E3109

Mike, your post is noteworthy and certainly adds substance to this debate but to this day, I've yet to see a yellow end that's been entirely obliterated by insects. Don't get me wrong, living as I do on the WCML I well recall 87s absolutely covered in the things but even so the effect on the yellow paint was negligible and I'd say the same goes for the current order (221/390). On balance, as a PTS holder myself I prefer yellow ends on traction units. Headlights of course add to trackside safety exponentially but why can't we have both? Given that this country is going the same way as the United States regarding litigation, perhaps it's only a matter of time before the family of someone who perishes on a level crossing will sue due to the absence of yellow paint.

Just as a matter of interest, I passed Willesden Depot yesterday and the new units on site had orange front ends. Think they're class 710, but not certain. The chromed LT roundel on the front was a nice touch.

Oh dear.

Either way. I was discussing with a 'basher' friend recently, about the exact moment our railway went to sh*t. We couldn't nail it down due to the way our railway was flogged off piecemeal, but we were in general agreement that it reached the point of no return around 1998, when those yellow/black warning signs started to appear and infest. See it, say it, sorted. Just FRO! Not particularly bothered about orange cantrail stripes (except as outlined above) but OLE flashes of any type on an electric locomotive is just stupid. If you can't see the knitting and/or juice rail and thus are unable to know that you really ought to keep away from it, then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed out in the first place.

Drivers don't habitually climb on/off coaching stock, or various wagons such as those used by DB, FL and GB, but they generally have cantrail stripes. The majority of rolling stock, whether or not you're excluding traction units, have cantrail stripes. In every case, regarding coaching stock whether LHCS or units.

Agreed to a point, Jjb1970 but the fact remains that the body of the old Hornby model is miles better than the Heljan blob. Provided you file the door handles out

Indeed. If I were foolish enough to own any kind of Moneypit though (apart from my mortgaged house lol) I'd be fighting that all the way.

So why were they mandated for 'modern' traction, why does a preserved Western have to carry cantrail stripes when a preserved King or Castle doesn't. Seems like a case of 'diesel is diesel' whether preserved or not and they were all bunched into the same BS (in this case Bu*****t Standard rather than British Standard). My main work is intermodal jobs. To this day, I've yet to see a single container with an orange cantrail stripe.

Indeed. But such extravagance is not for The Mere Plebs. (aka us).

The Heljan 86 is an appalling offering, unless all you care about is running qualities in which case it's excellent. I spend the majority of my working life on or around these fine machines and can I just say is it any wonder that people still crave the 1981 Hornby version.

I was going to mention Stafford, until 4 and 5 were abolished colour light main aspects with disc ground signals were the norm at that location. Wigan Wallgate was resignalled a few years ago (2005-ish) and the same applied there, prior to the new scheme although the signals and of course the newish GPLs are still operated from Wallgate box, for now at least. One of my colleagues said at the time, that the resignalling actually made certain illegal moves legal... I couldn't possibly comment on that...

Found this beauty in Singapore airport yesterday, a 1970 Ford Escort which measures up pretty well in 1:64. Might even be exact. I'm going to leave this car as is, although I may tone down the silly chromed interior. RHD is a bonus.

Furthermore to this, I wonder why steam locomotives are exempt from orange cantrail lines when heritage diesels and electrics aren't. I'd take this further and ask why heritage traction of any description is obliged to have EU-mandated yellow-on-black OHLE warning signs. They look awful and particularly so on steam traction.

I'll throw in the example of Merseyrail. When the two-car 502 was restored to LMS livery, it ran with yellow ends. A few short years later and when the broadly similar 503 was restored to LMS livery, it ran without yellow ends. Perhaps the standards and expectations were eased off a little by 1985. I wonder if this was at the insistence of the NRM, rather than BR as the museum owned it (502) at the time. Also I recall the 4-SUB 4732 carrying full yellow ends when it ran on BR as restored* to Southern livery. (*Although the pedant in me would say that 4732 was new to BR rather than SR (I think).)

I can't say too much Dava, but I'm pretty certain they will be around for a few years yet and will certainly outlast me! Fantastic engines, and no doubt one of BR's better purchases (once the track-hammering was sorted out!).

TBH I think 86259 looks ace in its current garb, and the loco is clearly well looked after if going off the paint job at least. It's definitely darker than Electric Blue though. Maybe a mix of the two shades. Seems to have a slight green tinge, as per Rail Blue.

According to form, that loco was a specific request for a recent same-sex wedding railtour. Whether it was the grooms who requested it, or the guests, has not been proven ;-)

Not so Bernard, see my above post. I took paint samples a bit back from most of FL's locos comprising examples from all three batches E3101-40, E3161-200 and E3141-60. All were Rail Blue (or an early form of it) and, for example, the former E3102-3-4 did indeed have red buffer beams but most of the rest didn't. I know it's only paint, but I'm fed up of seeing the Electric Blue AL6 myth repeated time and time again. Maybe I need to collect samples again, as I think I slung those I took 3 years ago... I can see why people have assumed this (white cabs, white roofs, lion and wheel, then our minds fill the rest in towards what we expect). Should be taking delivery of certain bits of a former AL6 in the coming weeks. In fact, chances are I'll be gas-axing the remains off myself. I'm more than happy to devalue those bits by removing paintwork to the bone, if it means I get to put this nonsense to bed once and for all...

There were no AL6s delivered in Electric Blue, ever. They were all Rail Blue from the start. I will stake my pension on it. That's apart from the pair that were painted this shade many years later due to railway authors posting nonsense. The vast majority of the locos had blue buffer beams from new too. Only the first handful from EE/Donny Works had red buffer beams, and it's almost certain that these were the same engines that were delivered without a yellow panel.

Sometimes, the subtle ones are the best. For instance, a layout depicting a well-worn though unofficial path from the mess room to the nearest BRSA or pub...

Just out of interest, I went up to MOSI earlier, armed with a jotter and a tape. I can confirm that the windscreens on EM1s and EM2s are identical in size. The Co-Cos look wider, but it's an optical illusion: they are in fact closer together due to the cabside taper. Also, and I'm surprised I never noticed this before, but the lower, central headlight bezel that NS fitted is in fact a modified BR one!

I think that predates removal of the AEI cross arms Russ, I only started spotting in 1980 and remember that they all still had them at the time. I suspect the pans were taken off to prevent them being raised under the DC, although to be fair they can be locked out via a padlock on the pan isolating lever so it was probably overkill.

How far do you go with saving lives though? Many years ago, during my formative and no doubt naive era, a friend and I were discussing an idea where, in the case of a plane crash, the fuselage could separate and land safely to terra firma via parachutes. Let's be honest, if Air Force One doesn't have it, then commercial airliners won't get it either! I just hope that lessons have actually been learned regarding Grenfell, rather than the usual platitudes. It does seem that there is a programme to remove flammable cladding from all high rises, easily said with hindsight but they shouldn't have been fitted with it in the first instance.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/drs20304/8495593850 Who'd a thowt it...

I'd be more than happy to reply, but the RMweb 'no politics' rules are here for good reason. Goodness knows, I've transgressed enough on occasion, and I like being here!