31A

Pardon? 🤔

A couple of Diseasels coming up in Link 1 as well. They might be around at the weekend!

I think that's maybe stretching it a bit Phil, I don't think I've ever heard of any Black 5s on the M&GN! 😉 Really, it's there because the computer says so! Looks like tomorrow we've got a Standard 5 coming as well:

Looks as though it might be at Hitchin (Up train at south end of station)?

Interesting that the Southern bogie van appears to be a GBL as produced recently by Hornby, and I have read were confined to Waterloo boat trains! It justifies my purchase of one ....

It's found its way to Peterborough off the Midland and the New England B1 for the up Parly has failed, so Spital Bridge being closer to the station than New England, it's got roped in!?

The only snow to be seen at the top of the Brocken this March!

That's been my excuse so far!

Oh I can't bring myself to read the comments section any more, it's too bad for my blood pressure!

The Brohltalbahn in the Rhine Valley (in western Germany) had a dual gauge section at its lower end, and the NG diesel shunters had offset buffers to enable them to shunt SG wagons, as well as a centre coupling for pulling NG stock. https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/germany21.htm#google_vignette Unusually for these days it still carries freight as well as tourist passenger trains, although I don't think the dual gauge facility is used any longer.

On the other hand!! https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/24203628.york-mystery-lner-train-found-antwerp-belgium/

Good idea - thank you; I haven't got any of those (yet)!

The Black 5 that sneaked into the background of a recent photo raised some interest on here and with the local spotters, and one of them followed her down to the loco yard to record this momentous apparition. As I mentioned, this Hornby model came from the estate of a deceased chum and colleague, so I didn't really want to renumber her, and not being much of an expert on such locos I'd probably have chosen one with the wrong sort of boiler or something anyway. But I did do a bit of upgrading. I got the Brassmasters detailing kit, but ended up not using a great deal of it. I did use the etches that provide the front frames (which block daylight between the cylinders and the driving wheels) and provide the motion bracket that supports the slide bars. The kit provides castings for the tender springs and axle boxes, which are moulded in rather low relief on the Hornby model, but I didn't use them as I also wanted to address the spurious 'ledge' at the bottom of the tender tank. Instead, I got a Bachmann Jubilee tender underframe and fitted that, which addressed both issues and seemed a lot easier than carving the springs and axle boxes off the Hornby moulding. The Bachmann item needed a bit of 'adjustment' at the front end to fit the Hornby tender body, but it wasn't difficult. I did however remove the moulded brake shoes from the Bachmann tender side frames, and replaced them with brake gear from a Mainly Trains etch. I also made my own tender pick ups to replace the Hornby ones lost in this conversion. I fitted Alan Gibson bogie wheels, but the bogie was then reluctant to stay on the rails on curves, so I added a coil spring above the bogie to give a bit of side control. The bogie then stayed on the rails, but the loco was now unbalanced (the rear driving axle is sprung) so I added some lead weight in the smokebox to try and restore equilibrium and tractive effort. She does, however, still 'sit down' a little towards the rear. I made cylinder drains from wire, but didn't fit the Brassmasters injectors as I couldn't really make out where they were supposed to be attached! Some light weathering and she's a useful member of the fleet, but I still haven't come up with an explanation for a Kingmoor loco being at an ER terminus in London!

I stayed at the Premier Inn Hub in York Way, King’s Cross last night and am typing this between Liege and Aachen, having left St. Pancras on the 0901 to Brussels and now on 1325 from there to Köln, destination (for this evening) Wuppertal. To be honest I thought I’d booked the actual Premier Inn, also in York Way but nearer Euston Road, but it was only about 10 minutes walk to St. Pancras and probably saved me a few quid. The Hub is opposite where the entrance to York Road station used to be and looking onto where the Passenger Loco yard once was.

Very interesting; I wish I’d known this a couple of days ago before I put the First Class label on the window of the coupe compartment! Seriously, the picture of one of these in BR livery that was in the LNER Society Journal a while back appears not to show a First Class label on that window, but I put one on the model in the assumption that it should have been there but wasn’t visible in the photo because of the way the light fell on it, or it had “dropped off”, but perhaps it really wasn’t supposed to be there at all! If necessary I can always scrape it off again!

I took mine apart this evening to make a start on weathering it; I like to weather coach underframes separately from the bodies where possible. The body was a very snug fit on the underframe, but eventually I managed it with no damage. This is what I found inside:

Indeed there was; not that particular one but I have not renumbered it as it was a bequest from a late friend and it seems disrespectful to alter its identity. Although I have detailed it with a Brassmasters kit.

Nice one, thank you!

Although I think they would have had 8' 6" w.b. bogies? I think the 8ft wb Heavy Duty type was confined to BGs?

Haven't looked at any pictures of real ones to check, but I think it's one of those things that was sometimes done and sometimes not. It seems to have been unusual for ex LNER coaches to carry the upper lining, but some did have it. The Bachmann models of passenger carrying ones in maroon that I have got haven't got it. I think manufacturers usually copy pictures of the real thing for livery details, so quite possibly they've copied one which did have it. Funnily enough I was watching The Thirty Nine Steps film (with Kenneth More) on Talking Pictures TV the other night, where he is getting in and out of coaches at Edinburgh and on the Forth Bridge and at one point it was very clearly an ex LNER coach in maroon with the upper lining, which struck me at the time as being odd!

I think that's what I would do if they were mine, but it does seem strange that they seem to have been supplied with wheels that don't fit, so I wonder whether they're not the original wheels for some reason? I'm not that familiar with Roco wheels myself, perhaps others may have some ideas...?

Picked up my Full Brake this morning, following a phone call from Monk Bar Models. A beautiful model, as to be expected - it really puts the old version to shame. Good to see (but only to be expected!) that they've given it different bogies to the passenger coaches, having modelled the 8ft wheelbase "Heavy Duty" type (with deeper frames). As mentioned above, it is the 34-362A version, running number E19E from the ECML allocation; the 34-362 model had not yet been received by Monk Bar.

Thank you for posting all these; fascinating stuff! I thought I did quite well for European travel earlier this century, but I'm quite jealous of the places you got to! Looking forward to the next lot, as and when....

The signals seem to be 'black'!

An animated rush hour scene at Finsbury Square this evening; the Authorities must have been desperate for coaching stock - Set 85 can't have been painted for over 10 years! Things don't seem to be much better on the Motive Power side, either.... I thought I'd give my Ian Kirk Quad Art set a bit of a spin under the pretext of 'Clearance Tests'; it's part of my 1930s collection that doesn't get out much these days. The Black 5 44668 is part of the regular roster though, although using it on the GN is a bit of a stretch really!