kevsmiththai

One thing the blockade did was create the opportunity for the first Class 195s to travel the full length of the Cumbrian Coast. 195 101 and 195 113 ran as 5C95 ECS from Barrow Carriage sidings to Preston via the Cumbrian Coast line, Carlisle and WCML via Penrith. It was the headcode that gave me a clue so I went down to Askam station and there they were! Prior to this the only 195 workings north of Barrow on a regular basis were the Sunday only 2C31/2C56 Barrow Millom-Barrow The Tamper is due to come out of the possession tomorrow as 6J87 Ulverston to Carlisle Upperby via Cumbrian Coast https://youtu.be/c5sp7a-0o2M?si=LuFOIB7s2T8kn1jp

https://youtu.be/MefHnZ15Pls?si=tqxOqgM6MJ8-wJ3E the engineering trains plus 37 610 and DBSO later on Carlisle to Barrow test train

Busy day on the Cumbrian Coast as three engineering trains arrived to go into the possession The 195s involved in the derailment are still in the engineering sidings at Ulverston waiting to be picked up The 70s and 56 are slated to come out of the possesion on Saturday morning to return to Carlisle. Pathed through Barrow Line supposed to reopen on the 21st ( According to my former workmates at Sellafield) Kev

Funnily enough, I was thinking the same a couple of hours ago! I'll try and get some done before Carnforth

Video https://www.flickr.com/photos/152010806@N03/53658162023/in/dateposted-public/ Kev

Two AZL SD70Ms with 21 freight cars and another SD70M in the middle as mid train helper on a test train this afternoon. The helper engine UP #4003 has always been a problem child. I bought it as a basket case after the previous owner tried to improve the pickups. It has had the motor and gear shafts taken out and just goes along for the ride in the middle, or on the rear, of either the timber train or the big intermodal Santa Fe SD 75M in the background

I set off from Pattaya early one morning for a trip down the eastern line with a view to getting to Sattahip port. No Luck, the train only went as far as Ban Plu Ta Luang. However, I found plenty of interesting stuff there. A line of very rusty Salt wagons. Oil axleboxes, Vac braked Alsthom ALD 4303 waits to return to Bangkok A general view of the carriage works, Sidings and station A former JR West coach waiting to be converted to a BTC The station nameboard The station frontage with the ubiquitous Tuk Tuk outside A nearly complete BTC waiting for the interior fittings More soon Kev

Barely scratching the surface with what I have It has been a fast growing scale in the USA for quite a while particularly modern image AZL homepage wil give you some idea https://www.americanzline.com/ and MTL https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=75 The thing that impresses everybody is how amazingly good running the stuff is This is the video from 2016 (really need to do a new, up to date one) at Shoeburyness and Manchester shows that shows how smooth slow running we get https://youtu.be/UOo16_XWLmU?si=MBXrN6py-OLscSGp Kev

Emerging from five years in store I have a couple of show dates for my Shasta layout. A z gauge layout noted for the use of modern image Z scale and the fact I can 3 metre long trains typical of U.S railroading with two or diesels on the front and with a mid train helper Last seen in 2019 at the Folkestone show where it performed faultlessly Motive power is a mix of AZL and MTL An AZL Amtrak California F59 PHI with a rake of double deck coaches passes three AZL SD70Ms On the famous Cantara Loop, scene of one of the U.S.As biggest environmental disasters back in Southern Pacific days an MTL Santa Fe GP35 on a long Military train passes a long train of empty Centre beams heading for the climb up the canyon In Dunsmuir yard the F59 threads its way past double stacks and spine cars A Union pacific GP 35 and SD40-2 pass the long abandoned Shasta Springs depot The layout will be at Carnforth show on the weekend of April 27/28th I've had it running and apart from one section that is dead it is all working. Just got a whole load of stock to test now! Kev

Brilliant photos and really helpful Cheers

The road bogie adapter information would almst certainly have rested with the MOD I used to have access to the Rolls Royce drawings for the road bogies for the KUAs Moda 95770 and 95771 plus the working instructions on how to do the swap. Sadly, on retirement I had to officially hand the manuals and CD-Rom to my successsor and notify the M.O.D of the change. I wouldn't have dared copy them for 'Personal use' The basic idea was the main structure was lifted off the Span bolster and pair of bogies at either end and the road bogies rolled underneath in their place. Somehow the air brake system on the wagon worked with the air brakes on the road bogies. probably operating in Pass mode rather than Goods mode I did suggest at one stage that we ought to do an exercise to test if it would work in practice but there was some confusion on where the road bogies were. It appeared they were at Dounreay but nobody at Sellafield was quite sure ( and someone else at SL said they were at Chapelcross which made no sense at all!) Shame, as Revolution could have done the road bogies as a limited edition! Kev

My favourite station in Thailand is Tha Phra just to the south of Khon Kaen on the NEL Local trains are usually handled by the old RHNs Long rakes of BCFs are handled on the newly laid Concrete pad The station building is always immaculate. The block instruments are in the projecting part of the building the entrance Station nameboard Timetables Another RHN heading for Khon Kaen. train 31 started ay Kaeng Khoi junction The second man leans out of the cab window at speed to do the block token swap More soon

Where did the nameboards go?

Just a postscript Saxby Junction signalbox taken from a 1st gen DMU July 1986

They will have to slide the lifting brackets in so the holes in the wall make sense