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APT POP TRAIN Kit (under design & construction)


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Take your pick Andrew, we used almost anything handy at the time.  :D

 

The first loco Class we used was a 25 to get us to Old Dalby, followed by a Unimog road-rail tractor (Yes, really....) followed bye a Class 17 Clayton. Then came Class 45 or 46 Peaks, and loads of Class 47s. On the WCML tests we used Class 50s, Class 86s, Class 86/1s and Class 87s. The three 86/1s were renumbered 86/2s later on.

 

You'll need Lab 3 and Lab 10 or 23 at either end as well for total authenticity of course. 

 

Was it always connected to the lab coaches for coupling purposes? Or would it have been shunted around the yard/APD building by other means?

 

Cheers,

Mick

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Was it always connected to the lab coaches for coupling purposes? Or would it have been shunted around the yard/APD building by other means?

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

Yes Mick, we had a couple of 10T mineral wagons with bar couplers on one end of each to act as match vehicles in the RTC Yard to move it around if nothing else was available. But most of the time PC3 & 4 were coupled to a lab coach being readied for the next series of tests. 

 

Sometimes PC4 had its buffers and a normal screw coupling re-fitted instead of the bar coupler and then anything could move the train around, and our initial tests at Old Dalby were carried out like that, as you can see in the pics with the dreaded Class 17 Clayton in charge. For those very early tests we relied on the small on-board generator on Lab 3 for our 3 phase power but it was nowhere near good enough for real tests, thus the conversion of Lab 10 (the BSK) and Lab 23 (the BG) as generator vehicles. 

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Hi All,

I am planning on emailing out all the model order numbers at the weekend, and making the link live on the website, please see www.apt-e.org/leadleykits/model.html after this Saturday to see which model I am currently working on.

 

Once the extra details have been fitted to Proto 7, production can start, sorry for the delay.

 

Regards

 

Paul

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Kit

Did the train ever run with Clayton 8598?

I have the lab23 and lab10 in build, and have done 8598, so I'm hoping

 

Shane Wilton and I had a discussion about this elsewhere on RMWeb, but I can't find the thread now.

 

The RTC had three 17s 'on shed' at various times, two of which could run and the third was converted to a mobile power station. It seems that POP ran with both of the running pair at various times, one of which caught fire when I was milepost spotting in the cab!

 

I'll see if I can dig out the numbers of the two we ran with later on. 

Edited by Mr_Tilt
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To complete the RTC Class 17 set, here's a pic of the Mobile Power Station.

 

It looks like it has the no. 516521 on the cab side in the original hi-res pic, but what that means I have no idea.

 

8512 was the one that caught fire with me in the cab.

 

 

33h1SM.jpg

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Well, here is a picture of 8512 at the head of PoP train in the early years.

 

Mr Tilt will I am sure identiy the others ...............

 

Found a photo of 8598 also at the RTC.

 

I don't think the lower picture is the RTC - it looks more like the southern end of Longsight Diesel to me.

 

Cheers,

Mick

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I don't think the lower picture is the RTC - it looks more like the southern end of Longsight Diesel to me.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

I just looked more closely at the building, and I can't remember any with that railing above the doors either. And the tracks are curving the wrong way for the RTC too.

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To complete the RTC Class 17 set, here's a pic of the Mobile Power Station.

 

It looks like it has the no. 516521 on the cab side in the original hi-res pic, but what that means I have no idea.

 

8512 was the one that caught fire with me in the cab.

 

 

33h1SM.jpg

 

Hi Kit,

Diesels tended to be renumbered into the service stock series by pre-fixing with S1 (The Metrovick  Co-Bo 5705 became S15705)

I just looked up S18521 and came up with this.

 

Cheers,

Mick

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Hi Kit,

Diesels tended to be renumbered into the service stock series by pre-fixing with S1 (The Metrovick  Co-Bo 5705 became S15705)

I just looked up S18521 and came up with this.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

Ahah, right, that looks like it. I can't read that number very well even on the hi-res pic as it's so small. Well spotted.

 

I like the comment on the RCTS page about 8512 '....D8512 apparently suffered a major mechanical failure in the Autumn of 1971 and was replaced with D8598.......'  :D  Elsewhere on the site it says it was a seized turbocharger, which sounds plausible.I'll say it was major, there were flames coming out of the engine access doors!  :swoon:

 

Oddly none of the RCTS sitings mentions Old Dalby or the APT programme at all.

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Ahah, right, that looks like it. I can't read that number very well even on the hi-res pic as it's so small. Well spotted.

 

I like the comment on the RCTS page about 8512 '....D8512 apparently suffered a major mechanical failure in the Autumn of 1971 and was replaced with D8598.......'  :D  Elsewhere on the site it says it was a seized turbocharger, which sounds plausible.I'll say it was major, there were flames coming out of the engine access doors!  :swoon:

 

Oddly none of the RCTS sitings mentions Old Dalby or the APT programme at all.

 

You need to put them straight!

 

:offtopic:

 

I have a Clayton in my collection, but it's the Heljan model as D8568 in Ribble Cement grey/white, the sole survivor that spent some time at Clitheroe cement works before being preserved. I drove 8568 in the works yard as a 17 year old, not long after it arrived at Clitheroe............... and it didn't set on fire.

 

Cheers,

Mick

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AH, that would make sense, I cannot remember where I got the picture from as it was just inside my collection of bits and bobs, but the author thought it was RTC, maybe because it has some test car (or looks like it) behind it.  On closer inspection, it really doesn't look like RTC, sorry for the mistake.

 

The hunt for clayton number continues....................................lol.

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AH, that would make sense, I cannot remember where I got the picture from as it was just inside my collection of bits and bobs, but the author thought it was RTC, maybe because it has some test car (or looks like it) behind it.  On closer inspection, it really doesn't look like RTC, sorry for the mistake.

 

The hunt for clayton number continues....................................lol.

 

The Clayton hunt will get more interesting soon with the release of a volume on the class by Book Law.

 

Mike.

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AH, that would make sense, I cannot remember where I got the picture from as it was just inside my collection of bits and bobs, but the author thought it was RTC, maybe because it has some test car (or looks like it) behind it.  On closer inspection, it really doesn't look like RTC, sorry for the mistake.

 

The hunt for clayton number continues....................................lol.

The Clayton in the colour pic is 8512, which Kit set fire to. 8521 was possibly a spare but then converted to S18521 with 8598 replacing 8512. The vehicle coupled to 8598 at LO is RDB975081 Hermes, which it ran with after the PoP tests moved on.

 

8512 had black bonnet roof's when outshopped for its RTC use and was bulled up with red buffer beams , yellow axleboxes and white tyres. 8598 had at least one repaint as it carries both old and new style numerals. Not sure about the D prefix without looking.

 

cheers

 

Shane

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