Broadway Clive

There weren't any class 03 shunters in Scotland at that time as they had plenty of Barclays and North British types

I was disappointed the Ruston and Hornsby 88DS (big brother of Hornby's 48DS 0-4-0 diesel shunter) was not available to vote for. I'm supposing it was booted out for being an industrial but BR had seven of them in Eastern Region Departmental use between 1955 and 1970 viz 56,82/3/4/5/6/7 and they'd often be seen at sheds such as Darlington and York. The Ian Allen ABCs of the time sowed confusion about them by listing some as Barclays, which may be why those working only from books would be less aware of their prevalence.

I've had erratic running on one of several car class 105 Bachmann DMUs that I have and the loss of power is between the pick up contacts and the rubbing plates. This will usually show itself on certain curves in a particular direction. Wobbling the body will usually restore power and confirm this as the source of the problem. Apart from tweaking the track or the pick up contacts and cleaning the rubbing plates a more permanent solution might involve making soldered wire connections to bypass them.

John, I've re-found this excellent site https://www.igg.org.uk/rail/12-linind/dockind.htm which throws more light on this subject and I've copied a relevant section below. The reference to whale oil lends weight to your story of a regular trip to Hull Docks to collect it. But I think he could be wrong on the S prefix for Selby as I suspect that being the largest mill it may have been the default location. 'By the 1950s some tank wagons had been re-liveried for BOCM, I believe they just added a letter in front of the wagon number to indicate its 'home' mill (M for Manchester, S for Selby etc), however details of this livery are hard to find. BOCM & Silcock Lever Feeds merged to form BOCM Silcock Ltd. in 1969 but the plain BOCM logo remained in use. The fleet of rail tank wagons in BOCM livery, carrying everything from whale oil to molasses as well as their more usual products such as linseed oil for the paint works. At least some of these tanks were insulated and some were steam heated. The sketches below show what I believe was the livery used by the Avonmouth tanks in the 1950s, both variants co-existed. They are based on information from Mr Tourret's book, any errors are mine. The logo on the right is the standard BOCM company logo.' Fig ___ BOCM Bristol tanks and Logo

Not true. British Oil and Cake Mills owned many wagons. A picture on Flickr shows numbers 89 and 203 and one other in a train at North Ferriby East Yorkshire, not far from their huge plant at Selby. The Bachmann wagon is numbered B7, the prefix showing it was based at Bristol. Certainly those wagons visited the local docks there but it is unlikely that the company had use for whale oil as they crushed seeds to make vegetable oil. In 'The Illustrated History of Hull's Railways' there is a picture of a train containing four BOCM tanks and the caption claims they are transporting molasses from King George Dock to Selby.

I prefer to have relays and CDUs fitted on boards and located close to the points for maximum power. Fitted with connectors, the boards can be assembled and tested in comfort on the workbench. Once in position buttons on the control panel and detectors on the track are then used to send 12v+ to operate the relays as required and those circuits control the point combinations and safety features to make operations easier and prevent collisions.

My understanding is that Peco were going to use the Locomotech indexing system but agreement was not reached and they continue to produce kits themselves with or without indexing to power the Peco turntable. The price for their Roundhouse automatic indexing Motorizing Kit with 32 exits is £67.99 https://locomotech.com/index.html

Indexing is important because unlike on a full size turntable we may be controlling it from some distance away, often at an odd angle with vision partly obscured by buildings and locomotives on adjacent roads. Nothing is less prototypical than frequent derailments and appearances of the hand of god! As for speed, this can be controlled by using an existing analogue power controller via a three way switch to ensure the loco cannot move when rotating.

Yes, I've seen this is stated too and it made me wonder why they didnt try diesel brake tenders.

The south eastern section of the Southern Region is poorly covered. Ashford steam shed, Ashford (Chart Leacon), Dover, and St Leonards are missing. All the class 71 electrics were allocated to Chart Leacon during the 1960s, and on my last visit there in 1968 there were 11 locos on site, of classes 03, 09 and 71, with another four diesels at Ashford steam shed. Seeing how much coverage has been given in the series to much smaller and obscure locations this omission was very disappointing.

Steve Smith has train stops (non operational!) on his London Road layout, which is based on the Neasden area of the Met where he works. He's modeled a great deal of LT signal infrastructure, often producing parts for himself in resin. I was privileged to assist in operating it at the Romford exhibition for the last couple of years but thats been cancelled this year as the local club's membership has declined and aged.

Not really, its humans that set the boundaries and we've eliminated the fox's predators and competitors.

In my suburban garden in Ilford on the Essex/east London border I tried to create a small wild life 'sanctuary'. But for years I didn't understand how foxes were coming from two neglected properties nearby and I was inadvertently feeding them by trying to increase the number of amphibians in the area by building ponds and joining the British Herpetelogical Society. So entire local populations of common frogs, toads and newts, palmate newts and rare great crested newts have now been entirely eliminated, as were two dozen slow worm lizards. Other species which were confined to my garden were also entirely lost including edible frogs (related to populations in Kent) of which there were nearly a hundred at one time, European yellow bellied toads and Oriental fire bellied toads numbering about 30 each, and now I have just a few Alpine newts and six pool frogs left after 35 years of effort. I'd used pieces of tree trunks to separate lawn from plants and they became populated by stag beetle larvae until foxes eventually tore all the logs apart to eat them! Our pet rabbit also got eaten, and pond linings were damaged by foxes digging for worms, plus lots of digging, pissing and damage to plants and lawn, and a transparent garage roof was repeatedly broken. Since the neglected houses were recently cleared I've spent over £5000 and spent many hours of work trying to keep them out, and a portable night video camera has shown the extent of the problem with back fences used like arterial roads and the garden used like a dogs' play and poop area. From previous discussions I've had about foxes on social media I feel my ideas about wanting to help a diversity of nature survive locally are probably outdated and politically incorrect, and many would probably like to see myself eliminated and a family of foxes here instead!

I've just bought bifocals from Selectspecs so as to have a spare pair with a narrower lens for going out. My last Specsaver pair was a bigger size than in my picture so as to give more protection when doing stuff at home, and a recent scratched lens from a lose wire fence panel proved the value of that! One replacement varifocal lens from Specsaver cost me £94 whereas the Selectspecs pair with gunmetal frames cost £45. But as Dava said, you need to get your pupillary distance (how far apart they are). They send you a link to an App which can be used to measure and relay the result back, but the process requires one to point and angle a smart phone at a half length mirror guided by an overprinted 'hash tag' target and a voice 'move up, move left, tilt forward, look at your eyes, stay still for the count down' etc. I tried three separate occasions but my order remained 'on hold' awaiting the pd measurement. Fortunately the scratched lens gave me an excuse to chat about my prescription at Specsavers where I was able to ask if my PD was average. So I learnt the average is 63mm and mine is 60mm - so I was then able to get my Selectspecs pair made and delivered, and they're good - straight from China - so ideal for us modellers!

Yippee! a class 11 shunter for 00 at last - that was my suggestion in the current Accurascale poll. Another good model choice by Chris.

Is this a new model from Heljan? I hope so!

I'm sorry but I cant see the point of them. They can't even be coupled or uncoupled without the hand of god to lift wagons off the track! The distance between wagons is too great, and being rigid they are as bad as Kadees in being unable to replicate the movement of wagons within a loose coupled freight.

I'd have thought the EFE car transporter would be the ideal choice for this. What I would like to see is a BRS Albion Chieftain with Holmes cab somewhat similar to the Bristols. I suggested this several times to Frank but he didnt like the look of them!

Yes indeed, and fancy them choosing D6121 as their first one - we must be careful to check it's not numbered D6122 on the other side! https://www.rcts.org.uk/features/diesels/loco.htm?id=diesels/D6121

The 08/9 wheelbase is actually 11ft 6", so 1ft 10" longer than the Sentinel. I'm not aware of lack of weight being a factor in detection. In fact the 16 ton axle load of the Sentinel was considered too heavy by the Civil Engineer for their short wheelbase and their movements were restricted so as to protect bridges. My understanding of the detection issue is that it relates to reversing movements over crossovers and the need for track circuits to be crossed so as to release points and clear signals. To deal with such very short vehicles the signalling system at certain locations would needed changing, possibly to the detriment of normal operations.

Another quote, this time from J Graeme Bruce (hope he passes muster), in 'Workhorses of the London Undergound' p.38. 'In October 1954 a BR diesel-electric shunter, No.13018, was borrowed and trials conducted at Lillie Bridge and Neasden. However this trial was received with little enthusiasm by either the local management or the operators and the problem of the replacement of steam locomotives was again shelved by the acquisition of Western Region steam engines'. (Note that no actual problems are recorded with the 08.) Further down the page we read of the arrival in 1971 of Sentinel shunters DL81-3 and the following paragraph commences:- 'It became apparent that the short wheelbase of 9ft 8" of the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement was insufficient for the proper clearance of the signalling system, so that the vehicles were forbidden to move onto the track circuited areas beyond the depot precincts.' (Note that the track circuit problem has come as a surprise so it could not have been present with the 08.)

Track circuits were never an issue for the 11ft 6" wheelbase 08/9s anywhere on BR as far as I can ascertain and one regularly stabled at Farringdon for banking duties on the CWL. However class 03 204hp shunters with their shorter wheelbase of 9ft did sometimes require match wagons, when working as pilots at Hull Paragon station for example. I would imagine the Sentinel's wheelbase was somewhat similar which is why they needed them too, and perhaps someone else will know what that was.

Why is that? It sounds like a rather a bigoted remark unless you can explain your reservations and offer an alternative explanation as to why the SR alone chose a bigger diameter wheel for their EE shunters. Lets debate stuff properly with some references we can all look up and comment on.

Quote from The Diesel Shunter (Marsden) P 28. re 15201-3 Ashford built shunters:- '..........followed the previous LMS designs except that it was slightly heavier (4 tons) and had larger diameter driving wheels - 4ft 6'' compared to 4ft 0.5'' of the LMS design. These larger diameter wheels were stipulated as the locomotives were destined to operate over the third rail and the extra diameter gave the necessary clearance.' It also goes on about the need for a higher speed (30 MPH) to do trip work amongst passenger trains, which tallies with the reason given earlier for 20 MPH 08s not being suitable for trip working over LT.

Dont worry about it. I live in Ilford near east London and garages around here have been changed into all sorts without any one caring. I took the doors off mine 15 years ago and replaced them with windows that make it look rather like a small signal cabin! Next door neighbours both demolished theirs in order to extend their houses, and further down the road other garages have even become bungalows 30A etc! Local councillors know all about it and no problems - things have changed a lot since I was young!