E3109

Cracking photos John and your representation of the "+" linkage is spot on. Just to correct one of my previous posts, the pans I got from Ebay are indeed Sommerfeldt ones, rather than Marklin, they actually size up pretty well when I offered them up and it looks as though the ones you used are the same ones as I got. Mine are red (DB) but obviously that can be sorted. Am I right in assuming that you've changed the pan heads on these, those on the originals I have are not wide enough and from your pics I think you have soldered 'packing brackets' on (for want of a better phrase). Looking forward to your updates, currently busy on an E26000 model in 1969-70 condition and hope to post some photos of it shortly. Cheers, Baz.

I was just thinking about D5705 when reading recent comments, and as much as 818 was a loss, thank goodness the gasaxe wasn't wielded on the Co-Bo.

Yes, but mainly because the platforms are only advertised 5 minutes before departure. I believe that RTT gets round that, and I must admit that I used to nip up to the Control Room occasionally, with their TOPS/TRUST access to platform allocations.

I heard that 40s were so well built that the screens were removed, and the top nose doors were left open, in order to encourage tin worm to enable easier cutting. No idea if true, and I can't vouch for Peaks in that respect. If you look at pictures of 40s on the Crewe scrap line 1984-85 they seem to have had their windscreens removed as a matter of course although this could be because they were (presumably) interchangeable with class 37s. Re D818, my interpretation is that it was cut up out of bitterness in protest at the closure of Swindon Works although at least it provided spares for the other two locos.

You could add to that, ADB, stations such as Hartford where the platform edges have been removed at the extremities in order to (as I understand it) reduce the TOC leasing fees to NR. Hartford used to have one or two intercity services back in the day, so the extra length was warranted but has nobody thought this through in the current era? What about in an emergency when a Pendo needs evacuating, yes I know they have SDO but even so the evacuation could be done more quickly if more/all doors were available. From a purely practical sense the copings should've stayed put, and just to add that had they been retained then station overruns would've been reduced. It's the economics of the madhouse, I tell thee...

The 1960s modernised stations have a tendency to be somewhat brutal to contemporary eyes, Ditton was mentioned and Euston of course. That said, I do like it that Coventry retains Transport typeface and Manchester Oxford Rd surely deserves its listed status. The nameplate from 46240 is a nice touch on the overbridge though and apparently the old internal number for Cov PSB was.... 46240! It would be great if Euston's Doric Arch were reinstated there at some point though, once/if HS2 happens, while retaining the current building. Worst thing about that labyrinthine hellhole is the masses of passengers having to occupy the main hall, needing to stare up at the screens for the next departure.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, might've been by me possibly but I'd love to see a 1:76 Thundersley Invacar! They were of course a common scene from the mid 1960s up until the last decade, I heard the remaining ones were banned from the roads in 2003. They were of course replaced by the Motability Scheme, where ordinary cars were adapted for the use of disabled people. As the Invacars were owned by the government they were recalled, and apart from a few examples in museums etc most of them were trashed. In the meantime I fancy getting my scalpel out on some styrene, apparently they were fitted with BL Mini wheels so it shouldn't be too difficult to make one or two!

How prevalent was vacuum braking on the continent at the time? I'm pretty sure it was fairly common in France, but Germany seems to be a stretch. Mind you in wartime there would've been more pressing concerns than operating swingers I suppose.

Couple of pics of the old EM2, look closely on the first photo and you can see that there's still a little bit of work to do in removing the last remnants of the lining guide. This loco is going to be 'under maintenance' in perpetuity, I've been lucky enough to acquire a spare unpowered bogie so I've been busy on both of these in order to depict traction motors, centre pivot plates, and so on. I'm still debating whether to replace the moulded handrails on the Triang loco, seeing as it's a cameo in essence. I suspect I will though!

There's a post about that somewhere on RMweb, no idea where but it's how I learned about it.

I like how you've cut away the extra cross brace Michael. Looking to retain original Tri-Ang pans on some of my locos too, albeit modified and I also like that you've replaced the pan head. That said, I may well keep the rounded head on my Rovex EM2s. Been playing with pantos over the last couple of days and even the old Jouef products can be improved upon as long as the top half is replaced. The as-supplied Heljan pans are dire, but at least the pan heads can be reused. TBH I found it fairly easy to remove the moulded lines on the EM2, I used a small flat blade screwdriver to get rid of the bulk of it and the rest was fettled with a sharp knife and emery cloth. Anyway, been playing with this today. I've always considered Tommy to be the ugly sister (brother?) of his production sisters but even so, I feel it would be sacrilege if he wasn't present on my layout!

Just to add, when receiving the theatre indication for Wembley Relief (at Wembley Central) the theatre box displays 'wR' [sic], ie lower case 'w'. This theatre is new style LEDs by the way, but I'd expect that its predecessor was similar. Presumably because 'w' is a wider-than-normal letter. No doubt the same reason why V was used on headcode boxes rather than W, to denote the Western Region.

I'd always liked Singapore, visited twice before (the second time to visit the railway just before its demise). The third time I visited was just a few months ago, the idea was to treat my missus to a shopping trip (who hails from Phnom Penh). My joke with her, was that we will visit the (fantastic) Singapore Zoo, to visit her family haha. She didn't turn up at the hotel as arranged. Called her all the MFs under the sun via messenger because of it, you get the picture, I travel halfway around the world for an extended weekend break and she couldn't be bothered showing up etc In desperation, I rang her boss who told me she'd dropped her off at the airport the previous morning. It turned out, that as she turned up before me and is a tidy looking bird who at the time was under 30 they simply assumed she was a prozzy and refused her entry! They kept her in prison and confiscated her phone, sorry but that's not the sort of society I wish to visit. What makes this worse, is that Singapore and Cambodia are members of ASEAN, the Asian equivalent of the EU. Thus free movement regs apply (theoretically). I ended up getting a return flight to Phnom Penh and eating a lot of humble pie with my missus, that's for sure. Had a right ding d ong with their authorities when I got back to the UK. I didn't chance this before coming home, as my flight was via Singapore. I later found out, that the unofficial and unspoken 'rule' is that women from Indochina, Thailand and Burma need to have a minimum of 1000USD on their person or they are automatically refused and detained pending ejection. The fact that my missus informed them that I had the holiday money, and told them which hotel we were staying at, fell upon deaf ears. The immigration dept didn't even phone the hotel to verify her story. Had a fairly intelligent dialogue with one of their officers via email when I got home, sadly when I pointed out that in my opinion they were being racist towards fellow Asian folk the dialogue stopped abruptly. Told them that they didn't check to see if I had $1000 on me, thus why did they check her? Never visiting the place again, not even in transit. In fact they told my other half that she will get into bother even if going VIA Changi to elsewhere. Done with that place. I apologise for posting this story, which is irrelevant to the OP's topic but this is more of a reply to ADB than anything else.

John, some top notch work there squire. Well done. I was initially confused as to why you went to the trouble of altering an MW-fitted one to represent a vac only one, and vice versa. Then the penny dropped, 76038 was the former 26050 and thus boiler fitted, 76003 wasn't, thus 76038 has the associated beading and rivets so an identity swap has saved you a lot of work. Nice touch on the eyebrow gutters, only 3 locos had them I think, 26033/49/50. Are the handrail holes in the same position on the cab front for the VO and AO/XO (MW fitted) types? I've removed the handrails from vac only ones but not brave enough to do this on MW fitted ones yet, unless I know the fixing holes are the same! I may go the whole hog with that anyway, by replacing the somewhat delicate plastic handrails with metal. Seems a bit odd that the Heljan EM2s are wire while the EM1s aren't. Can I ask what Sommerfeldt pans you've used? I bought some Markin (?) HO versions but they appear to be too small, whereas yours look spot on. My layout dictates that the pans need to be at full stretch, so the bigger the better within reason. I too have been looking at a way to represent the linkage between bogies, the daylight between them is excessive as it is and moving back the frames as you've done will alleviate that, a linkage is a bonus. If you can post a photo of your mod, it would be most appreciated. If you do make an etch for the windscreen surrounds please bear me in mind, in the meantime I'm going to use the tried and tested method of blanking the screen frames off with thin plasticard and then filing out to suit. I take on board your tip that shaving a bit off the cab inserts allows the body to drop a little towards a realistic level, gonna try that tomorrow! Had more than one in bits, and hadn't realised it was the cab inserts that were maintaining the height. I like your DC Kits model, that's turned out really well. Had a few of these back in the day, sold them on during a model railway lull sadly. Incidentally regarding bodyside grilles, I just happened to find an Evergreen sheet in my 'tat store' whose pitch matches the grille pitch pretty closely so I'm going to give that a whirl. It seems you've had more success with these than I have, TBH I don't know why Heljan/Olivia's chose this method when the moulded grilles on the Triang EM2 look absolutely fine. Much obliged for your tips, thank you.

I think it was MTK who did an EM1, whoever it was had clearly used the Trix version as a master. It was to the same dodgy scale, 3.8mm/ft and recommended a Hymek chassis, whose bogies are too short.

I find the term is synonymous with SJWs, although not exclusively. As summed up in the following cartoon video series (warning, contains bad language etc). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JcUi5_eNoqk All the characters featured, are based on real people sadly. My niece is currently at the age where she epitomises the 'rights without responsibilities' mindset and we're trying our best to bring her round to some kind of semblance of normality and decency, to ensure its just a phase. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long phase though. She is a teenager, and who wasn't rebellious at that age. But, I often wonder what on earth are they being 'taught' at school these days?

Okay, so here they are. First shot is a cruel close up of the Heljan loco front as it comes. Note how the windscreen surrounds are too thin and too square at the corners, and rivet detail that shouldn't be there (there are rivets, but they're flush). Also the incorrect marker lights, these are correct for a black loco (and possibly a handful of early green repaints) but not later versions. The holes either side of the bezels are for clipping marker/tail discs into. These come with the model which is a nice touch, but those holes have to go. Second shot is the easy way of parting the body from the chassis. I just cut four headstone-shaped forms from 0.030" styrene, nothing fancy. Slip them inside until you can feel the mounting points, once all four are in just pull down on the bogie sideframes equally, and it'll come off. Note, the four sides of the bogie frames aren't too well constructed (glued) so take care with this bit. There are no retaining screws, which makes it easy. The body is clipped to the chassis very securely, but this method gets around that. Third shot shows the cabside windows in relation to those on the bodyside, as you can see they are too low. So, you get the needle files out. Fourth shot shows before and after, still needs a bit of tidying up but you'll get the picture. Now, the bodyside grilles. These are extremely fragile and will not stand up to rough handling (I found out the hard way!). A couple of options here, either you can replace them with Evergreen grooved styrene, or perhaps a brass etch but backed with plasticard. I had to do this on one grille, the etch was from a class 83, backed with styrene and then cut down to size. The 83 grille was from one of A1 Models' mixed bags. However, what I'm doing is trying to toughen up the grilles in situ. Time will tell if it's going to work but the first stage, is to drop diluted PVA into the grilles (photo 5). This seems to need 2-3 applications and the grilles do warp a little, although they seem to settle down as the PVA dries. I don't know if this will prove to be good enough, however I'm minded to apply some enamel paint in there too, in order to seal it. Note that the grilles are black on the model irrespective of livery, this is incorrect for green or blue versions. Incidentally surface tension in the PVA mix doesn't help during this process: I considered adding a drop of washing up liquid to the mix but I suspect that may hinder paint adhesion. What I definitely would NOT do, is remove the grilles if you wish to reuse them. They're just too fragile and warp just by lookin' at 'em... I'll update with more soon. Bedtime for me, just finished a night turn. Cheers E3109

On my way home now, but I have these pics on my device so I'll post for comparison. Detail of 76039's cab, note the window frames and marker lights. I'll attach a similar shot in model form shortly.

I have a number of these locos, I'd like to conduct a critical analysis of them here, and have started to rectify some of the errors with them. All in all, they're basically decent models but not quite there. Positives: The chassis itself appears bulletproof, so bonus points there. Both types of loco run very well and are nice and heavy. The basic shape of the body is good, although not without errors. Vac only and MW/dual braked examples of the EM1 produced. However, as is well known there are errors/annoyances, listed below, most of which I want to correct. Just listing the EM1 for now, EM2 to follow. 1. Cabside windows are approx 1mm too low (although they measure up to the correct size). The tops of these windows should line up with the bodyside glazing but they don't. 2. Windscreens are too square in the corners, and the frames are too pronounced, with rivet detail showing that isn't there. 3. Bodyside grilles are metal etches, and are extremely flimsy and will not withstand much handling. 4. The relief on the bogie frames is far too two-dimensional and also the frames themselves appear to be too tall. The buffer centres are too high. Also, the buffer beam and the inside rear of the bogie frames are glued on and it's rather a weak spot. 5. The pantographs are not equalised, thus they tip over when under the wires. 6. The roof is the wrong shape apparently, although I must admit that I can't see this! Additionally some of the roof detail is VERY flimsy, namely the horns and lifting eyes. 7. Marker lights incorrect for all but the black version, these were modified early on. I'll add some photos later when I get home. Cheers!

Well, gold and tungsten are pretty much the same density so why not?! I heard a rumour that Fort Knox have several 'limited edition' gold-plated tungsten ingots that they didn't know about until they were test drilled, so maybe Accurascale could gold-plate the ltd edn talc chucker too, without any loss in adhesion weight...

Worth considering an email to Hornby perhaps. I did this with Bachmann once (well, I wrote a letter) and within a week received a cracking reply from the customer services guy, with the parts enclosed, gratis. Even more impressive when I told them that the damage was down to me. I'd write to Hornby, you might be pleasantly surprised.

I don't think so, as far as I'm aware it was left in situ after closure for the scrotes to trash, although I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. I heard a story that it was reallocated to Allerton but my colleague says not, he was a workshop supervisor there so he would know, I suppose! He did say that some Matterson jacks and so on were taken to Allerton though, perhaps they were divvied up across LM depots. There is a lathe at Allerton, but it's a more modern Hegenscheidt machine which I used to maintain occasionally many years ago. The 'wheel lathe' at Reddish was more of a milling machine, and unlike a conventional lathe was more adept at correcting ovality. The wheel lathe at Longsight is a fairly new installation, originally intended for Northern Eurostar services I think. I don't know if there is/was another one at Longsight TMD, the 'Eurostar' one is across the way. Which doesn't answer the question, where on earth did the DC Alty sets go for tyre turning? I wonder.

What a cracking video, cheers for posting this. I wasn't aware that an attempt was made to preserve a full set, EMUs don't seem to do too well in preservation circles do they. I believe I've asked this before, but has anyone ever seen one of these, or photos of one, at Reddish or indeed anywhere on the Manchester side of the MSW? Surely they must've visited there occasionally for the wheel lathe, as 502s 503s and 504s did. Or were there facilities for tyre turning at Altrincham?

Live and let live, as long as nobody is caused loss or harm it doesn't matter what people wish to identify as being. Even if it's identifying as being a carrot on Wednesday afternoons when there's an R in the month. I think some people go too far with it (and indeed again, as long as there's no loss or harm then who am I to argue). I recall that a long time ago on a forum (poss FB) an online acquaintance kept fishing for compliments in his/her new frock. As it was, people were maintaining a respectful distance, and refusing to comment. The fishing continued unabated for several hours, I should've just logged out but I could take no more. I ended up saying, "you just look like me in a skirt." Hissy fit and blockage ensued. However, the young 'lady' depicted below, was another matter, and a right good laugh. https://www.flickr.com/photos/barang_shkoot/8305329008/in/photolist-dDUYXJ I liken this to railway enthusiasm in a way. As far as I'm concerned, my railway enthusiasm is not a choice and if I had to choose between trains and women, the trains would win. But by the same token, I don't go around shouting to all and sundry that they "must" accept my life choices or else. That would be totally unreasonable. I'm aware that many or most of the transgender community don't do this. But let's be frank, some do.

Got a few pics here, several inside Makkasan. https://www.flickr.com/photos/barang_shkoot/sets/72157629781644838/with/11365378533/