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.

Took this one in 2012, loco was travelling from Basford Hall to Leeds Midland Road. This was a regular job on a Saturday at the time, used to work a liner back from Stourton with a different engine. The branded livery is now defunct, so hopefully this will be of use to someone.

I respectfully disagree. A few years back there was a proposal to repaint a Freightliner example in original livery, to mark their 50th anniversary and that of the company. This was approved at high level (I still have the emails) but sadly approval was then rescinded, reasons unknown. Anyway, I was involved in this project so I took paint samples from around 12 of the 16 in traffic, and the original topcoat over the primer was Rail Blue. Not lighter or darker, just Rail Blue. i can do this again if Heljan want confirmation.

Quite a few pics on Flickr of 86/90 in multi such as this one.

They do do occasionally work together in multi on FL, but not often. When they do, the 86/6 is almost always leading and there is a very good reason for this. The 90 has thyristor control, the 86 has a tapchanger. Whacking a 90 wide open will cause the tapchanger on the 86 to have a fit of the heebie-jeebies (overload etc) so the preference is always 86+90 rather than 90+86. I have driven such a combo on the main line, 90 leading but this is extremely unusual.. On the yard it's a different matter, low speed moves etc. In either case, you need to be very gentle with the Skoda power handle.

I'm sure this loco will do well, always admired the 'AL12s' (!) although a bit out of my modelling era. May still buy a grey one though, so far my cheapo Hornby abominations have formed an inexpensive basis for Thai cut n shuts (SRT 45xx GEs and Hitachis). Fran, my guess is that you've already thought of this but I suspect if you also produced an HO version they would sell well, given that they now operate in Bulgaria etc (and SNCF, just about). Same to Ben at Revolution, if you also did some at continental N 1:160. Neither of these options would be of any appeal to me, but I reckon there would be a market for these. Completely off-topic, but I do hope that Accurascale produce a OO class 40 in the near future. Not impressed with current or past offerings so far, and I want a raft of 'em...

Hi John Yes, I replaced the grilles with some Evergreen sheet, this is because they were longer on 'Tommy' than the production examples, on the corridor side. The original roof vents popped out easily from the inside, I got the dimensions of the replacements from my Triang EM2 although I'm not totally happy with them as they're too shallow. I'll laminate another layer onto them to beef them up. The cab fronts still need a bit of work (more filler around the screens), I'll post some pics when completed.

Profile of the 76s and 77s by David Maxey (OPC) is a good one, now out of print. Also EM1 & EM2 Historical Review by John Hooper (Book Law) ISBN 978-1-909625-19-8. BR Working Instructions books occasionally pop up on eBay, fawn cover. Edit: i just realised that you're after publications from the steam era. However the second one I mentioned does have a number of interesting 'changeover' pics. Another book I recall is 'This was the Woodhead Route' by SR Batty, I think that was an Ian Allan publication and there was another one whose title I can't recall, with a sort of dark pink soft cover which certainly featured the steam era.

Latest tinkering... The Doyen.

Does anyone know if the route is W10 cleared? I suspect not, as ISTR that the PW had to be lowered in Chorley Tunnel to gain adequate OLE clearance and there was an issue with the 'flying arches' too I think. I used to take Sprinters etc that way regularly but never a freight train.

Strangers in the camp! Taken by a friend who was a Guide Bridge man. Some unusual vantage points in that collection. I don't know what year these were taken (I'll ask) but I'd wager that the front loco is 83012, which retained headcode blinds until withdrawal.