big jim

Saw it in the yard at crewe as I prepped my train last night

Rail drop at kidsgrove last night started in basford hall where there was a class 18 in the yard, on trial with freightliner shunted the locos onto my train, just needed to move one round to the front Into the station for a change ends, 805001 en route to to Rhyl change ends no2 in Stoke Got to site, change ends no 3 to drop the rail, after the job was done it was change ends no4 outside kidsgrove to head toward the session exit on the crewe branch that was it for pics but after change ends No5 in alsager loop I got relief and headed home! back in Saturday night next, another possession train at valley on Anglesey this time

Got a new toy the other day, a scissor lift, handy for the FTO and mini (that needs the brake discs changing) got the FTO off the road and onto the drive by firing it up and driving it into position then it was up in the air for a quick look to see just how bad it really is, honest opinion, it’s no worse than the MX5 was corrosion wise to my eye but I’m not a welder! the worst part is the corner of the floor pan on both sides, those will need totally cutting out and renewing, the chassis rails appear to look worse than they are, couldn’t poke through them but I didn’t really try too hard Passenger side floor pan corner Drivers side solid Floorpan otherwise, hopefully just a good rub down with a wire brush and underseal etc Missing cat and broken flexi on the down pipe so obviously they will need to be replaced by new parts and I’ve got the rest of the exhaust from quarryscapes to collect at some point i then tilted the car forward on the platform to get a good look at the rear end Generally I think a good clean up, wire brush and underseal as well as the required welding and it should be salvageable as it’s not too bad i didn’t go under the car or start poking around as it’s there was no secondary bracing (axle stands) should the lift fail, Ill have to get myself some tall ones for when the car is tilted forward or backward, I’ve got 4 decent short ones for when I’m working on it and it doesn’t need to be as high such as when I do the brakes and clean up under the arches mechanically as I say I managed to move it to position by driving it, only had it running for about a minute as it’s going to need the fluids and belts doing, also noticed the fuel tank is a bit rusty inside when I put a splash of fuel in it to fire it up (2 litres or so), can it be flushed somehow when the time comes to look at the mechanicals

Last night was a stone train to hams hall via a run round at bescot and another one straight back, there should have been another landor st to crewe at the start but someone else kindly did that for me basford hall my train, an hour or so late into hams hall and being unloaded straight away a rather sad looking 08899 in a very faded midland railway maroon, I drove this on etches park when I was with colas as we weren’t allowed to start locos in the wheel lathe due to smoke and this happened to be nearby and they let me use it! sad to see it like that but at least it’s still in service my 2nd train back to crewe and into crewe basford hall again handy for my car. 225bhp compared to 3000hp, not much difference in fuel consumption though! rail drop in kidsgrove tonight

What motor bogie is under that merv?

interesting to see the bridge carrying the SMJR line to line toward Woodford halse still in place at wormleighton

Only 2 from tonight, a ballast drop on the north warwick line from tyseley to Stratford, kind of! 08 in Bescot My train was top and tail 5 auto hoppers in the end I only took it as far as spring road and my relief turned up, so I never got to do any of the drop, annoyingly it took me 3 1/2 hours to drive from ilfracombe to drive a train for less than an hour!

don’t think I’ll see them but you never know! 3 from the first part of today, went over to Ilfracombe yesterday to have a couple of days with the family as they are down there for a couple of weeks and popped by woody bay on the L&B, didn’t have a ride though beautiful loco and stock and a stunning looking station wonder if they will ever manage to get it fully reopen?

You can get pre formed corners and chassis rails but I’m hoping it can be welded easy enough but I’m really not sure, if I can get some of the prep work done myself that might save a few quid on the welding, as for things like brake pipes and the like they are readily available, I’ve read that the rear callipers can be a killer on them as they are hard to get hold of should they be seized

it’s not ultra rare as in, worth a fortune, but there are none on autotrader as far as I know and only a couple on eBay, one is a rust free restored example for £12k and another for £3300, I’m hoping we can salvage it as it’s unusual, it’s not in original condition as the wheels are different and according to @Quarryscapes the spoiler is different too after japfest dom said he doesn’t fancy another MX5 as there were hundreds and hundreds of them there and I’ll admit it’s inspired me to get the FTO on the road as we only saw 5 there

Newtown is an example where the flexibility comes in handy under ertms, if your heading toward Machynlleth the line through the down platform is 15mph in and out at the points whereas the line toward the up, wrong direction platform is 40mph as it’s the ‘straight on’ side of the pointwork, I used to regularly run wrong direction through there with heavy engineers trains to keep them moving at 40mph

interesting you should put this, my neighbour walked past the car earlier and said “that’s got a Lothian registration number” he’s from Linlithgow and recognised the prefix on the plate

we only saw 5 FTOs over the whole site! there was a whole area we didn’t reach though despite walking over 6 miles according to my watch, looking at the show guide there didn’t appear to be a dedicated FTO owners club present

If the station wasn’t still standing you wouldn’t even know a railway went through there it was weird I didn’t clock the station at first but for some reason the angle of the junction and wasteland to the right made a connection in my brain that I’d explored it on google maps despite me never having been in the area in my life! Shame I’m only here for one night, a last minute night away with the family who’ve been down here over Easter, I’ve got to be back in work tomorrow night or I’d have took a trip to woody bay but they want to show me Barnstable, well probably be back here in the summer again though

Some professional pics from the track I’ve just driven it 250 miles to north Devon and it didn’t miss a beat all the way, loverly motorway cruiser, at 70mph it is only ticking over at 1800 rpm but it’s a heavy old beast and 4WD so it only manages about 35mpg compared to the Skodas 50+ I look terrified in the last pic, probably because I was

I’ve not looked at this thread for a couple of years since you started building the hotel which got me looking at old photos and maps of the area but I’ve just driven to coombe Martin and went across the crossroads at Blackmoor and something just triggered at the back of my mind and I thought ‘I’m sure I’ve seen this on RMWeb’ and sure enough here it is! must have made a lasting impression on me

Superb day at japfest today, very photo heavy post! Beautiful NSX FTO Supra and NSX Suzuki cappuccino Micras Supra Honda beat Fastback S2000 Nissan sunny GTI-R, one of my favourites of the day Imposter track time for the CX7

Nice, one of our neighbours has one in blue

All set for japfest tomorrow, weather looks so so with high winds but no rain forecast The CX7 is all ready for the trip down and track time, it’s no MX5 but it should be fun, wondering how many more of them we’ll see at the show as it’s not exactly a JDM classic!

no, I’ve not been scanned by accurascale but you can get me from Modelu

indeed, that’s the first time I’ve seen it, didn’t see any proofs just wanted to wait until the loco came out! have you got a pic of the next page too?

they are from scale model scenery https://www.scalemodelscenery.co.uk/lx177-oo-mod-20ft-side-opening-shipping-container-kit-pack-of-2-oo4mm176-1858-p.asp they seem to have gone up in price a lot, I certainly didn’t pay £20 a pair when I bought them!

If only it was this easy!

Another warwell done bar the straps on the vehicle coming together nicely now, one more hattons and 2 more Oxford to go! I’ve also painted one of the side door containers green to break up the colours a bit, going to do one more if anyone can find a picture of a blue painted side door container in military use then that would be appreciated, I’ve looked all over Flickr and google but can only see them in normal use