great central

There's probably a Network Rail time lapse video on line about the most recent work, often linked from Twitter somehow. Don't ask me how to find it though, I only look in the EMT feed sometimes to see what's being said.

Nottingham London road low level was a parcels only station for many years being originally the terminus for trains from Grantham and the east before Victoria opened

It was still there a few weeks ago.

For what it's worth, if I recall correctly, it cost us something like £500 per day for security staff to patrol the car parks at our bigger shows. However it must be said there are some very variable characters working in 'security', we had cause to complain to their manager on more than one occasion. As another aside in response to the suggestion about cameras, my son has just finished fitting 4 at our house. A DIY kit of 4 cameras, with day colour and nighttime black and white complete with a 1Tb recorder cost him about £88!

There was a very tidy looking maroon H reg sapphire parked outside the Canal house pub in Nottingham yesterday and a scruffy white J reg in Kirkby in Ashfield on Friday My son has the G reg Montego, which was originally my dad's.

It does make a quite a decent cup of tea, even the wife likes it, she's very picky about tea So long as it's not too strong and got milk and sugar it does for me

Regarding pronunciation of D9009, a friend in the DPS always says it as A-li-Siddon, if that makes sense

That vacuum cleaner must be 50 years old My parents had one back when I had long hair. The blow end made a really good hair drier. Proper job as well, none of this bagless stuff with loads of filters to get blocked up then need cleaning out with the attendant huge cloud of dust. Thought, when I typed in blow end, why did the auto prompt suggest I used the word job? Edit: No edit changed my mind

I saw a layout at Glasgow show some years ago that had used plastic for the catenary masts. The kindest comment I can give was that it didn't look good.......

Stagecoach have engaged a top law firm according to the Telegraph whilst the DFT is being inundated with stuff from other operators. Sorry can't post the link but you can only read the full story if subscribed.

Also the first two Nottingham-Norwich in the morning and the last Spalding-Nottingham Monday to Friday. Edit: the Spalding is a bit of an adventure, Melton Mowbray-Nottingham non stop with a dog box, booked fast line as well

Nothing new there then......

Found out that if I hold my phone in landscape mode rather than portrait I don't seem to get the ads??? Very odd

Apparently a seven day extension to the standstill period has been granted..........

Now I'm getting big ads in the middle of the forum rather than just the almost constant drop downs at the top. Hopefully worse before it gets better?

Isn't the Bachmann smokebox door modelled on those fitted to the original boilers on the first 40 or so locos from memory? Over time and works visits they turned up on other locos including, slightly ironically, 61264 while 61000 was withdrawn carrying one of the later type of smokebox door. When originally preserved, and until fairly recently I believe, 61264 carried the same (early) style of door but at it's last major overhaul was modified to the later type. 61306, the other preserved B1 has always carried the later style. I've spent ages going through pictures to get appropriate numbers to use on Bachmann B1s.

I'm told the EMT section pension fund is in good health and Arriva were disqualified from the bid for the same reason as Stagecoach.

On the subject of American cars, F plate, so 67-8 Mustang spotted in Norwich earlier. Sounded rather nice and could be heard for a little while as it went off up the road.

Rather a lot of personal history! Owned it since it was 18 months old. And following on a theme from a little upthread, if you tip the front seat forwards and kneel on the floor facing the back seat...................

Yep, if you've got a decent body complete with both bogie frames still a good buy at £40. As mentioned above Brush type 2s can be had for as little as a tenner at swapmeets or shows if you're anywhere near one. Pantographs not so cheap or easy to find but you could fit Judith Edge etched ones or possibly utilise some continental ones. Marklin. I think, do one which will fit the bill with little alteration, similar to the erstwhlie Lima one fitted incorrectly to their class 87s.

Bit of an update from today on the Marina. Now has 4 wheels with tyres that hold air so able to move it around after disabling the steering lock, by removing the lock barrel with a hammer and punch! Once freed it rolls quite easily. Now got a look at the nearside, oh dear Most of the front suspension area has disappeared, it's very flexible but still holding up and the sill has had it as well. But putting a large socket on the bottom pulley and a little bit of persuasion from a very long bar the engine turns so isn't seized solid and at least the forward gears can be found. It's been vacuumed out inside and most of the floor is solid. Also found a newspaper dated 1996 so gives some idea when I last did anything with it. First picture is looking up from under the front wing, there shouldn't be daylight Second is a general view along the side, dent in the sill is from a Vauxhall cavalier who didn't see me. The other patch of filler is from avoiding a badly driven gas van, either head on or side into a fence! The door does close properly by the way and the pile of wood is to take some of the weight off the very flexible suspension area.

Manchester is now a major bottleneck, with extra trains routed through the Piccadilly-Oxford Road section without the benefit of, I understand, government promised widening to four tracks. The answer apparently is the 'digital railway' whatever that means. More government waffle? Both TPE and EMT services are delayed by all this, also caused in part by previous DaFT meddling and increased Northern services. Regarding Abellio, all I'll say as a (now) future employee, have you seen the state of a lot of the Anglia rolling stock? Not a particularly promising advert. Guess I'll be needing a new tie come August.

LPG conversions? Son has a 93-4 Camaro with a gas conversion, costs him about the same to run as the diesel Peugeots he's had several of and probably less than the Jeep Cherokee diesel I'm driving at the moment showing an average of 25.2mpg. That said I've only just started using it again after getting the starter motor sorted so will take a while for the average to sort itself out, usually good for around 30mpg.

Took the torn plastic sheeting off this earlier and brushed the accumulated crud from the trees around it away. Doesn't look too bad, scabby around the edges but then jacked it up to change the two outside wheels at my son's insistence and with his help. They came off remarkably easily. He wants me to get it back on the road. Keys lost years ago, engine has lost a couple of core bungs at least and a dent in the roof where a big chunk of oak tree fell on it last year. Positive side was jacking it up near the original jacking point and no nasty surprise Last tax disc in the second photo, somehow never got round to selling it when I started using company cars. The Montego will likely be going for it's MOT soon as well, son brought it from the garage at the bottom of the garden to the top yesterday, gave it a wash, been standing since November started first time.

There's enough problems caused by people booking tickets with non-existant railcards without adding Priv options into the mix. No thanks. Priv option is available, as you say, at ticket offices or on board staff where they're present. If not you should be able to buy at destination. I'm guessing you know the Priv discount? I won't mention it here but if you do you should be able to do your own comparison between Priv discount on normal tickets and bargain public fares. The Trainline often gives some rather obscure routings to get your bargain fare as well, from my experience involving 15 minute walks between stations giving no consideration to the ability of a passenger to make that walk, sometimes elderly or infirm passengers are quite upset that their bargain fare is going to cost a taxi ride between stations and one I know of doesn't have a taxi rank. It also doesn't offer group tickets and rarely cheap day returns, all of which costs the passenger dearly.