Halvarras

Some photos taken at Par on Tuesday 5th March - the up home bracket signal is the only one with arms still fitted:

You're correct, indeed it was - I'd forgotten about that!

Blimey Johnster, you don't 'alf know some stuff 😃!!

And AIUI the MD655s had been modified to work with generators in such a way that they were not interchangeable with those in the Western fleet. Which begs the question, was there a spare modified MD655 held by Brush for Falcon or could a serious engine failure (e.g. 'leg out of bed' type) have side-lined the loco at any time?

I've been looking online at a few broadside photos of the X3121 motor bogie and concluded that the axleboxes simply weren't tooled very accurately on the sideframes, as they all seem to sit like that. I can't believe wear is much of an issue with these as the interface between the steel axle and bearing surface in the casting is fairly large, which spreads the load. Back in the 1970s I had a go at upgrading a Tri-ang 3-car Met-Cam DMU (I'd bought it at the Swindon Works Open Day in September 1975) with Anbrico engine castings and MTK exhaust pipes and bogies. For a more consistent appearance I dismantled the motor bogie, filed off all of the raised detail (which I recall wasn't easy, until I got a file large enough for the task) and glued on a pair of MTK DMU sideframes which had to be stretched slightly to get the axleboxes to align with the wheels, which in this case were Millholme 12mm turned brass items (the other bogies being fitted with 12mm Romfords running in Peco brass bearing cups). The new sideframes were of course slimmer than the Tri-ang originals, leaving a few exposed areas of the filed surface visible - filing it down further to suit was not practical so I painted the MTK sideframes in 'track colour' and the exposed filed areas around them satin black in an attempt to disguise these.

I think there was talk of its traction motors beginning to fail one by one requiring isolation due to the lack of suitable spares towards the end too......? It must have had enough still operable in 1975 to perform what may have been one of its last duties - hauling a breakdown train up a Welsh valley to assist in the difficult recovery of 37143, which had derailed and slipped down an embankment on its side at Marine Colliery, Cwm on 29th January 1975 - it was finally recovered on 4th August. I have seen a photo with Falcon visible in the background, its presence IIRC not commented on in the caption. Can't recall where I saw it now so can't look up the date. D'oh......found it on Flickr! It was recovery day, 4th August.

Regarding your list of four models, ref. 39-320A is not a Brake Second, but the Bar car (Hadrians Bar). There were no Mark 1 Pullman brake vehicles built - during your time period an 'original' Pullman brake vehicle would have usually been provided. On the WR a Mark 1 BG in choc/cream livery could be a stand-in, or if you really want something different a Hawksworth BCK in choc/cream - there were two, W7372W and W7377W, which initially retained GWR livery for use as brake and staff vehicles for the Royal Train and were repainted into BR (WR) choc/cream in 1957 IIRC, being relinquished to normal passenger service in 1965; however they were quickly commandeered for use as brake vehicles for the WR's stand-by 'South Wales Pullman' set (employed in case of non-availability of a 'Blue Pullman'). A photo in the Bradford Barton album 'Diesels on Western Region' (page 53) shows D1643 at Cardiff in 1965 (definitely not 1961 as stated - D1500 didn't appear until 1962!) with one of these two Hawksworth BCKs behind the loco, followed by two original Pullman cars then three of the Mark 1 type. So these Mark 1 Pullman vehicles were definitely in use on the WR during 1965, although I don't know whether the Bar car made the move from the ER - I suspect not, perhaps a Pullman expert can advise. It is possible to change Hornby's R4504 into a passable representation of W7372/7W in later BR (WR) condition by using T-Cut and a blunt wooden cocktail stick to erase the GWR insignia, lower waist-level lining and other markings; the model is numbered 7372 but this needs changing to W7372W lower on the bodyside. The 'Smoking' wording on the inside of the windows also needs changing to BR 'No Smoking' labels as well as those for First Class as appropriate - T-Cut will do this too without damaging the glazing, although this obviously requires dismantling the model. I've done all this but it took me well over two hours of frantic rubbing......for your purposes an original Pullman brake or Mark 1 BG would be simpler!

It may be worth keeping an occasional eye on 'Hornby Spares - drive units' at Lendons of Cardiff over the coming months.......just in case.........

53 'Royal Tank Regiment' was the last loco I ever saw in traffic with its original number (Westerns excepted of course) - Birmingham New Street, 19th April 1975.

Similar, but I use a glass-fibre scratch brush (Expo ref. 70510) - the name makes it sound coarser than it is. It works very well but, as I'm sure many will testify from experience, it has to be used with care, as broken-off fibres lodged in your skin are quite painful - they can be difficult to see to get tweezers onto but at least you know where they are! So these days during the powered cleaning process I make sure I have no fingers in the 'drop area', gently blow any residue off the model directly into a solid waste bin and use a soft brush to do the same to the table top where I was working, and I don't rub my hands together until I've given them a wash, firstly under free-flowing water. Sounds like a faff but it just takes a couple of minutes and I've had no glass-fibre-induced painful experiences for years.

So......compared to the previous Heljan 47 the body is slimmer but the cab handrails remain the same distance apart over the width......🤔? That was the well-known fault with the old one, to achieve a transition from the over-wide body to the cab front (which the bufferbeam and buffer spacing indicate was more-or-less correct width) - I don't see that on the new one myself.

So the train's traction batteries have been designed to be repeatedly fast-charged in just 10 minutes, without accelerated degradation? I only ask because treating the battery on an electric vehicle this way is not recommended, as it shortens battery life.

I did wonder if this may have been the case, but couldn't find anything on it (so maybe I didn't look hard enough then!)

DB999506/8/9 were BR Mark 1-based with two large square end observation windows and mounted on the 57' underframe. DB999501-4 appear, to me anyway, to be built to the same design as the LMS saloons - indeed one source claims they were the last vehicles built to an LMS design, over a decade after that company ceased to be; whether they were identical or not I can't say - I've never compared them in detail. I can't find any reference to a DB999505; DB999507 was the Elliot Track Recording 4-wheel railbus-type vehicle and DB999510 a conversion from Derby Lightweight trailer car M79649 early in its life (November 1957, although it ran for some time with its original number).

Must have been mid-1964 as it didn't carry the logos in service for very long - but long enough to get a bit grubby (there's a photo of it on a freight in similar condition). Slipping off-topic for a moment, how common were BR Mark 1 GUVs in unlined maroon? I don't think I've ever seen one before.......

The last green survivors appear to have been high-numbered LMR 47/3s, plus the WR's 47256 which outlived them all (even allowing for its short-lived and final single-tone green repaint!) It had succeeded in gaining 'domino' headcode panels for its last days in two-tone green and I think one or two of the others did too.....? (A very few green Class 20s also achieved this, but such a combination was exceedingly rare, single figures only across both classes.)

The headcodes look like MTK's, I still have a couple of sheets but they're almost useless now! Back in 1975 I did use them on an MTK Class 25 but carefully thinned them down with black paint and a sharpened matchstick. Other products since then have made such a pita task unnecessary, thankfully, as my eyesight ain't what it was 49 years ago (as I keep discovering.....!🤪)

I visited Crewe Works (first time) on 3rd November 1969 and found the bogie-less D1733 perched on trestles, still in its original Bsyp livery. The locomotive which pioneered the BR double-arrow logo would later emerge from works newly dual-braked without them! (So did 1538 around this time.) So no, it definitely didn't gain full yellow ends on its XP64 blue. Also in works that day, still with small yellow panels on green livery, were D1754 and D1756, the latter being the Western Region's last '47' in original condition. The LMR's D1736 and D1744 would survive into the second half of 1970 still in Gsyp.

Gosh, I'd forgotten this kit even existed, thanks for the reminder! Imagine if MTK kits had been produced to the same standard as this and Dave Alexander products.......but I don't think Colin M's equipment was anywhere close to this level of sophistication, and it had been his range would probably have been considerably smaller (depriving @Darius43 of all the fun he's currently having!) The description on the box correctly points out that this bodyshell was applicable to Class 25/2 as well as 25/3, but it appears that the instructions may not have made reference to the first five being boiler-fitted........or perhaps they did but the builder simply missed it (Bachmann achieved the same with D5182 but in reverse). He's done a fantastic job otherwise though, it looks great.

If only I had, and I had the camera with me too! The darn thing suddenly turned up westbound light engine through platform 4 (down main) and went straight through, giving me no time to get the camera out and ready! One of the reasons I prefer semaphore signals, you get advance warning (he says, just 3 days before the semaphores at his local station are due to be felled......☹️) I took a couple of photos of green 20075 at Westhouses depot on 13th April 1979, but the very last green one, and last mainline diesel - 20141 - lasted just over a year longer (I believe the very last green loco of all was a Class 08 - 08934?) I have posted the pics of 20075 on here before, in the appropriate thread, but they may have been 'lost'. Unfortunately I can't get at them at the moment as our now rather old laptop has fallen foul of the 'File system error (-2147219196)' update fiasco, which prevents access to images, amongst other apps, on processors of a certain age. Microsoft broke it, so Microsoft had better fix it........ On reflection I do believe you are correct - time dims the memory! It was certainly fine weather in late May if my photos are any guide, but I think my recollections of August were coloured by that Reading Festival experience (I only went the once), which maybe proved that it wasn't only Glastonbury which suffered 'weather awareness'...... And that's why I wasn't worried about the 13-month drought order here in Cornwall, which expired on 25th September - I knew we were 'in for it' because this is how it always plays out, and now we have water running out of everywhere. It does make me wonder whether a proposed £125 million seawater desalination plant is really required to be built "in Par" (I hope they mean the largely disused two-thirds of Par Docks), but that's enough about that subject..... That was a problem with TOPS: "An unidentified Class 47 leaves Lime Street" - whereas before it would have been easily identified from this angle! Note that 08923 was one of the relatively uncommon 08s which survived dual-braking still in green livery - a purpose for that green '08' which Hornby issued with the air compressor box 'by accident' - was it D3963 or D3986? Yep, they were 03128 and 03134, both withdrawn ex-Laira (that depot never had a blue one). 03134 was towed from Laira to Bristol on 22nd May by 50050, I spotted them parked at Taunton from a Paddington - Paignton special hauled by 31416+31419 that day. I photographed these two 03s from ground level within the depot on 31st July 1976 (how on earth did we get away with it?!) - these represented two-thirds of the total number of green TOPS Class 03s, and I'd just photographed the other third, 03382, moving its 13-Ton open match wagon around in front of the depot. The Co-Bo needs no introduction! Again I've posted these pics on RMweb before but.........see above!

I don't recall the summer of '75 being that hot 'Chard (I got a bit damp at the Reading Festival that August!), it was better than 1974 but 1976 was.......well, legendary, for chasing Westerns too! Is that the one you're thinking of? My first sighting of TOPS numbers on a green loco was 08803 at Didcot on 15/2/74, the second at Reading the following day was 31294 (!!) The weekend after that (50 years and 6 days ago, ouch!) I paid my one and only visit to Dai Woodham's Rust Emporium at Barry, by train from Swindon, and it was interesting to note how few locos had been renumbered in South Wales compared to over the border. No green TOPS locos were seen that day, it was the following weekend that I would clap eyes on my third example and first green Class 47 at Reading - 47152 (I got to the point eventually!) I made a note in my spotting book that the number had been applied in the same bodyside position as on blue 47s - the WR did this to all of its green 47s, as did the ScR; the ER applied them to the cabside and the LMR did both, although bodyside numbers were less common (47109/264/333 come to mind). 47152 had previously been D1745, which sticks in the memory because at one stage it displayed 'D1745' in block serif numbers at one end and '1745' in the new font at the other - such mixes were not particularly rare but retention of the 'D' prefix was by then. I can't say what the other side looked like though. I visited Crewe Works in March 1976 and found the last vac-only 47s there, in various stages of overhaul, identifiable by those fixed roof grilles (plus a bit of knowledge about the last survivors!) 47148 (ex-1741) was an interesting case as I recorded it in green livery then in 'ex-works' blue.......except that it couldn't have been because it retained the fixed roof grilles - had it gone through works, it would have been dual-braked for sure at that time and received the Serck shutters, so must have been a depot repaint. In reality then the life-span of Bachmann's model of 47148 in blue with fixed grilles was rather short! Since 1741 was renumbered 47148 while still in green it would not have run as 1741 in blue, something which George Dent failed to spot.....😉!

Looking very good so far - I'm keeping an eye on your progress! The five JGAs are still parked in St Blazey yard and as you say were just getting shunted from siding to siding for a while, although they haven't moved for several months now. I believe just one was added to a rake of JIAs to see how it would work in practice, but sadly as you know it didn't. A shame really as the clays are now operated with just one type of wagon - and by the same Class 66 for two to three weeks - so they'd have been welcomed for a bit of variety (all those different 1980s clay wagons seem like a very long time ago now!) No idea what the future holds for the JGAs at the moment.....

Bet you had to go and lie down in a darkened room after getting all those tiny end bits made and attached 😑! Excellent progress, looking good!

PS the other sign in the window says "Par Signalbox, 1879 - 2024, Consigned to the History Books".

Par signal box a few hours ago. Note the countdown in the window, and base for the new signal. If you look carefully you can see the up signals in the distance through the framework (yes I did that on purpose!) Sobering to think this building controlled Broad Gauge trains for the first 13 years of its life! I must call in and take some finial photos (see what I did there?!) - if the rain stops over the next 6 days.....er, 5 days!