Jim Martin

I tested the "wrong side doors" thing on a 777 on the way to work this morning. Moorfields is basically an island platform (it's actually an underground station, but access to the Northern Line platforms is from between them), so the platform is always to the right of the train. I pressed the door button on the left side of the train when we ducked into the tunnel, and the correct door opened when we stopped.

The new Merseyrail Class 777s have this feature. Very useful it is, too: I travel home from Moorfields; and when the weather is nice I'll catch the first train out of town, wherever it's going, so that I can wait in the open air. Stand by the door, press the button as soon as the train pulls out of Moorfields and there's a prompt right there when you get to Sandhills. Not once have I found myself getting off at Kirkdale (or worse) because I forgot that I was meant to be changing trains.

The comments are always the worst part of any newspaper website. I generally read the Guardian, and it's the same there.

It's quite possible that they did. Architectural salvage is big business. Google "genuine victorian fireplace": some are very grand indeed, but there's a market for more modest ones as well.

I don't recall this - I don't go to that many exhibitions - but I do recall one bit of Inkerman Street-related "copying". The passenger train was a three-coach set of LMS stock; but instead of a set of three 57' coaches (I could be wrong about the exact lengths: I'm not an expert on LMS coaches) it was modelled as one of a rare batch that included a single 54' coach. Within months, one of the kit manufacturers had introduced that exact set. It might even have been advertised as "the Inkerman Street set", or something like that. As I recall, there was a mildly peevish paragraph about it in MRJ at the time, complaining that they'd been trying to do something a little different from the norm; and now it was the norm.

That's surprising, because I think it's a pretty common use of online services by GP surgeries. My GP really isn't any great shakes and they've had this feature for a couple of years.

As an alternative to the David Ratcliffe book (which is worth having, if you can get hold of it), you could try this: https://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/product/5542/source/specoffweb. It's out of stock at that website, but you may be able to find a copy online. As a guide to the sort of subjects covered, see this thread: Note that for reasons that probably make sense to the guys behind Rail Express, the magazine ("REx") and the modelling section which has been included in every single issue for years and years (sometimes abbreviated to "REM") have separate number series, so REM144 would not be in REx144. Go figure. The articles in Rail Express cover the whole country over a broad span of time, so I'd doubt that any one article would contain more than one or two formations relevant to you; but most of them would contain something. Jim

Green Lane station on the Merseyrail (formerly Mersey Railway) line from Birkenhead to Chester is in a cutting, which is partially covered by the former trackbed of the lines into Mollington Street depot, which run almost on the same axis as the lines through the station. This shot is from Google Maps: the light-coloured parallel lines are steel girders which span the cutting. You can make out the Liverpool-bound platform beneath them. The southbound platform is beneath the now abandoned and overgrown trackbed (just do an image search on the station name for views of how this all looks from platform level). The high-level lines included those into the depot, goods lines to Birkenhead docks, several sidings and the lines into Woodside station, which at one time had expresses to London. Most of this is still visible on Google Maps. South of here, the Merseyrail tracks climb to the same level as the mainline tracks.

That's nice work! I'm pretty sure I never rode a 155 (although I have been on a 153) but it looks pretty good to me.

I've seen the Class 155 done as a conversion from a couple of 153s - reversing what happened in real life, I guess! Still, it looked like a big job, as I recall. Also, Dapol are planning a revised Class 66? I did not know that. How's that going to compare with the Revolution model, I wonder?

Well I had 9 (I've sold some off since) and they were all awful. Maybe it was a production batch thing: I bought all mine from the same retailer, Hattons, not in a single purchase but at about the same time; and they all ran really badly and made a screeching sound as they did. This are the photos that accompanied my original blog post. In the first photo you can just about see the shiny spots where the wheel flanges have rubbed against the ribs. Once the ribs came off, all my BYAs ran perfectly, as do my other wagons fitted with the same bogie. Jim

Plus ça change...

Some people want the GCR route reopened because they're fundamentally opposed to any route closure at all; and if it was reopened, they could describe the original decision to close it as "short-sighted", a favourite term of theirs, even though the network has got along perfectly well without it for 60 years. I grew up in GCR territory (High Wycombe) and I've got a pretty sound knowledge of the company. I used to model it, a few years ago; and I'm edging towards doing so again, if only as a change of pace from the WCML in the 21st century. I'm emphatically not "anti-GCR". But it closed because use of the railways was in decline generally and the connections it offered could largely be replicated by alternative routes: South-West to North-East services via Banbury are perfectly possible without the Banbury-Woodford Halse link. The London Extension became a favourite of anti-HS2 campaigners not because they liked the GCR route, but because they didn't like HS2. Describing it as "a high speed route" without adding "in 1897" is dishonest, but a certain amount of dishonesty is part of the game of PR and campaigning (and I'm not saying that HS2's supporters were altogether above it).

Are you talking about particular rolling stock, or is it just everything? I know a lot of n-gauge container wagons, for example, being very light, have poor reputations for coming off the rails.

Thanks. I've just noticed where it says "excluding the 30'1" 6-wheelers" in tiny letters on the front of that book, so I guess that the literal answer to my question is "not much at all"! I suspect that you're right about the most useful book for my purposes, though, so I'm going with your recommendation. Cheers! Jim