number6

Is there an aesthetically pleasing Irish loco?

I had a new tyre fitted at the BMW dealer the other day and sat working in their showroom for an hour or so. While half listening to the service guys and salesmen, the constant mention of oil changes, service packages, clutch and drivetrain issues struck me as I don’t have to consider all that stuff anymore. Or consider the costs, which aren’t nothing. The fact that service or oil change finance packages are offered in order to spread the cost implies they cost a bit more than people expect or are prepared to pay. When I first went in there three years ago to look at the i3 it was way down the back - yesterday there weren’t any EVs to look at only a massive SUV thing looking all heavy and ugly. I’m still surprised how little the BMW people in there seem to know about EVs. The service guy didn’t know about regenerative braking (meaning I still don’t need him to sell me any new brake pads). He said the system was suggesting I change them not because of the wear but because of their age. I wonder if there is an algorithm in their service system that pushes early replacement of parts? I guess EVs didn’t give them much to do and make service departments semi obsolete... I also guess that is true of the dealer model which is mostly about making money from finance and from service contracts and nothing much to do with the type of fuel cars use. Happy motoring.

Oh sorry - Rail Online are often very open to edits on their captioning. Maybe send that to them?

Saw this the other day... https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p598839012/e18b1492d

I for one, like the background in your photos. Its a work of art in itself. I've always liked these locos - they seem like a mid-way stage between those earlier LSWR shockers and the simpler lines of the later Maunsell S15s and N15s.

Hmmm the i4 doesn’t really float my boat. I really like the i3 grill - if it had something more like the i4 the pheasant I ‘caught’ the other day would have cost me double in repairs. Got it square in the middle under the ‘kidneys’ and it made a big V shaped dent. Talking of fake bonnet scoops - maybe we weren’t? - I popped the bonnet on my old diesel Subaru and there was a roasted blackbird lying on the air intake. I then dimly remembered hearing, a month or so before, that blackbird chatter they make as they take off in a hurry which then went suddenly all quiet.

Me too over the years of course. There is a great scene in Fleabag where a guy comes into her little Cafe. He sits down, plugs in his laptop, then his phone charger and takes up a whole table but doesn't buy anything! Extreme example perhaps but retail has changed and many high street shops became places to handle items that were then purchased online [often from other retailers] then they went out of business.

Sure the irony isn't lost on you but maybe they had too many browsers and not enough buyers...

Good luck getting your mobility scooter past that BMW parked on the pavement in the distance!

Once I get my DeLoren going again I’ll go back and get one! I did get 4 Airfix ‘Dr X’ Lowmacs with NCL trailers which could eject a missile for £2 from Beatties once. So not all bad in there.

Not a shop I visited but one I bought a number of things from was Muirhead Models(?) in Scotland. They seemed incredibly cheap when searching the RM. I got my Mum to write a cheque, in exchange for a pile of coins, which would be posted off and many weeks later something like an Airfix 4F would arrive in the post - was it £7.99? Searching the adverts for bargains when I only had 50p pocket money a week meant buying the same item from the local Beatties was out of the question.

Sorry: forgot this gem. 47 121 13.1.1981 Canton Driver: Both cabs very cold. Fitter reply: Masking tape applied. And onboard 55 017 "not fit for polar bears..."

Lots of loco fault books here. You can lose yourself in these - especially 47s... http://www.locodocs.co.uk/ I love reading between the lines and also seeing the fitter replies. "Window wiper No.2 end drivers side wants to be made workable." http://www.locodocs.co.uk/repairbooks/47015.htm

Thanks for photos of the bridge. But I think it’s a huge shame about where it and the road have gone in. It’s a repeat of the ‘inner ring road’ in Newhaven itself: it just corrals the wasteland and ruins the hinterland. Development east of the harbour is creeping across Tidemills and ruining a unique stretch of coast - post industrial, brownfield maybe but lovely despite - while the rest of Newhaven is crumbling and ruined. The West Quay development did nothing for the harbour but block the view. And the incinerator is an eyesore from miles around .... To revert - I tried to find a reason for the Pullman with Eastbourne headcode I posted. Glyndebourne wasn’t running that time of year, couldn’t be Plumpton, wrong date, I though Lewes races but that closed a year or so before... something in Eastbourne maybe: but couldn’t find anything. Ah well.

Thank you for the suggestion to look up Lance Mindheim - very interesting. There have have been many interesting layouts in past editions of this magazine. And many tips and tricks regardless of the size of layout. I have a feeling that some US modellers deal with their space be it large or small better than UK modellers do. Even of it is a large layout the transitions between scenes is often dealt with very well. The UK equivalent is the exit to the fiddle yard which (sorry chaps) nearly everyone is terrible at - me included. Tunnels that aren’t dark or are just 2 inches long on a big layout - Two well known and admired chaps: P Waterman esq and T Wright esq are both guilty of this on what are huge layouts! All those clear views of the unsceniced fiddle yards - obvious curves under bridges and down tunnels etc. It’s understandable we want maximum space for the scenery and not want to ‘waste‘ it on the transition - a longer tunnel or overbridge etc. but it’s not something you see on US layouts so much. They devise tricks - sceniced storage yards - or use their sharper curves to advantage. We meanwhile have to do the suspension of disbelief in our head while viewing a UK layout rather than be gently tricked into disbelief on a US one that the line turns through 90 degrees. Having said all this I am a big fan of layouts set in flat country where the line just ends in a mousehole in the plywood sky. Just some comparisons... will see if I can find a copy somewhere.

Zap map is a great resource. It also lets you add chargers - which I did last weekend when I found six new ones not yet listed.

Sorry: forgot to say - might as well mention this again. Seeing as its quite rigourous.

Arggg! It doesn't take an hour... and if it does I don't sit there waiting for it to finish, I plan to go do something else. Also: In those two and a half years I've only had to wait for a charger perhaps twice because someone was using it. We had a nice chat about our cars and cost of petrol etc. It is going to be a long time before there are queues - if ever. Is that actually true that councils are unwilling? https://www.testvalley.gov.uk/news/2019/nov/new-charging-points-arriving-for-electric-vehicles but there will be lots of other companies happy to profit from those of us that want to buy their fuel once they plumb one in.

I don't have a charger at home [or work] and have no trouble fitting in charging while I do something else... there is one fast charger in town and two more en route or near the end of a couple of other regular routes. I leave it on a charger when shopping or going for a walk. I've done 33,000 miles in 2 and a half years. Its a bit like not having a petrol station at home.

The signalman is going to need a sit down and a cup of tea after that lot...

Can't talk about Newhaven Marine without mentioning these: I'm a big fan of the boat trains when the three Bulleid electrics worked them. Can't share many of the images I've collected over the years for my own use but these are typical. Thanks to all those who took and shared them. The Charlie Verrall images are especially good - with lots of gen in the comments on Flickr as he was at the district managers office on the central section. Most trains in the 50s had a pair of cycle vans at the London end. Full I would imagine with nice touring bikes on their way to and from cycle holidays in France - uniform of the rider just a cardigan and tie with everything else in a modest saddle bag... and that would be the women too. Nearly all trains had a Maunsell 'non-descript' brake or ex-SECR continental brake at each end until quite late into the 1960s. The stock was an early repaint into new British Rail colours. For a time even plum and split milk. A bit of 1950s bling through the gloom. I'm not entirely convinced this final one is the normal boat - because of the all first and pullmans obviously borrowed off the western section for a day trip to Newhaven.

Many times I dragged my feet on the walk back to Newhaven Harbour from Tidemills beach as a kid. Sunburnt and probably dragging a huge piece of driftwood we would miss the one train an hour home. Once all was well because after a few mins sitting around the up boat train which was fast to Vic pulls up in the platform, Uncle David shouts from the cab 'Need a lift?'. We bale out at Lewes hardly coming to a halt. Job done.

Agreed - the assumption is to find the problem but if there is power you can charge. If there isn't then you can't, but then you can't get fuel from a gas station - or pay for it or etc. Apart from that maybe there aren't any particular difficulties of having an EV in a wildfire but advantages as above. Its possible mine might melt faster being made of plastic?

Sorry but that does sounds like the most extreme example of range anxiety I’ve heard...

I was putting my bike in a full brake at Crewe for Euston, late 1980s, it was completely empty except for one small packet with a label on it: Live Mice - destination Bristol. They were obviously going the long way around...