pete_mcfarlane

Nice models, but doesn't that reversed grey/blue livery look awful on a traditional Pullman?

I suspect that if I wanted to 'prove' that the Moon is made of green cheese, I could fund a study that comes to exactly that conclusion.

A quick google suggests that the contractor is Balfour Beatty. I doubt if the the council leader owns them, although he may have a few shares.

james Staats Forbes of the LCDR is probably happy though....

I thought that was an uncompleted section of the Central line in North East London, which was finished after the war.

How about installing drag lifts? Just don't let go and run backwards down the ramp........

That actually makes some limited sense, as they are talking about reusing disused tube tunnels. Not that there are many of those under London - the Aldwych branch, Kingsway tram subway and the old Widened line branch to Moorgate are the only ones I can think of (I suspect the Post Office railway tunnels are too small). Conversion of one of those to a cycle tunnel might make an expensive novelty. Just watch out for the cannibals that inhabit the disused tube tunnels.

If they'd told me that there were successful schemes in Germany or Sweden or some other rich Northern European country with conditions similar to the UK then maybe it might be a good idea. But their examples are all from the second and third World, who are using buses because they can't afford to build railway lines.

There's a rather good Science Museum book on Rocket with lots of technical drawings. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Engineering-History-Rocket-Survey-Report/dp/1900747189/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1422900395&sr=8-3&keywords=the+engineering+and+history+of+rocket

Interesting thought on looking at those lithographs. The Triang model represents Rocket in its Rainhill trials condition but it was apparently rebuilt in to the form shown for the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester (with the less inclined cylinders and smokebox that it still retains). So the Triang model (and the full size replicas) have an anachronistic combination of Rainhill Trials Rocket pulling L&M carriages.

It's also got loads of detail differences from the SR/BR examples - cab windows and bunker for example.

But there are some major infrastructure changes happening over the next few years. The improvements to the GN&GE joint line being the main one (including a flyover at Peterborough) to get freight trains off the two track section of the ECML from south of Grantham to Doncaster. I also suspect that the IEP trains themselves will increase line capacity, as they'll have better acceleration than the HSTs and 225 sets, due to having distributed traction motors, so are better at recovering speed from station stops and speed restrictions . The class 180 sets used by the ECML open access operators certainly seem to have much better acceleration - I remember being on a Hull Trains service a few years back that ran non-stop from Kings Cross to Grantham in 55 minutes

I can't help thinking that those 225 sets would be better used running extra peak hours services to Peterborough and Grantham.

I do remember they made a bit thing about how old and tired the rolling stock was, even though most of it (the Mk3s and class 90s) was only about 10-15 years old at the time.

I get the impression that some people think EC is the best thing ever simply because they are state run. Their actual performance doesn't matter.

Looking at the photos, it's probably a good thing that nothing has come of it. I'm not sure it would be a good thing to bulldoze or 'refurbish' all of that lovely industrial archaeology and replace it with a generic tourist narrow gauge railway.

Did anything ever come of the plans to reopen part of the Snailbeach? I seem to remember the odd announcement in the past, and some doubts over how real it was.

Try sales@branchlines.com - he's normally pretty quick at responding.

IIRC correctly the DfT were recently criticised by a select committee recently for ordering more IEP vehicles than they need. Apparently they've ordered some extra to allow for increases in passenger numbers, and the MPs thought this was risky.

SEF do a T9 chassis kit, which is another possibility for motorising them.

The house may not turn out quite as expected.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qFXR35oBKw

The Brighton Baltic is extremely nice. I've always fancied building one. IIRC the biggest challenge with the E5 is assembling the boiler, which comes in about 4 pieces. It looks like you've done a good job of yours.

It makes in to a nice model. There's a photo of this coach (in a 2 coach Ashford-Hastings/New Romney set) at Birmingham Snow Hill in BR days, so they still wandered even as late as the 1950s.

At a guess it's a diagram 1/213 van, as it looks like it has plywood sides. Assuming it's not been resheeted and they've given the correct dimensions in the advert. For £8k I'd expect the seller to have thrown in some punctuation and at least one press of the F7 key to spell check the advert.

The R1 is a bit of an odd kit - it's a fairly recent effort from about 15 years back instead of an updated Finecast one from years back. But it uses SEF's generic 0-6-0T chassis for the bodyline kits designed to use the Honby-Dublo 0-6-0T chassis, which is completely wrong for the R1. I used the Branclhines R1 chassis for mine, which then needed to lose a millimetre or two from the top to fit. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73343-ser-r1-0-6-0t/ I did managed to get an R off ebay a few years back, which is in the to-do pile.