sulzer27jd

When I had Balbeggie Sidings I was running 24-30 wagon trains and had locked up the pivots. They ran perfectly well. As has been said previously, unless you are going down to silly curves, they will run successfully (in fact they run better) with the pivot fixed. John

It was used to describe "Cattle and Sheep Trucks" - Caledonian Railway BoT returns 1877. There were also Carriage Trucks (both open and covered, for the conveyance of horse drawn carriages), Scenery Trucks and Fish Trucks. Covered Milk, Fish and Fruit vehicles were called Vans. The BoT return referred to Carriages, these being collectively known by the Caledonian as Coaching Plant Stock. Luggage Vans were identified separately. There were details of rolling stock for trains of Merchandise and Minerals, made up of wagons; both Goods and Covered Goods, trucks and vans.

Re the Glasgow - Dundee workings, the exceptions to this were on a Sunday. This was totally different re power. Still a St Rollox working, with St Rollox drivers but the power was supplied by Corkerhill. Usually this meant Britannia’s (the Firths) or Clans [The locos were often Polmandie allocated engines, but worked from Corkerhill on the day]. Only three trains on a Sunday and same loco worked the service.

Yes, these were St Rollox workings and generally in the hands of their Caprotti fitted Standard 5's. Dundee B1's were not a feature. Depending on the direction, the use of Dundee locos would indicate either a failure at the Dundee end and they have subbed something on. Or perhaps a loco returning from Glasgow. Generally speaking though, you would expect a St Rollox Standard 5, usually a Caprotti.

Many thanks. I'll give that technique a try.

Very effective worn metalwork. How do you achieve that? John

As we have virtually no freight north of Central Scotland anyway, there is no choice but to use the roads.

It also takes the Edinburgh - Inverness services away from the Fife chokepoints. This seems more likely to be a line capacity issue rather than any kind of service reduction. Those that write the timetables through Fife consistently seem to be able to squeeze that last drops out of the network.

People generally avoiding public transport I suspect.

Actually our roads are considerably busier than they they were before all of this kicked off.

The Government already has and Scotrail trains do not get rebranded.

The Hornby wagon is a reasonable stab at the lettering which should be the same as the plank width. Some seem to have just had the number , but others (perhaps earlier) had "No 1" but overall the same size. Have a look here John

So many of the photographs I took as a kid look like this. A bit grainy, a bit washed out but 100% packed full of great memories. Great stuff - thanks John

East coast passenger trains changed engines at Dundee. Originally related to the practice of keeping top link engines and men together, the need to change was therefore determined by the working hours of the crews, rostered to out and back services. There are also claims that this happened because of low water pressure at Tay Bridge Station. If water supply had really been such an issue I rather suspect the railways of the day would have done something to resolve the problem. However it may be that the working methods of the day meant that the cost of resolving the water supply issue was considered not viable. Perhaps we will never know. The result was that the through lines at Dundee TB were often used to exchange express passenger locos. John

Thank you. The backscene was used to give a sense of place, as I wanted to locate the railway by the coast. The actual bay has the cliffs to the west rather than the east but it is really just there as an excuse to run some fish vans. As such it only ever appears in the corner of photos but here is one overlooking the end dock. I wanted to create that feeling of being out for a walk and the railway just happened to be there. The track is sometimes quite well hidden. Only very occasionally is the peace disturbed. Thanks again John

Many thanks for your comments, it's much appreciated. The great thing about our hobby is that people derive pleasure/satisfaction from it in many different ways. The quiet layed-back atmosphere suits me. As for pre-grouping, there are a few wagons already scratch built. So it might happen. John

Many thanks. I did try a video but at that point I hadn't set up the sound decoder on my locos, so it sounded a little strange. I really must try and do something. John

As it is, it means together town in Spanish and of the sea on Catalan. Dependent on your era, you may want have the name in both languages In Catalan it is likely to be Cuitat de Mar In Spanish, there needs to be an "el" in there as the noun is el mar. That would make it Pueblo del Mar or Ciudad del Mar Up to the late 70's and early 80's it would only be in Spanish. The nearer your era is to the present, the more likely you are to see both. John

Many thanks indeed. They have, as always in MRJ, set it out in a very thoughtful way. Appreciated. John

An utterly shocking refereeing decision in the SPFL Dundee V St Mirren game had me thinking that it would be such a good idea if the referee could somehow be advised that they were making a howler and review or revise their call. Then I remembered VAR and felt the dreadful penalty decision is actually a price worth paying to avoid having that. John

I agree that this is more likely to do with variations in the photography than in the colour of the wagons. John

There is indeed, but that cannot be done by increasing the power of the existing top clubs. Europe needs to be restructured and the finances redistributed but as that is likely to have a detrimental impact on the handful of clubs already at the top, it is unlikely to happen.

The clue is in the name. If you are not a champion, you should not be playing in the champions league?

It is not the league structure that is the issue, rather it is the league finances. The EPL is now so far away from the Scottish league in terms of finance that there is no prospect of the teams being competitive. The BBC, ITV and Sky all pump money into the English game and starve the Scottish leagues. There is however plenty of young talent being developed in Scotland, who are also getting the opportunity to play competitive football at the top level here. They will of course be attracted to play in England as the wage structure is crazy. The problem across Europe is that the 5 countries with the biggest TV deals control UEFA and draw in an unfair distribution of the finances. This has had a detrimental impact on the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Scandinavia and of course Scotland. Even amongst the big 5 countries, the other 4 are struggling to compete financially with England. The problem for England of course is that the more you import talent, the harder it is to grow your own. And as more and more money goes to the top of the tree, less and less is available to feet the roots. Grassroots teams then struggle to survive. Unfortunately because money talks and UEFA is utterly corrupt, it is unlikely that there will be a sensible solution any time soon. We will therefore continue to see the situation where two English teams compete in the Champions League final despite neither being the champions of England and the actual champions of many countries having to pre-qualify to play other nations runners ups, third place and in some cases four placed teams. Until this nonsense is sorted out, the best hope for youngsters is to make their mark in lower leagues. John

Thanks Gordon. They are the manufacturer I refer to earlier but their range is somewhat limited and their products are mostly unavailable. I am using their standard posts for a little diorama that I am doing but it is not possible, for example, to anything with a junction - like that being suggested in the original posts - with what is available. John