great central

We have something similar for our Carstairs layout, it was originally designed to be run from several control panels spread around the layout, with help from a computer, which was fine for club use but not so good for shows. Gordon H of this parish who had designed the electrics for it when first built, then built a single master panel complete with transit case, oddly enough often referred to as the 'coffin'. The smaller panels slide into purpose built boxes in pairs. There sure is a lot more to shows than 'just the layout'!

Puzzle pic 2, some sort of storage and transport facility? Given the talk of electrics is it a transit 'case' for the various control panels?

Fitters ingenuity? There's no spare glass available perhaps without robbing another still in service loco, but this is available from another class that's been withdrawn?

Looks like the cover from an AWS battery box?

BOOOOOOOO!!!! Did they wreck everything they got their hands on??? J750 how very 'northern gritty' Much like Tetleys Mills

Don't know if it helps but there's some Kirk kits for sale on this very forum: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/classifieds/item/9384-coach-kits-and-detailing-parts-cometkirk-etc/

I agree that today's service frequency is far better. As an example to visit Barry Scrapyard in a day in 1969-70 required a late evening start from Nottingham then an overnight train from Derby-Gloucester, changing for a connection at about 04.20 to Cardiff arriving around 06.00. There was a direct service back in the afternoon. More recently 2004-5 it was possible to get from Nottingham-Cardiff in time to get 37 hauled to Fishguard and back, then do a one way to Rhymney where the 37 was stabled, back on a unit for the last Cardiff-Nottingham. All that in one day, OK a long one but given that Cardiff-Fishguard is 130 or so miles alone....................

Not round my bit of it they don't! Sorry about the

Somehow I don't think it's got the 350 Chevy up front though.

Hi Dave, sorry to be picky but in C3274 it won't be 76054 as the loco in the picture is multi-fitted, you can tell by the upturned handrail around the cab front. Perhaps it's 76034 which was an air brake only loco? 76054 was a vac only loco so kept the straight handrail. J6873 there's only one loco?

I'm amazed by all the negativity surrounding RTR stuff nowadays. I'll repeat again my 'knowledge' of QC of Chinese manufactured toys, for that is really what our models are. They're not top end, high-spec, high cost, mass market electronics or consumer goods, they're specialist items for a limited market. Some years ago I was working at a large toy companies' warehouse when a 40' container arrived. The QC staff sampled 3 boxes of 12 items each. The items were about the size of a OO wagon, so who knows how many toys there were in that container! Each box was deemed satisfactory, whether that was 'absolutely perfect' I can't say but the entire container load was passed as OK for sale Apparently there were no QC people in the factory and a return ratio of anything up to 10% was deemed as satisfactory, anything more and it became a cause for investigation, whether that led to any kind of remedial action I can't say, but having QC people on the shop floor was deemed too costly. As has been said above highly skilled and knowledgeable QC people cost a lot of money, that cost has to come from somewhere, ie added to the manufacturing costs. In the clothing trade, many manufacturers moved their factories offshore, one in particular I know of moved their manufacture to Portugal. Put a lot of skilled people out of work here who produced goods with a very low reject rate as problems could be dealt with quickly. Turned their factory into a massive warehouse, with a small number of skilled people here to inspect and, more often than not, repair badly manufactured goods. This was an up market company so faults couldn't be tolerated, the price reflected this. Items that still couldn't be sold at full price ended up in the factory shop, the shop became overloaded with stock, much of it still at £100+. That company is no longer trading. What i'm getting at is if people expect everything to be perfect, it's gonna cost a whole lot more than it does now. As for the K1, will I be buying one? Afraid not, the price of RTR has already left me behind, I have two kit built ones which I'm quite happy with, having built them for myself and even then I have limited use for them.

I was working on it around winter1972-73, I would think, pulling cables in around the Lister Gate area. It was before the glazing had gone in, like a (very cold) wind tunnel. The working day consisted of about 1hr work followed by at least 30 minutes in the Woolworths cafe next door to warm up before another hour or so working, then back to Woolies. Opened in 1975 apparently; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmarsh

The road was built at the same time as the Broad Marsh Centre, the service area on the roof being accessed from that road.

The method of working, I believe, was that trains bound for Hotchley Hill would arrive at Trent Lane Junction via Midland Station and the connection through London Road Low Level yard (from Toton?). They would run forward onto a stub of the GN Grantham line, then reverse back over Trent Lane, through London Road High Level station and into Victoria Street tunnel via Weekday Cross. They would then run forward up the GC to Ruddington and Hotchley Hill. The return was the reverse with the loco leading into Victoria St tunnel then reversing to TLJ and then forward again through Midland and back from whence it came. I remember standing on Midland Station one day when a pair of 20s roared over the GC line bridge. I don't know what speed limit there was at the time, but they must have been opened right out from the start at Weekday Cross, speed well into the 50s I reckon.

Not actually Weekday Cross but a mile or so to the east: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/74756-nottingham-model-railway-society/ I'm not sure we can replicate the misty conditions though.

Watched D8098 pottering about doing some shunting at Quorn yesterday, who in 1971 would have expected it still to be in existence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gOEEAxgYY Nottingham trolley buses and half cab AECs, including a Renown, so 1965 or later. Oddly no shots of the rear engined Fleetlines or Atlanteans, perhaps the camerman didn't like 'them new fangled things with the engine at the back'?

With Trowell Junction being out of use, due to an MGR derailment, I wonder if that was the time I stood at the side of the bridge at Trowell watching them trying to extract wagons which had reared up and got wedged under the bridge. First of all they dragged wagons away which were simply derailed, rather like you might a model to get it to a more accessible spot. Then they started on the ones tight up under the bridge, first trying one of the relatively new 58s. it tried but couldn't shift anything, maybe due to traction control or similar? Then a pair of 20 was brought into play, hooked up to the wagon coupling with a long line, then just kept tugging at it until it moved, even snatching it at times. No finesse but it sure shifted the wagons