StuAllen

Judging by their colour, I’m guessing these have been working the RHTT trains (taken at Tonbridge yard today)

Saw 69001/69004 and one other (couldn’t really see it properly) at Tonbridge Yard today.

92010 should arrive tomorrow according to DHL, so very happy. I was weak on the train home and bought Charles Dickens as well after seeing a few more had been found in the warehouse. I shouldn’t have had that 2nd pint at lunch! The plan was to use some of my reward credits but couldn’t see how to do it from the order page (it’s not a problem just means I have more credits available to use on the next loco) I have found how to generate the coupon code now so will be more prepared next time.

I haven’t spoken to the garage yet, it is booked in for a service on Monday so will be asking the question, that said I’ve been monitoring how the consumption has been going since my original post - its not been as bad as my trip to Scotland. The last 3.5l bag I got from Halfords lasted 1450 miles

Royal Oak has been ordered, i do like the NSE livery. Living in Sussex it was the colour of my youth. That said I didn’t get to see 50’s earning a living until recently.

Ferrari = Frequent Errors Ruin Races As Results Indicate (I did steal it from another site but it made me smile)

I’ve posted a few pictures of it in the RHTT thread, unfortunately you couldn’t really tell the colour under all the muck. See and Broadlands was trailing both times

Originally I was thinking late 80’s so Swallow livery, rail freight sectorisation - the railways of my youth, but I like a lot of the more recent stuff like the class 68s and 70’s. So I’m going with anything goes from the late 80’s. Going to try and keep the sessions to the right era but I’m trying to ensure nothing in the landscape will date it. It will be OO, think N and the new TT would be better from a space point of view but I think it’s too small to work with

So after much procrastination, I’ve finally made a start on my layout. I’ve still got quite a bit of clearing out to do in the garage, but have made a couple of test boards to check clearances on curves and construction techniques for the base boards. Ideally i wanted to keep to 50mm centres for the track but I was worried about the APT-E and Mk3’s. I want a roundy roundy layout, and like to see movement, so have taken inspiration from one of the layouts at Pecorama and from Pete Watermans ‘Making Tracks’ layout and am going to for 4 running lines, the smallest radius on the corners is 24” and the largest 30”. I’ve drawn it out in AnyRail and am mostly using code 75 track, although the mtd will be code 100 at I have some spare point work from a previous attempt at a layout. I know there are a few clichés like the tunnel and the viaduct and I’m going to have to put a bus on a bridge somewhere. The orange block on the top edge is a brick column on the garage wall. I’ve attached the plan and some pictures of my tests. I think I can get away with 50mm centres, I just need to keep the APT-E to the outer 2 lines. So for the base board tests I made one with 12mm plywood for the board and the frame, the other is 18mm ply CLS stud-work for the frame, think in reality I’m going to go with 9mm ply and CLS stud-work for the frame. You can see from the photos that the 50mm centres look better, think the gap’s too big with 67mm. Now I’m happy with the spacing, my next action is to start on making the viaduct.

From Haywards Heath this morning

Can’t believe I’ve only just noticed with 2 and a bit races left to the season, that they’ve got rid of the rule that those that make it through to Q3 have to start the race on the tyres they set their Q2 time on.

Few more from north of Wivelsfield this morning

Few from the level crossing near Keymer Junction - in hindsight should have stood the other side of the crossing

There’s some on their facebook page including a video of the pantograph going up and down. Does the pantograph do anything on DC? Also is that a class 89 I can see in the background?

Just watching P1 - do you think they could have made the massive US and Texan flags any larger?

Very welcome email at lunchtime - DHL have my HDAs

Just seen this just north of Wivelsfield

Think their FB post has TT:120 covered

Well I’m hoping they’ll be available at the Warley show, after buying 2 excellent graffitied wagons from TMC at GETS and pointing out all the stuff I have on preorder from Accurascale I’ve been banned from ordering anything more until the new year. The only concession is that I can get something when we go to the NEC and I really want 59103

Took this today at GETS,

I thought I saw and advert yesterday morning on facebook or twitter for a Flying Scotsman with a steam generator, I wasn’t really paying attention so scrolled passed it but now I can’t find the advert…

They do look good in the flesh, I know I mentioned before but I’m still hoping for a coal sector liveried one in a follow up batch - would fit into the powering Britain and nuclear themes

On a positive note, I managed to wake the whole house up turning on the TV at 5:45 - it means that everyone is ready on time to leave for Milton Keynes for GETS. just listening to Ted interview the Pirelli guy - the problem isn’t necessarily the tyre, it will have grip it can disperse 85l of water per second from each tyre, the problem is the spray makes it impossible to see. I don’t know what to make about the Gasley tractor incident - the tractor was also on the track when the safety car train went past and no one gave it a second thought - Gasley was going faster (not race speed but fast enough for the aerodynamics to give grip) to catch up to the safety car train and had less than half a second to react. Was he going too fast? Obviously it needs to be safe for the drivers, no one wants a replay of what happened in 2014, but does that mean no safety cars or vsc’s and straight to red flag if someone needs to be recovered - with recovery starting once every is in the pits?

Is the plan for these to be delivered at the same time as the rest of the Accurascale class 92’s? wonder how the box will be decorated

Thanks for helping confirm my suspicions - I guess one other thing that I’ve changed recently is the fuel grade i’m using - I’ve always tried to use Shell V-Power diesel when filling up but when the prices went up I switched to regular diesel, the timing fits but it could be a coincidence. will see what the garage says