in southern Scotland provided plenty of opportunities for photographers to compose interesting images. Gavin Morrison’s feature takes us to some lesser known locations and shows the variety of workings that could be seen in the past.

 

In our overseas feature Michael Watkins returns with another look at some of the fascinating, and extremely long lived, electric locomotives of Switzerland. Many of these survived in front line service for well over sixty years!

 

Our featured layout in TRACTION MODELLING this issue is Crossfield. Mark Pegden’s layout, set somewhere in the industrial Midlands or Yorkshire, features scale length trains and an incredible array of highly detailed and weathered diesels that really show what can be achieved in N Gauge. It is inspirational modelling indeed.

 

The following issue of TRACTION, issue 245, will be on sale Friday 6th April.

Edited by steverabone
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Friday 6th April?!

Confusingly the magazine is issue 244 while the reference of 6th April is issue 245, so I. Presume issue 244 is out this Friday? It’s been a while since I’ve bought Traction , but the articles on South West Scotland and Swiss electrics could be of interest. I’ll have a look see .

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Confusingly the magazine is issue 244 while the reference of 6th April is issue 245, so I. Presume issue 244 is out this Friday? It’s been a while since I’ve bought Traction , but the articles on South West Scotland and Swiss electrics could be of interest. I’ll have a look see .

The text has been amended to avoid any confusion.

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