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I haven't had the nerve to look at all the nominations so have I missed the obvious Oscar winner ? I refer of course to that dark, noisy, smelly, stink hole that is the gateway to the second city......Birmingham New Street. Recently 'rebuilt'......hahahahahaha, a joke. Still the same as it's been from the 60s now with the added sadistic refinement of Voyagers. What can one say about it ? For the sheer volume of trains without a shred of personality and passengers without a glimpse of daylight then the place takes the crown. Oh, and still the escalators don't work half the time. Simply revolting place.

It obviously doesn't sell around here as there's quite a few copies in smiffs, the co-op and Tescos. Tesco might not register to most chaps minds for railway mags but my local one has all the big sellers and I do find it useful to have a read when the misses drags me off to do the shopping ! ( " you've been reading those magazines again, I brought you along to help me shop " ........)

Something on dibbles wharf in I think this months BRILL or the branch line version, some overhead shots as well I think. Sorry don't buy it just flicking in the local smiths.

Pilotless planes are all very well until something goes wrong. AF 447 was caused by the autopilot disengaging because of a technical glitch and the 2nd and 3rd pilots who were then in charge being so poorly trained that they crashed it. And when the railway version of this decides that it doesn't want to play ? And then there is the possibility of terrorists gaining control of a driverless train by hacking it and smashing it into the buffers ? Unlikely ? We could well find out.

Hopefully this might work https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1765405343474615&set=pcb.1919655951656535&type=3&theater Looks rather wonderful.

As a child I lived in Ammanford so saw and traveled on the line in the 60s. Saw mainly standard tanks and DMUs with panniers working the mines around us. Don't go 25, didn't happen. 24s from Salop only worked to the coast not Swansea. Diesels were all type 3s usually 68s but then their were the few months when 3 D600s went to Llandore to work central Wales coal and local freights ! There are pictures !! Remember it was very much a single line secondary route, change it too much and you loose the flavour. Pictures in a locospotters annual around 64/5/6 ? Good luck John

Cancelled

Forgot to say that's one of the clean ones ! Well because it was a Canton one, the Landore ones got far worse and not just because they worked the Llanwern iron ore, Canton was cleaner ! John.

I remember that one, well to be honest I remember them all, wish I'd had a good camera at the time, Anyway a good choice we need more S Wales locos as models !

Looking very nice there, just like I remember them looking. Is this going to be a late Green South Wales loco like 37 244, 284/289 ?

Trouble is doing it that way reduces the number of ' right time ' deliveries which the company uses to sell itself to its customers, get every delivery in the magic hour and its 100% success rate, do any late or early and it goes down, ones as bad as the other as far as they're concerned. As I said it's not perfect and we all have to work around it but it has got its uses. When the magic hour came in it stopped depots endlessly piling more work on drivers which was a very good thing. To be honest no driver wants to be sat outside a house waiting as it gets tedious, however you aim to be just in the first few minutes ' right time' . traffic problems, 3rd party collections, and mistakes in the software can very quickly have you sitting in the red zone ! I think I'm getting a bit tedious now so will give it a rest but I was just trying to offer some explanations for ways of working that to the outsider don't make sense, it will probably get better as time progresses as long as we all remember nothing's perfect ! John.

The reason the DPD driver sits outside in his van until your hour slot is because the technology won't let him deliver early ! I had the same scanner with the same programme, delivering outside the slot is a case of computer says no, delivering parcels outside the order they've been set in before leaving the depot is also banned and yes I've a customer who's no 25 for the day being at another shop when I take in their say no 5 parcel. He can see his parcel in the back and just has to accept I can't give it to him ! The technology is not perfect but it's what they've got and in the majority of times it works. The reason why DPD and others vary their times wildly is because their drivers have to deliver highly lucrative express parcels first. By 09-30 and by 12-00 means that where the driver is next after doing those is going to vary every day, I used to have it. One day do the last 09-30 at point x next day I could be 20 miles away and starting the rest of the load from there, it is what it is, not perfect but it is the most liked by the customers. John

As a former driver for several years for Interlink now DPD Local, Can i make a few points ? The first is what I'd say to anyone expecting things urgently and you know roughly that the parcel is coming in the next day or two. Stay in ! If you or the senders have used the likes of DPD/Interlink which give you a time slot work your day around this because it will 99 times out of a hundred get there. If you or your can't be in then leave clear and concise instructions where you want the parcel delivered. Such as " please leave with neighbour at no 42 or 46, not with 44 as I dont like them ! And please ask your neighbour if they will be in to receive it as well ! Now different companies have different rules for dealing with this and I can only speak for the one I worked for but we all try and get the item to you as having to take something back to depot and out to you again is a waste of everyone's time. Interlink had a simple policy, everything to be signed for as that's the basis of the sales pitch to senders, things not 'disappearing' in the system, nothing to be left in porches, sheds, etc without a ŵritten SIGNED instruction from you the recipient which we would take back and put on file. Then if the parcel went missing it's your hard luck for asking for it to be left there. And yes it did happen and yes we had their letter saying it would be fine ! This was all to do with stopping claims for missing things costing the company a fourtune. Don't ever say 'leave in porch, thanks ' on a note as without adding a signature you won't get it, had quite a few narked customers over that one and do not say ' leave with neighbour ' leaving the driver with a choice of several and time ( always the problem ) to only try a few. I used to try two, if no joy then sorry all you get is a card saying we couldn't deliver as I didn't have time to walk up and down a street looking for someone :-( You might be surprised how many people will NOT take in for neighbours, then again you might not ! Lesson in life, get on with your neighbours :-) More times than I had hot dinners I would enter a porch and see parcels left by PO/Yodel/Hermes etc sitting there as I didn't get a reply and left a card, its a good job we were honest as we could have had a field day helping ourselves to goodies, and if we were not honest or we were 'likely lads on the prowl ' .....? It all to a large extent depends where you live but I try and avoid buying from people who use the bottom end of the market to deliver as even if it gets to your house it don't mean you will be the one to open it If you see what I mean ! Amazon is a huge company and uses several firms to deliver its stuff and also allows things to be posted through letterboxes, this is good for the drivers who can get most of their stuff delivered, things that go missing they just replace as they can afford to do it this way. Yes it was a hard job and yes you are always under time pressure as a driver. But customers could always help us to get their things to them and if they did we all ended up happy :-)

Reading this thread I see a fair amount of wishful thinking, as a former postie at a major station I saw so many mistakes made by BR as regards our mails. Going to a 150 which should have had a few mailbags travelling in a locked off saloon to find the saloon unlocked with people sitting in it with the mailbags just tossed in a corner.......going to put some bags into the front ex. Guard van 125 power car to find the lock was knackered and I couldn't unlock it and the train had to go without the mails.. mailbags being throw on a train getting lost onto the track and missing the service....I could go on.... all mistakes had to be reported to PO HQ and no doubt helped build the case to dump BR and use our own lorries as with them we had total control of security and access which believe me is a MAJOR concern at all times. Having the ability to put some ' York ' cages in a passenger train is really no big deal, it's only what happens in a 325 without passengers. To have mails on passenger trains again or even private carriers doing it raises the problem of security and staffing costs at stations which are both big. It's far simpler to run a road vehicle from a secured warehouse to another warehouse, the PO/ carrier has total control over the timetable/security with only the road speed as the variable. Facilities would have to be put back in at passenger stations. Staff moved from their main jobs in PO centres just to load one or two trains in the majority of cases etc, to my mind it's a no go apart from the use of the 325s from a few hubs. O

' Rosie ' has gone back home from Chasewater. She was a lovely engine to watch going by from trackside whilst walking the dog , especially with the open cab ! I hope she comes back again sometime.

Thanks for the replies, I've decided on a Bedford CV and await its arrival. Hopefully we might get some more people giving their thoughts on what's good ( and bad ) in the vehicle world. As I said I'm a bit clueless on what's a good model and to scale and what's a complete no-no. All knowledge is good ! John

Hi, I'm building a late 1960s micro, and I need a small to medium sized road van, what's the best one to buy ? Not bothered by price or livery as it will be stripped anyway. Are all 1:43 models true to scale ? I have been told some are not. Which ones capture the character of the real thing ? Are detailing parts available ? Any thoughts are most welcome as I don't have a lot of knowledge on road Vehicles in 7mm. John

This loco is looking very good indeed Andrew, can I ask about the name and builders plates ? They look rather different and rather fetching. John

The new Railway Modeller has a photo credited I think to the industrial railway society of North Hetton Collery 19/3074 taken in 1952. Loco has a rather nice circular numberplate on the side tank. Also mentions it carried the number 41. Now the big question, does anyone have any further photos of this loco and any details of its livery or a nice closeup of the number plate ? She is another one which would make a lovely model if the details can be unearthed.

2016 has been an expensive old year ( just looking at powered things, I've had a Fowler, a 08, and a Victory. With a 15 on order. Next year, well an 48ds will be required as will the 05. Any more industrials or Lord forbid a D84xx will be a severe pain in the pocket !

Yours is not the only driver to bust a lower door hinge :-( I was trying out a white metal figure for size when he slipped and ended up inside the cab on the floor, getting him out also broke the hinge and brought out the brake standard for good measure......... Question, how do I get into the cab to put the brake standard back without bashing the door again, any ideas ? The door I guess if it cannot be fixed I will just have to glue slightly ajar. Ho hum, upward and onward eh ?

Type 2 ? Nah, what we want is a small but wonderfull ( very small ) 0-4-0 diesel shunter that would fit in with all that has been released in the last couple of years, in fact my scrapyard demands it to move my 16Ts around !! Type 2 can come later. :-)

Ta for that Nigel, Would save me a trip up the A50, mind I do like going there ! John

Thanks for those Chris, now those are liveries you don't see every day being modelled do you ? Would be rather fitting to paint mine up in a livery based on these for 2018, a hundred years after WW1, my prospective modern day preserved railway model might well get a ROD ' Victory' its the kind of thing that might well happen in the preserved world.

Thanks for your digging Ray, that does look very like what's in the photos I've got. As to commissioning some transfers I'd be a long way from that, I'm mainly seeing if a can gather some details and photos of those Victorys which ended up in NCB service to find a likely contender for a repaint at some future date. I do like the idea of a crest though ! Has anyone tried commissioning industrial transfers before with any success and where from ? I've had a quick look for any that exist and have drawn a blank, anyone with better luck ? If someone else would like to go forward with the idea I'd have a pair myself as I've got a lot on my plate before getting that far for some time. Sources for industrial nameplates ? Obviously 'Francis' would be a help for those going down the NCB route. Any ideas out there ? A bit of a novice in this scale/ interest myself I'm afraid. John