andye

As an aside to the wagons, there were some ex BR road vehicles that had Railtrack branding over the BR branding, such as astra vans etc - does anyone have a picture of any? I have trawled the ususal places but drawn a blank...

That is my new favourite website, many thanks to those who have set it up, and of course a big thank you to Merfyn for saving and collecting the data in the first place!

J9627 of the tug is a great picture! Its a Lansing Bagnall TOER 4.2, all mod cons on that one even a wing mirror! The Royal mail ones seemed to always have cabs, the BR ones often didnt, the railwaymen must have been way more hardy!

The terrier was also used for dropsides, some had a hiab type crane on, and there were some box vans as well, and as said above lots of short wheelbase personnell carriers. Look out for the Railway motors group on flickr, with Merfyns pictures, and also a BR road vehicles group on facebook.

Thank you russ and Merfyn, so they are mostly J and K, which makes them the earlier mk 3. Some of Merfs pics from the flickr railway motors bible, show different hubcaps and roof rails etc, so probably a case is BR bought whatever was cheap and available, as long as they were yellow / white! Oh and merf, I sent you a Pm

Now, I have a question please. Ref the Mk 3 astravan, as per the mainline one pictured earlier in the thread, does anyone know (Merfyn, Simon et all) if there were any that were yellow and carried NSE branding? I know that some carried BR branding, and also INTERCITY, and one of merfyns pics shows RR branding, but NSE anyone? Pictures of any Mk3 astras seem hard to find, so am hoping that someone may know! I have a project in mind....

What a fabulous picture, in all the years I search on line for pictures of bruffs and recovery vehicles, I think this is the first I have seen of a bruff moving a rail vehicle!

A nice bedford HA for sale, a replica : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bedford-HA-Van/224155865208

This has been for sale on and off for a while, its not moved for many years, the owner has lived in it for over twenty years. Nothing much original left, and like has been said, parts are hard to find now, and yes, they rust like hell.

I didn`t realise that 55034 carried white blue - when we repainted 55024 in maroon back in the day, I pressed for white/blue, but in retrospect that may not have been the best choice for a sandite car!

Great picture, interesting in that none of the sidings appear to be connected to the line that the DMU is on, and yet there is stock in the sidings!

Andrew, This video is well worth a watch, not mine but a good view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVQCRg9Aj8

Ref the roof bars, does anyone have any drawings or know who they were made by? Eventually I`ll need a set for my escort van, or even a good picture and I can make some! Cheers Andy

Russ, were the astras the astra "f" shape, i.e. the rounded one? If so I have never seen a picture of that shape with BR markings, they ran from 1991 to 1998. I know a chap who has an ex BR S&T one in yellow that came with alloys. I had an ex gas board 1.7 diesel one, but the head gasket and head went, so I got rid.

Russ, it specifies warning yellow, but as you say, the maestros and freight rovers etc were highway yellow, the warning yellow is a bit more creamy. I think some of the coachbuilders used whatever bright yellow they had, ford summer yellow is almost identical to highway yellow, the escort combis and vans were the ford standard colour yellow, pale and didnt weather very well!