Wheatley

Indeed. Most of his contemporaries would have taken a 3/4 view of the engine and ignored the rest. He took some of Balmenach and Dailuaine distilleries where you have to look hard to find the distillery pug in amongst all the "fascinating industrial semi-grot set in magnificent scenery" of the rest of the picture.

Because Britt Allcroft accepted, when told, that Rev. Awdry using one of the Bluebell's engines in one of his stories, and them in turn sticking a face on it with his blessing pre-dated her owning the TTTE rights.

All of which has been upgraded, modified, renumbered, repainted, weathered and generally made more realistic thereby reducing it's resale value even further. Oh dear how sad never mind, not my problem. Like you I don't care what happens to it after it's finished working for me. My wife has a list of email addresses of people who might be interested in some of it (individuals and clubs), otherwise either bury it with me or (more likely) give it a Viking funeral.

It was indeed the Gerry Anderson side of things.

Pennies, but the development costs don't. Someone had had to spend time developing CAD drawings for lamps, the socket, the light tube (or whatever the hell it is it's pugged into) - quite a lot of time if some of the conversations with Hornby staff recalled further up this thread are anything to go by. Then additional cost for the extra tooling EPs, revisions to tooling, etc. As opposed to designing a 1/2mm hole for a stamped metal lamp iron to be pushed into. Ditton anything on a wagon between the solebars that can't be seen below the solebars, working cab doors on the Hornby 08 that have (I think) 5 additional parts each, interior detail which can't be seen on the current crop of Hornby brake vans etc. Save it for the things where the interior detail can be seen like coaches, or deisels with greenhouse cabs. The Heljan Class 17 looks ridiculous with the cab half filled with concrete. I might buy one of these if the BR versions end up being remaindered. I'm quite capable of cutting bits off a brand new £200 model, but I'd rather spend the time and money adding bits to two second-hand older ones. I had a good look at 5020 in my local dealer yesterday and wasn't impressed.

When 'protection of the brand / brand values' became a thing, prior to that it seems to have been encouraged as free advertising. Since then corporations seem to have become polarized between those who protect their brand at all costs (Disney, MacDonalds) or attempt to extract every last cent from it (Boeing), and those who are more relaxed provided you aren't bringing them into disrepute. Chris Green was famously relaxed about the use of the Virgin West Coast livery on model trains, I doubt he would have been quite so chilled if a purveyor of more adult goods had been using it. In some cases the decision can be down to one person, they may not even have a policy on it until asked. Someone on here once asked how my own employer would brand a rail-link minibus for a TOC-sponsored service should such a thing exist, Marketing were more than happy to provide advice (and a list of RAL numbers) but only because I knew who to ask. IIRC the response was along the lines of "We wouldn't paint the ends of the bus yellow because that's not part of the branding". Other times I've found Engineering colleagues checking Bachmann or Hornby livery artwork for a DMU off against our own labelling drawings.

You can in theory recreate the geometry of Setrack points with (for example) copperclads and Code 75 rail. However, the geometry of Setrack points is so compromised compared to even the smallest pair of points on the real thing that it begins to look silly, almost like a scaled up version of 009 Crazy-Track. It's notable that Peco hasn't announced any intention to go below Streamline medium radius with the Code 75 Bullhead, even the BH medium radius points are pushing it a bit. Setrack points are even smaller than small radius Streamline points of course. You can do it but it looks odd.

https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00001366470 https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00001366461

Not necessarily, the Network SouthEast Railway Society owns the NSE trademark: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00003110943 Most BRB intellectual property passed to the DfT, for example the double arrow, which is licenced to Rail Delivery Group. But the freight operators were sold outright, not franchised, so their IP went with them: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?domain=1&page=1&id=99325&app=0&mark=UK00002137670 We've done this before.

Several of them moaning about not being able to lean out of the doors for photos too.

The Victorian response to staff safety concerns was to add a couple more handrails (if aesthetically appropriate), e.g. extending those on the boiler side round the corner to join up with the one over the smokebox door, and the extra cabside handrail on the Compound pictured earlier. No doubt any request for compensation would be declined as anyone daft enough to fall off a footplate was clearly not exercising sufficient care for the task in hand. Edit - Completely off topic but i'm 99% sure the gent in the yellow vest on that Compound at Hellifield is the legendary Traction Inspector Bob Phizackerly. He once derailed 'Bahamas' coming off the K&WVR and then wrote his own investigation report ! There was nothing wrong with his conclusion ("The derailment occurred because I forgot to remove the derailer") but I had to politely refer it back 'for further work' - i.e. is there any chance someone other than the person who caused the derailment could countersign the report please ? Absolute star.

As previously advised - out through the gap between the cab sidesheets and tender then round via the footplating provided for the purpose. Either lamp and oil can in one hand and the other on the handrail, or arm hooked over the handrail and one in each hand. The fireman would be more than capable of minding things on the footplate for the period the driver was away. Just because we've gone soft in the meantime unnecessary risks are no longer tolerated doesn't mean it can't be done. There is an Ivo Peters cine film of a Caley 0-6-0 on a railtour in 1963, the fireman is out on the footplate braying the Westinghouse pump with the coal hammer as the train approaches Whithorn, so it wasn't just a pre-grouping practice.

Can't be British, there's no sign of an idiot wizard.

Whilst I disagree with most of his Horribly Faulty reviewing (sic) techniques, he's right on that one. Yes. Yes please. I'll wait to see it in the flesh, I can use as many Black 5s as I can get my hands on but it's going to have to be good to justify the expense compared to the old model + aftermarket.

Sorry, only just noticed this. Yes you're absolutely right, apologies. Green waved slowly - train divided. Green held steady - Warning acceptance - section clear but station or junction blocked.

Was that the one where they interpreted a black and white photo of "mostly dirty with a few clean bits" as "blue with white patches" ? I shall have one of these to go with the Parksides.

Of course !

https://www.departmentals.com/departmental/041707 I dare you.

The 156/158 combo was a short term autumn-only arrangement (unless the 156 was deputising for a failed 158). The 158s have scrubber blocks fitted rather than a tread brake.

This came up recently but I can't find the thread. Somewhere there is some old cine film of a couple of Black Macs checking the structure gauge by standing in an open wagon using tape measures and poles. If you know the distance from the top edge of a wagon of known dimensions you can extrapolate the rest.

The only departure from 'normal' token exchange at St Bees is that drivers will, by local arrangement, take the token to the box themselves if it saves time and the signaller is doing something else (like putting the gates up and down). St Bees village is cut off from the north while ever the gates are down, the alternative route is 6 miles back the way you just came.

Further to last, the collective opinion of the Northern Old Gits (standing around gassing while we wait for our laptops to update themselves again) Collective this morning was that any (Edit - RRNE/WYPTE) 155s on the Bolton Corridor early on would have been diversions with a route conductor on board. Leeds (we think) and York crews (definitely) didn't sign Bolton at that date, and no drivers on the NW had traction knowledge. Such diversions may not have been uncommon depending on what was going on engineering-wise of course. Using them for other than York - Bradford - Man Vic - Blackpool services definitely needed the Duty Control Manager's permission. The doors were problematic at first, at one stage they were all (?) out of traffic awaiting Leyland fixing a problem with microswitches I believe. They were set up on depots which were largely straight and level - once out in the wild on canted platforms the downhill doors didn't close enough to trip the door proving relay, and the uphill doors didn't open enough to untrip it. Or something.

York/Leeds - Blackpool I expect, but in theory they should have gone via Bradford Interchange. My recollection of exactly which services went which way is waining a bit after all these years !

Yes, they were mostly diagrammed on York - Manchester (and beyond) services via the Calder Valley, they weren't confined to West Yorkshire but they did tend to stick to the core route. For quite a while WYPTE kept tabs and got shirty if they wondered off up towards Scarborough (for example) or Leeds- Sheffield despite York and Leeds crews having traction knowledge. Later on they could go anywhere and these days they're all based at Hull ! WYPTE also paid for the 144 centre cars but had less say in where they went as their bit had to go where the 2/3 they didn't own went.

I thought they got the Kirow either for free or at a greatly reduced rate - because NYMR is a charity Volker Rail could write it off as corporate social responsibility. There was something about them sharing a trustee/director too. Likewise the last Moorsline I read before my membership expired described 'borrowing' a brand new tamper to do the carriage stable, the donor treating it as a training exercise. Which is why the Long Siding from Pickering is apparently technically fit for 100mph running.