E3109

I was lucky enough to visit Makkasan Works a few years back, as the new livery was starting to appear. The policy was (and as far as I know still is) that the GEKs which received a heavy general overhaul, received the new livery, and those which didn’t remained in the standard livery. My notes suggest that a handful of locos received the new livery in error, and were soon repainted in the standard livery.

As I've said many times before. When I worked for Freightliner I took deep paint samples of at least 12 of the 16 still-operational locomotives. I can confirm that they were *built* in Rail Blue (or at least a form of it). My mate is one of the gaffers in the Basford Hall loco shed (VMF) I'm sure I could get him to do the same if I buy him a few pints.

John, one of the locos is depicted before the frames were fitted, but after prep. Basically I shaved off the moulded frames to be almost flush, and also carved a small 45°-ish chamfer so the glue had somewhere to run. At first I used Uhu but superglue ended up being the better option. Just cheapo pound shop stuff, nothing special. You need to bend the wiper arms forward before fitting the screen frames, and bend themback again afterwards. Being metal, the arms are pretty resilient.

I brought 3 bodies with me on holiday, ideal for balcony therapy. I wanted some accurate windscreen frames, Michael Edge did these for me at pretty short notice. Cheers, Michael.

Been away for a while. Anyway a little bit of progress to report, the brickwork is now in place on the stores side, and almost all intermediate vertical RSJs fitted to that side of the main shed too.

Thanks gents. That's the one.

Gents, Not posted in ages but I have a query. Hope this is an appropriate thread. There was a cracking layout doing the rounds a while back, which assumed that the SR kept the L&B open. There was an absolutely fantastic Art Deco Southern Railway DMU featured on it. Tried in vain to find a link to this. One of my friends has recently got well into OO9, and I told him about this lovely set. I'm almost certain this featured in Railway Modeller? But so far, I've drawn a blank. Any links or photos much appreciated. Cheers E3109

Life's got in the way recently gents. Not sure if I've posted this here, don't think I have.

I went off paint samples from the 86/6s I've worked on. Samples from a dozen or so engines. It's Rail Blue. Not Electric Blue, nor any mythical 'other' shade.

Just noticed something, and this is a very minor gripe: won't stop me ordering. The cab door handle recesses are of the later type, with one corner incorporating an arc, rather than being rectangular as when new. Also the original door glazing (drop lights) has sharper corners than the later replacements (fixed). It looks as though Heljan has just filled in the lower handle recess on the later 86/2 version for the AL6 / 86/0. Not a biggie, by any means. Looks great overall. The earlier Hornby 86/2s had no door handle recesses at all!

They are correct for locos as built, see attached Flickr pic. The wider top plate was a later mod.

Round about 1988 I visited Dunford Bridge and Woodhead stations with some friends, we parked a car either side and walked through the tunnel from east to west. Woodhead station buildings and signal box were gone, but both were still extant on the eastern side although derelict. There was the remnants of a 1969/1970 closure notice still just about hanging in there on the down side waiting room, just wish I'd photographed that now as the building was demolished not long after. I did take some photos of the buildings and while they're pretty poor, they might scrub up a bit.

Part of the depressing scenery in the depot's later years, were the grounded EM1 bodies dumped towards the southern end of the shed, as seen below. I didn't fancy paying for DC Kits resin models for what is basically scenery! So, I got the Lego out yet again...

There is a bit of a rim around the former alphanumeric headcode boxes right through to the 0O00 era and in a handful of cases where 86s received dominos (a handful). A quick search on Flickr will confirm this. The sealed beam headcode boxes appear to be newly-fabricated steelwork from that era i.e. Late 1970s-early 1980s. I know what you mean about the pan heads, but it may well be a compromise for 3rd radius curves (and less) to mitigate dewirements in relation to non-prototypical track work/PW.

Ok I posted this info on another thread, but I'll post it again here, so it can be checked if req. Outer windscreens are 660mm wide, centre screen is 510mm wide and the pillars are 115mm wide. Screen radii are 2". All measurements taken internally,and I also need to add that the outer screens are not square, they taper towards the cab sides. I work on these old ladies most days and the revised version looks pretty much spot on, as mentioned above the grilles are a vast improvement and look 'right'. My only slight reservation, is that the quarterlights still appear to be too wide although I'm happy to wield a tape measure to confirm, if anyone wants me to. Well done, Heljan! Why oh why didn't you do it correctly in the first place but anyway, I'll be ordering a few of these.