great central

The same thing happened to one of our 'less popular' guards managers (now retired) some years ago

Kimberley station building is still there, the trackbed is a car park. Further along is a 'nature trail' including (or certainly did some years ago) a miniature buffer stop with a plaque pointing out that in past years a large number of trains passed there every 24 hours (it does say how many but I can't rermember!). There was a farce over the footbridge which was dismantled to be refurbished and replaced over the car park but 'by mistake' some or all of it got cut up for scrap . The former goods yard occupied at the time of the picture by a timber merchant is now under housing. Worksop East signal box is still there, albeit unused for many years, the land opposite being the site of an aborted Tesco store.

Crikey! Another repaint for 189. Not so long ago it was in pseudo LT livery, 3 years if I recall correctly I saw it at Butterly when I had my 60th birthday footplate experience. Then it was in Balfour Beatty livery, now it's in plain blue. The paint must help with adhesion Thing is I never cease to be amazed that it's still with us. Many years ago it was paired with 20056 on a Nottingham-Skegness 'Jolly Fisherman'. All the way there and back it did very little work but succeeded in filling the first few coaches with thick smoke, just spluttering along at slightly above idle. Fortunately 56 was in fine order and coped very well. 189 was withdrawn soon after and joined a good number of others in the trek to M C Metals. It can't have been that bad though as it became their yard shunter as seen here: https://www.britishrailways.tv/train-videos/2013-11/scrap-locomotives-at-mc-metals-scrapyard-in-august-1992/ Eventually being rescued and restored

May be totally irrelevant but a good many years ago I helped to re-do the roof on my mother in law's caravan. They were originally traveling showmen (fairground operators). The van, known as a wagon, had a clerestory roof which they knew as a 'mollycroft'. Anyway the material used was canvas stuck down with copious amounts of gloss white paint. Then given several further coats until the canvas was thoroughly covered.

J1553, I wonder if it's D85. Many moons ago I modified a Mainline Peak into that one, coincidentally with the same headcode for our Deepcar layout. I'd seen a photo in Railway Magazine taken at Deepcar when Manchester services were diverted over Woodhead in 1969. I'd also found another photo showing the opposite end which had a split centre headcode box. Edit: just seen Rob's post above, in my defence I'm looking at these pics on my phone and between composing my reply and sending it using the patchy signal on the ECML, he'd confirmed it as a 46.

Pure guesswork but somewhere in the Norfolk or Suffolk area? Waiting entry to a scrap yard perhaps? Are they LNER quad-arts? Difficult to be sure on my phone.

Sorry it's a bit of a pet peeve having been heavily involved with three different OHLE layouts, one of which is now resident in my garage but that may make another show appearance next year

Yeah but isn't that an electric loco? If so why are the pans down?????

When I worked on the refreshment trollies on some services we always used to say that passengers bought two bags of crisps at a time, one to eat and one to throw on the floor and grind into the carpet! I work on train and have ceased to be amazed by pretty much anything, at this time of year three bin bags full of rubbish from a two car train after a two hour journey isn't unusual, and that's just what can be easily picked up on turn round. As for weekends when there's almost any kind of sporting fixture or stag/hen do's about

Regarding Q6 and 7 visiting Grantham. There's a photo on the Annesley Fireman website showing a Q6 at Annesley in 1946. I've also seen in a book somewhere (don't ask me which one) a photo of what I recall was a Q7 at Daybrook on the GN back line so would have got at least as far as Colwick.

Kirkby in Ashfield was known as Kirkby Bentinck station, I'm just reading the book South from Chesterfield Central by Ken Grainger, there's a good few pictures of the station in happier days. I keep saying I'll take a walk around the area and try to visualise where stations and junctions were. Edit, this should have been attached to the post above but the Cloud threw me off!

Ah Nottingham Midland! Sat there at the moment 04.00 standby, to my mind it's not much changed and definitely not improved over the years. The tram bridge gives a flavour of previous years when there'd be regular freights hammering over, while everything below crawled about. The comparison between a proper main line and a branch line from Trent! I remember, probably in summer 1969 waiting for my O level results, standing on the station when a pair of 20s heading out to Ruddington and East Leake fairly roared over the bridge. Perhaps an ex GC driver showing the Midland the way to do it!

Hope Valley near Hope itself, ES would be Earles Sidings box

J1789, remarkably enough the timber waiting shelter survives to this day and in use. The building on the opposite platform also still exists but may be vacant.

J1658, last day of service, as in this section of line shuts the next day (for a few years anyway), but look at the condition of the permanent way, better than a lot you'll see nowadays

x2. Shouldn't watch things like this just before I go to release the doors!

Made in the same factory, K series engines British developed I believe. Yes they did have an achilles heel with the head gasket at first but when sorted even the 1.4 is pretty damn quick. There also seems to be some consensus that the Rover badged ones are generally better than the Honda badged ones. I've had 3 1.4s over the years, and a 1.8 diesel with a Peugeot engine, lovely cars all of them.

In my limited recent experince of banger racing at Great Yarmouth, the unlimited category mostly seem to favour Volvos although BMWs and Mercs also appear, but the Volvos usually come off best. In the lower power category the weapon of choice is often the wedge style Rover 200/400, they seem faster than pretty much anything else and tough with with it, shades of the BMC heritage? To be fair though the races at Yarmouth aren't perhaps much of a challenge, often a race consists of less than a dozen cars. Back in the day at my home track of Long Eaton one race could turn up over 40 cars, from BMC Oxbridges through to Westminsters, Jags, Ford Zephyrs, in fact anything big and heavy. Although one brave soul did run a Mini with some success, one of the most successful was an old 1950s Austin Somerset (I think) driven by a greengrocer called John Onions, with a huge illuminated onion on the roof Known as Bombers as they were a bit more than true bangers being quite heavily armoured and often lasting a whole season (or even two), with several heats leading to a final, at Yarmouth the same cars will contest each race so any immobilised means less cars for later races. I've never quite 'got' the destruction derby thing, to me it's more about the racing than destruction for it's own sake. Edit: Just found this on a search thinking there might be a few words about the Bombers, the classic car experts might like to try identifying the various models http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/sharpe-bomber-car-racing-at-long-eaton-stadium/MediaEntry/43504.html

C25430, 158847 more recently, now named 'Lincoln Castle Explorer' https://www.flickr.com/photos/132656555@N06/25035793386

Volvos, favourite of the banger racing crowd, best try to make sure that one's kept away from them.

Well, I dug out the WD, it's just done three circuits of Deepcar. A bit on the noisy side, but freeing up nicely. Not bad considering it's probably not been out of the box since we moved here, getting on 28 years ago . To my eye it looks like an 'ozzie', stood at the side of a Bachmann one, the loco is slightly shorter, but the tender is pretty much the same length. There are no overlays on the wheels, and if anything could do with a little more sideplay, but I'm pleased enough. Now to find the std 5.

I picked up one of the WD kits, by then under the McGowan brand I think, in a half price closing down sale at Quality models in Heanor about 35 years ago. He was selling of a lot of stuff off, but being out of work, with a young son at the time I couldn't afford much. Can't now remember whether I paid £5 or £10 for it, but anyhow it kept me quiet for a while. No idea where I would get a 141R chassis from, so scrathbuilt my own, drilling out the axles holes with an ancient Black and Decker industrail sized drill. The valve gear was mostly Nu-cast B1 bits turned inside out to give a plain section on the outside, with scratch coupling rods also drilled using the same machine, it wasn't particularly steady or true but somehow that chassis worked, even using the discarded wheels from a K's 04, and a borrowed XO4 motor from an old Triang Princess. As we had a black car at the time (Triumph Dolomite 1850, that was quick enough, the sprints must have been something else!), I used the gloss black spray can I had to paint the ozzie, as we knew them around here. It looked dreadful but some heavy weathering made it look much better to my eye. Around the same time I picked up an MTK standard 5 from the York show 'club' sales stand for a tenner.They also had a DJH one but at £30 it was well beyond my then limited means. That also got a scratch chassis and borrowed XO4 and ran. These are nowhere near the standard of todays stuff but kept me occupied, must get them out of the boxes again some day see if they still look OK. Personally I suspect I'll look at them with my rose tints on, others may be horrified but I've only ever sold on one kit that I built and that was something I picked up second hand part built, so it wasn't really mine and as it wasn't really anywhere near my interest at the time, decided that I needed the few pounds it brought in more.

Meant to have a look at something finishing luchtime today, it had stood at £60 for the last couple of days. This morning it was still only just over £100. Forgot about it at the crucial time and on looking 10 minutes after it had finished found it had sold for just over £160. It's not really my scale or period....................but what looked like a nicely built and painted RJH O gauge 37 for that money