great central

Try a google search for Manchester or Blackpool club trains, there should be pictures on Flikr

We should have added it's smaller cousin to the pic as well

Hi Dave, J473 I'm struggling to recognise as Collingham. Not the station crossing for sure, too angled and no station building behind if the train is heading towards Lincoln. The angle suggests where the A1133 crosses the line, but I thought there was small crossing box right by the crossing. I also remember it as a fairly wide road, I wouldn't have gone over it before 1971 though maybe widened in the meantime? A little story about Morris 1100s if I may? Not long after they were first launched my uncle found a leaflet for a competition to win one. Run by a toilet roll company, Andrex perhaps? To enter you had to guess how many toilet rolls there were crammed into a Morris 1100. He guessed and won the car, salmon pink, I think, 282VKM, still remember the reg number after over 50 years! My first car was a Mk2 version 10 years later.

There was one service to London in the mornings which was a Peak and stock around this time. Went to London on it with my son. 45141 was the loco as well, named Zephyr by now, timed it at 36sec/quarters, which is near as dammit to a ton Not too long after we went To York for the day, probably the same school holidays and 45141 turned up again as far as Sheffield, but the loco seemed to be struggling with about load 4, or maybe just being taken easy. It would probably have been running in old DMMU timings.

Sewage plant on the north side of the Midland line at the Junction, behind the photgrapher, not pleasant when you have to wait for an ECML service to cross!

Jolly Fisherman still there, the buildings on the right of the entrance looking from the platform have gone, those on the left still there but disused. Only platforms 3 and 4 are used now, 2 occasionally has a track machine or similar stabled in. 5 and 6 effectively out of use as the point rodding was disconnected a couple of years back, I'm told after subsidence of the signal box made it very difficult to operate said points. Most services use platform 3 with the summer dated HST using 4.

Signal box long gone but the board (I suspect) is still nearby on the wall or fence of a house with a narrow gauge line running round the garden, easily visible from passing trains.

Me too, I've wanted to see a decent colour photo of 63770 for a long time, it was one of those I remember seeing almost every time I went 'down Basford' New Basford was only half a mile from home so spent a lot of time there. This is ( should be if it works!) my interpretation. Taken on Deepcar the scenery isn't really yellow, something to do with the flourescent lights I presume? I have a picture taken away from the lights but it's a bit fuzzy. Edit for punctuation.

Don't get rid of all the middle coach, the 114 was a power car/trailer, so you need the undergubbins from the middle car under the trailer rather than the Lima 'engine, etc'! There is a conversion kit from Craftsman http://www.craftsmanmodels.co.uk/cat.pdf Page 7 kit MU9. I did one a while back, turns out quite nice in my opinion. The Lima power bogie is a very nice runner as well, only downside is the large gap between the bogies and body, I've 'lowered' the chassis by adding a strip of black plasticard along it. Someone suggested using Hornby bogies which are a bit bigger than the Lima ones. I'll try that on the next one, I have two more kits that I picked up from a member on here some years ago.

The 'Scottish one' Later the same year: https://www.flickr.com/photos/killie65/1225727630/

There are a couple of pictures, a rather heavily pixellated one in one of Alf Henshaw books on the GN in Nottingham showing a railtour rounding the curve at Weekday Cross heading towards Nottingham Vic. It looks very like the second coach from the loco is a MK2 definitely blue/grey. Also a better one in another book who's title escapes me at the moment, of apparently the same railtour at Midland station which definitely has a mk2 in the formation. I would doubt however that any made it down the GC (should that be up?) to London.

We're having a club 'open day' on Easter Saturday. I managed to get a loco about 80% of the way round the Midland line on Trent Lane Junction last Tuesday, so hopefully should be able to run something all the way round next Tuesday! Streatham Mainline will be in operation as well as the rejuvinated 'urban' American HO layout and Market Witham our O gauge layout which should make it's exhibition debut next year. Only a £1 entry including a cuppa and biscuits. Come along and have a natter and see what we're about, there'll be a small club sales stand as well. Proceeds will go towards the purchase of the clubrooms.

Understatements R'us

I'm aware of those, most likely use them on the EM2 but would like an original for the steeplecab. Thinking about it I have another EM2 still waiting for repainting and detailing, that's got two good pans on, so one for the steeplecab and a spare

This is the clip: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tri-ang-00-S3376-RETAINING-CLIP-X337-Power-Bogie-Cl-37-A1A-A1A-EM2-Hymek-x2-/400682630223?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item5d4a8bbc4f As for pantographs, it seems a number of sellers break locos up to increase their value. The pantographs are steel so prone to rust if stored in less than ideal conditions, thus making them rarer. I do fell some sellers take the mickey though with their BIN prices. Having picked up a small steeplecab loco without a pan and another EM2 body recently, I'm also on the lookout for pantographs

A bit like the chocolate and cream mk1 seen on a video of the last days of the Nottingham-Worksop service in 1964.

Not so far off, in my opinion. This shows it at Meldon a few years back: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66990130@N04/8468415584 I can't be sure if it's 423 or 422 parked up at Derby now, anyway it looks pretty dire.

One of our members runs an EM2 with a Brush motor bogie. The loco's been repainted and lined, looks the part. Nobody has noticed the bogie, well they've never said! Sommerfeldt pans can be adapted to suit, not sure which model though, I've always used the ex Lima ones myself. There's also the Judith Edge kits.

The loco I'm 99% certain is a 9F, bet the crew were well pleased to be stopped there. However there could be the odd spamcan washing around in the sea

I may have missed something here but there seems to be a resistance to reversals on services? Our Liverpool-Norwich service reverses twice in each journey at Sheffield and Ely. It always seems to work well enough, it causes more problems when the reversal is cancelled for some reason, usually missing out Sheffield due to late running. Apologies if I've misunderstood.

Part of Grantham will form a demo at Nottingham in March

If you're in the main shed and there are locos in steam it's a very hostile environment for models, specially if it's cold and damp outside. Superb atmosphere though! We took Deepcar to Barrow Hill in it's early days, the scenery acted like a sponge and it was two more shows before we got it running properly again, lots and lots of cleaning required. Another tip, take some crawling boards or old (ie scrap) carpet. It's still got much of the steam age crud on the floor and crawling under the layout really brings it out! Deepcar will be in the relatively clean Deltic depot