TRACTION 200

[steverabone]

The 200th edition of Traction magazine is due out in a few days so here goes with the contents:

• The two hundred D200s
  

Colin Boocock looks back at the life of iconic English Electric Type 4s.

• The End of the ‘Deltics’
  

Simon Carter gives a personal recount of the end of the East Coast race horses.

• Les Ross meets Les Ross
  

Andy Coward explains how a Class 86 came to be named after a West Midlands DJ.

• Cumbrian Coast Traction
  

Steve Allen visits this scenic line to view freight activity.

• Class 47 Update
  

Charles Mackintosh reviews Class 47 operations in the first six months of 2011.

• Tinsley depot
  

Gavin Bland visits this once important maintenance depot

• Gallery
  

John Hooson chooses some of his favourite railway photographs.

• Dave’s Diary
  

Craig Munday discovers a train guard’s journal for the Cornish Main Line in the 1980s.

 

 

 

TRACTION MODELLIING

• Off the Rails
  

Paul Lunn suggests how the modeller can simulate a freight train derailment live!

• The Dinting accident
  

Richard Kaye’s photographs show a freight train derailment as it happened

• Track Circuit Runner
  

Paul Lunn explains what the purpose of these wagons was.

• Converting the Bachmann Farish Class 20 to DCC
  

Roger Miller shows how to carry out this conversion.

 

 

 

In addition there are the usual mainline and heritage traction sections.

[tractionman]

Pleased to see this issue drop through my letterbox today - there's plenty of interesting prototype material for inspiration in Traction 200, particularly the photographs and account of Tinsley in the late 1980s by Gavin Bland - spot on for those of us with BR TMD-type layouts in the making - and a nice nostalgic account too, as one expects from Traction of course - as is the demise of the Deltics article by Simon Carter. "Dave's Diary" on 1980s Cornish operations has some excellent pictures and two in particular (page 42) caught my eye with 45 111 negotiating a tight freight siding on the Roskear branch - one for the micro-layout fraternity (cf. Model Rail). And then there's the Traction Modelling pages, and the amazing photographs of a derailment at Dinting in 1981.

 

A good selection of recent traction news and images from galas, tours and special workings over the past few months - important, I think, as a record of the life and times of classic D&E traction as it is today, for when, in the distant future, we look back to the great old days of the 2010s (as we will) with the same misty-eyed nostalgia as we now view the '70s and '80s... which is why perhaps we're seeing more images of GM locos creeping in on the preserve of the old guard! Art imitating life?

 

Anyway, I'm enjoying my copy of Traction, and hope to see it back as a monthly before too long - bimonthly seems to make for a lengthy wait - patience needed I suppose...

 

cheers,

 

Keith