DavidB

In response to DavidB I would say that we try our damnedest to to run, stop and start at realistic speeds. We also make every effort not to 'ram' shunt our stock. Sometimes under exhibition conditions (particularly when it is very warm) engines do not perform the way we would like. If we disappointed you we apologise.

 

There is absolutely no need to apologise. In fact, I'm not even sure what you're apologising for. The short clips of Sidmouth on the second of Bluebell Model Railways enjoyable videos don't show any of the sudden stops that I was referring to - in fact I really liked the clip of the tender-first arrival of the WC, which reminded me of many of the real life vacuum-braked arrivals I've experienced: rolling gently along the platform before the brake goes in for a fairly abrupt final stop, with no last minute release to stop the train gently. I've arrived at Paddington many times in the past exactly like that on the VB Oxford non-stops of the 80s. Much more realistic and evocative than the binary ignore-the-laws-of-physics stop-go-stop driving in evidence on many of the other clips on the videos.

 

David

Anyway photo's and Videos below:

 

Great videos - thanks for sharing them. I'm sorry I missed what looks to have been a great show.

 

Just one question - is there a reason why so few operators seemed capable of bringing locomotives to a realistic stop? There are so many examples in the videos where locos stop dead from 10mph or more. And it's across all scales that were represented at the show, with the 3mm Sentinel and the Pannier tank on Horfield at the extreme end of the scale.

 

Is it simply operator fatigue (tired/bored of running a shunting sequence for the umpteenth time)? Or is it a DCC thing, where CVs don't allow for a speed below a certain level? Or a DC thing, where the control simply isn't smooth enough? It is so widespread across both videos that the handful of layouts that did it well (e.g. the delightful Harlyn Pier) really stand out for me. Any ideas?

 

David

Wow - you don't hang about. This build just gets better and better!

 

David

Thanks Roundhouse - I agree that it looks different from the one at Bognor. Unless it's a trick of the light, the Bognor one seems to have the dark green going right down to the solebar, plus a GWR-style turquoise waist stripe.

 

Nice photos!

 

David

Showing my ignorance here, but can someone confirm the livery of the CIG in the background in John's Bognor photo? It looks oddly similar to the latest GWR livery.

 

David

4-VEP 7770 arrives at Sutton with a Victoria to Bognor Regis service. Used to love the little bit of luxury [/font][/size]

VEPs and luxury?

 

Cracking photos!

 

David

Coming together very nicely Darius - I'm enjoying this build nearly as much as you are! I'm impressed at how square, straight and level you've made the coaches - having built a fair few DMUs from MTK 4mm and Westdale 7mm kits (the latter effectively being higher quality MTK-style kits) in my time, it's a lot harder than it looks to get the results that you're managing to achieve in double-quick time.

 

Looking forward to the next instalments.

 

David

Hi John

 

So can we expect to see your P4 E5000 dashing over Balcombe viaduct at 110mph on a van train?

 

David

I do wonder if you have a point about the XP64 stock colour. The Class 86's are clearly lighter in shade than the later BR blue, yet not really light enough for Electric Blue. The colour for the 86's could well have been specified not long after after the XP64 train was displayed, and if that colour had be used would it not have been referred to as the new BR blue. I can't see any reference to the class 86's being painted in later BR blue in the article, although it does mention the class 310's being delivered in this scheme.

From Michael Harris's book on Mark 2 coaches:  "The first 64-seater open seconds were completed at Derby Litchurch Lane Works in the late Spring of 1965, the first new carriages to carry the BR corporate identity livery of rail blue and pearl grey, the XP64 set having been out-shopped in 1964 with an experimental livery with slightly different colour tones.  With the Mark 2s, most of which were originally painted using the airless spray method, white Scotchcal tape served both as masking for paint spraying and as lining out between the areas of grey and blue paint.  The airless spray paint process used at the time did not have a varnish coat, and had an unattractive semi-matt finish."

 

Assuming this is correct, the semi-matt finish would explain why the first iterations of rail blue looked lighter than the gloss version we learned to love (well, some of us did) in the 70s and 80s.  If the AL6s were similarly painted to match their new coaching stock, it would also explain why their factory-fresh rail blue paint looked closer to Electric Blue than might be expected.

 

David

...much has been made in the review of the top speed of the model, I wish someone would enlighten me to what the top speed of the prototype was and how this is achievable using legomans sound chip?

 

According to Diesel and Electric Locomotives of the Southern Region (Ian Allan): "Despite their official maximum speed of 90mph, the E5000s were quite capable of obtaining the magic 'ton', and indeed there is an unconfirmed story that one member of the class reached 110mph near Three Bridges whilst working a van train on the superbly graded Brighton main line.  If true, this would put the class in the top rank of British locomotives".

 

David

I LOVE that loco - it looks spot on.  I am learning so much from this thread - thank you Owd Bob.  My own Katie is very light-footed and will spin her wheels with any kind of decent load unless the rails are bone-dry, but I'm guessing that the new bodywork will have added a bit of useful weight as well as transforming her looks.  Crackin' job!

 

David

Wow - that was quick work! Looks great!

 

David

Great job so far Darius - I love the way you turn sows' ears into silk purses. Can I suggest that you check the ride height on the bogies though, as the 313/314/315/507/508 family were lower than standard coaching stock (I've seen 11ft 9ins quoted, compared to 12ft 9ins for Mk1 REP coaches like the one behind in your photo).

 

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build.

 

David

You're clearly a man of good taste Chris! What a cracking collection.

 

David

You had to know them to love them Larry - I don't think they were too common in Oldham and Abergele!

 

David

As someone who is Thames Valley born and bred, they are favourite trains for me too Chris.  I've had a couple of cab rides in Pressed Steels, courtesy of friendly drivers.  The first was from Bridport to Maiden Newton when I was 7 - I remember it as a gently-rocking slow-motion stroll through some truly beautiful sunlit Dorset countryside, with the chatty driver telling my brother and me how the unit was outstationed at Westbury during the week. When a beautifully preserved lined green 122 was based at the Mid Hants some years ago (was it W55003?), I took my young son over specially so he could experience a similar 25mph up hill and down dale trundle on jointed track - just lovely! 

 

The second cab ride was a full speed non-stop run from Didcot to Oxford on one of Reading's well-maintained single units that worked a main line diagram all day between Didcot and Banbury in the early 80s.  I had to head back into the saloon as we rolled round Cemetery Curve into Oxford station, to avoid being seen by anyone in authority.  The Saturday version of that diagram had a 121 trailer added, to cater for shoppers heading into Oxford from the Cherwell Valley stations - the difference in performance was very pronounced, with the speed topping out at just over 50mph on the 'fast' run to Didcot.

 

Was it me, or did the single units rock and sway more than their 117 cousins, presumably due to the lack of any gangways to dampen the rolling?

 

Lovely machines - I've made models of them over the years in N, OO and O gauge, and more recently I couldn't resist buying the Gauge 3 kit from Garden Railway Specialists.  When I eventually get round to making it up, it's going to bring back all sorts of memories as it trundles through my garden.

 

David

In other news there are various steels going up for the new multi-storey car park in the main car park at Didcot. It appears they are trying to build it over the live car park.

There's a poster at the station saying that it's just a temporary structure covering the west end of the Foxhall car park.  The permanent structure covering the whole site will be built next year (there is an artist's impression on the poster - it looks absolutely huge, but then it will need to be, with the vast number of homes being built/planned to be built that are set to turn most of the Didcot/Harwell/Hendred/Charlton/Wantage area into one long conurbation).  I'm interested to see that there seems to be no additional foundation work being done - as far as I can see, the uprights for the temporary structure are simply being placed directly on the tarmac (which in turn, from memory, was laid straight on top of the site of the old GW transfer shed, following a number of years as an un-surfaced car park).

 

David

Loving the photos of one of my favourite types of DMU - they were a core and much-loved part of the first 25 years of my life here in the Thames Valley.  I have a resin and brass kit for a Gauge 3 Pressed Steel unit (suitably produced by Risborough-based Garden Railway Specialists, just one hundred yards down the road from the bay platform in your first and fourth photos) - at 3 feet in length, it's going to be one heck of a large model when I finally build it.  I haven't investigated yet, but I would love to find a way to reproduce the gentle side-to-side rocking motion that was so characteristic of a single unit running on its own.

 

Thanks for sharing the photos,

 

David

Maybe off topic : but I'd always choose the motor coach in an SR unit for its ride characteristics. First gen CIGs at the end of their lives gave alarming lurches at times.

Me too - the front end of a CEP could be pretty lively, and especially in their last years when some were transferred to the SW Division and unleashed down the hill to Winchester on the outer suburban 850volt supply. I always chose the motor coaches of REPs too - much missed.

 

David

Looking very tasty - can I just ask what colour you are using for the buffer beams? It looks way better than the standard Accucraft orange.

 

David

There are lots of interesting snippets about the 74s in Diesel and Electric Locomotives of the Southern Region, by Pallant and Bird.  Well worth a read if you can find a copy.  It includes such gems as E6108 taking a rail tour special up the remains of the old Somerset and Dorset line as far as Blandford Forum in 1968; details of what went wrong with the electronics (overheating logic box crystals and a host of other things); how the change from helical to laminated springs made them so bouncy that one bounced right off the rails; a single fuel gauge that was so hard to read that they frequently ran out of fuel; multiple issues with cracked shoe arms; and problems with the starting system and how to get around it by using/abusing the preheating system.  But at their best, they were apparently "a powerful, impressive locomotive.  In fact when running light, they had the acceleration of a powerful sports car".  I used to see them running fast through Basingstoke on Ocean Liner expresses - they looked so much more impressive than a 73 or a 33.

 

David

Thanks Brian - sad news.. E.A.M.E.S. was the model shop of my early childhood - my father and I went there most Saturday mornings as part of our weekly shopping trips from Tilehurst into Reading.  A visit to E.A.M.E.S. and a shared bar of Bourneville on platform 5 watching hydraulics and Blue Pullmans were a much-loved part of my childhood.  And my life-long love of making models from scratch all began with Airfix wagon kits picked from the racks in the side-room at E.A.M.E.S..  I always coveted the Rivarossi O Gauge Casey Jones 4-6-0 kit that was displayed in the main room of the shop for a long time.  It took me another 35 years to achieve my ambition of buying one.

 

Thanks to David Morris for the memories - and to Brian for sharing the news.

 

David

Lots of class 800 action on the GWML today, with at least one 9 car and two 5 cars out and about.  Initial acceleration from the platform at Reading looked impressive, per earlier comments higher up the thread about low speed tractive effort, but the speed of the nine car westbound through Didcot on greens was distinctly underwhelming compared to the HST that preceded it.   With the shiny new 707s also on test, Reading is certainly a very different place these days from the old red brick station of my trainspotting youth.

 

David

I was taken aback to be addressed as "chap" in a restaurant a year or so back.

 

Chris

 

That's very Oxfordshire - I'm 'chap' down at Didcot station and it was a frequent form of address at the Oxford O Gauge group in the 80s. Assuming it was a Bedfordshire restaurant, it sounds as if someone has finally plucked up the courage to cross the county line.

 

David

That's a very impressive selection of equipment you have there NM.  Is that a dental mirror (for checking that burners are alight?) alongside the spanners? 

 

I have a few other very low-tech things that I use on my line:

 

- a homemade uncoupling hook made from thin wire for uncoupling Accucraft chopper couplings - it's just a straight length of thin brass wire with a curled handle covered in shrink wrap.  A couple of my rakes of FR/WHR carriages have sprung-loaded corridor connections, which makes it impossible to access the couplings by hand, so the uncoupling hook is an essential part of my operational kit.  It's also helpful for other stock where I have removed or altered the Accucraft chopper housing to reduce the distance between vehicles, and there simply isn't the space for me to reach in by hand to lift the hooks.

 

- an old tapered needle-file with the tip ground down so that it fits neatly into a slot in a safety valve for making adjustments.  The handle is a piece of wooden dowel which is useful on the rare occasions when a safety valve won't reseat completely - a quick tap from the dowel always does the trick.

 

- a feather from one of my bantams.  The quills are exactly the right size for clearing out flangeways and crossings.  As the bantams often cause the blockages in the first place (by scratching up the ballast while foraging), it seems only fair to use their feathers to clear the track again.

 

David