DavidB-AU

5917 has had a main line test run ahead of the resumption of picnic trains. It is very unusual for a heritage loco to do a test run without a backup diesel.

You can buy spare parts direct from Athearn off their website. Cheers David

Double C17s on the Mary Valley Rattler over the long weekend. 967 is their own and 974 is on long term loan from QR Heritage.

Imagine this with cab like a Ffestiniog England. Cheers David

It doesn't necessarily need to be cluttered.

An option could be a Denny fiddle yard. Smaller number of tracks but a removable cassette. 2 cassettes with 3 tracks each gives you more storage than a single 5 track traverser. Tender engines are handled by simply turning the cassette around.

Real or alternate history? Something that might fit an L shape is imagine Ramsgate Town is still open. It could operate something like Littlehampton. Or a completely fictional dead end station just off the main line. Maybe a new station serving an upgraded Manston Airport? Something a bit like Stansted. Cheers David

For business travel, productive time is a factor too. You can use your phone and laptop the entire journey on a train but you can't when going by air. Eurostar had around 80% of the business travel market between London, Paris and Brussels pre-covid. Air isn't always cheaper either. 5 years ago I went from Strasbourg to London on the last day of my European holiday. The cheapest flight would have been €199 if I had departed at stupid o'clock in the morning. Instead I went by TGV and Eurostar for €152... first class. Cheers David

Looks like ex-Lima tooling for the C38 too, complete with pizza cutter wheels. The TAM is the sleeping car. The first class is an MBE and second class is an MFE. Cheers David

A network of international long-distance high speed passenger services spanning much of western Europe could be launched by 2025 if proposals announced by Germany’s Federal Minister for Transport Andreas Scheuer at a virtual conference of Europe’s transport ministers on September 21 are taken forward. As with the original TEE trains, TEE2.0 services would operate only during the day, but Scheuer’s plans envisage that they would be matched by an expanded network of TEEN overnight links, reflecting the resurgence of interest in night trains that has built on the ‘flight shame’ moveme

Some thoughts on the second one. Another quick and dirty edit. 1) Eliminate as many facing crossovers as possible and sidings that can only be shunted by crossing main lines. 2) Turn the through station into a more traditional design to simplify the pointwork. 3) Eliminate the flat crossing and elevate the left terminus so the main line runs under it. Make sure you have access space to the tracks below. 4) Move the left terminus a bit closer to the operating area and take it off a single lead, add a headshunt. 5) Reverse the top term

For a publication that promotes economic liberalism and is strongly pro-privatisation, this is quite a radical view.

A few thoughts on the first one. Apologies for the quick and dirty edit. 1) Flip the goods yard on the left and have it trail off the goods loop. This eliminates a crossover and shunting moves that would block the main line. 2) Remove the top goods yard entirely for the same reason. 3) Use the space from the top goods yard to move the top terminus to the left. This gives room to run locos around without blocking the main line. Goods facilities can be added there for operational interest. 4) Unless your really want one, I don't think a turntable i

They weren't leased either. It was a complex contractual arrangement between the companies. Pullman provided the staff apart from the driver and guard. Even when PCC was bought by BTC, the Pullman and BR staff had different pay and conditions. From 1963 the Pullman stewards worked for British Transport Hotels rather than BR. They could have been modified or fitted with new frames, just as they are now. Cheers David

The term predates the jazz era. It was only jazz that brought it into mainstream use. The Golden Arrow got an entirely new train in 1951 before electrification was approved so it wouldn't have made economic sense to build another new train for the route only a few years later. But by then the top end of the market for train and ferry to Paris was disappearing anyway. If you had money, you went to Paris by air. Not sure of the exact date but towards the end only a small portion of the Golden Arrow was still a Pullman service. By the time slidey rail reached Bournemouth,