LNER4479

Tony! You forgot one ... (doesn't come with working headlights)

Mike beat me to it. A J Powell used this picture in his (excellent!) Stanier Pacifics at Work book and postulated just such a scenario - a test run following modifications to the reverse turbine. He reckons the visible footplate person is actually an inspector. The motley collection of coaches also points to it being a test train. Very much a 'one off'!

No trains running just at the moment, pending re-erection of boards post-MK. However, there's a few remaining 'in the can' from pre-show. The Waverley express (if you remember?!) was inbound from Garsdale. Plat.2 occupied so using the scissors crossover to access Plat.3. A fully fitted goods is using Plat.4 to access the layout as goods yard is a bit busy. Recent arrivals poke their noses out towards the true fiddle yard end of the station. But we can always place the end screen back in place for a more atmospheric view. More soon ...

Anyhow, no time for laurel resting - there's a layout to be built. Carlisle No.13 laid, bar the shouting ... Heljan turntable powered up and tested. All seems to work OK (phew!) Even managed to work out how to programme the stopping positions. So now it's just this little lot to get laid and working 😵‍💫

Fantastic vid! Thanks ever so much for finding and posting🤗

Good evening, Tony, Apologies for slight delay in responding to your questions above re 'The Caledonian'. It's taken until this evening for me to be able to check the rake post-show. Here it is, set out again on the home layout, just approaching Carlisle No.13 Box. It's currently an Iain Henderson (aka RMWeb 92220) & GN combo. Iain kindly made some of his Camden maroon stock available in order to get us running with Shap in expanded 1950s/1960s mode. So it makes best use of Iain's stock, but it's pretty close, I believe. In more detail: Second class end. MkI BSK + SO + SO. The SOs should really be 48 seats, ie 2+1 seating; these vehicles are (I believe?) 2+2 64 seats, more commonly referred to as TSO. Vehicles 4 to 6, the catering core. SO + Kit + FO; These are all Iain's vehicles, formed around his lovely Stanier 50ft Kitchen car. Carter doesn't differentiate these as restaurant cars as such but both first and second vehicles feature white painted tables as if they were. The First is numbered M4, ie one of the original 1951 'Festival of Britain' RFOs; I don't think that's correct for the 1957 Caledonian. The remains of the First Class end FO + BFK and this is what has changed since your photo of '45 on Shap. In conversation with Robert Carroll, he highlighted that the 7th vehicle should be an early MkI FO with centre doors and that Hornby had produced such a vehicle so that was a targeted purchase. The LMS Porthole BFK was I believe purchased from 'Honest Tone's'! So, it's getting closer as a rake! My coaches stand out as out-of-the-box, whereas Iain has applied some lovely, subtle weathering - I wish I had his skill in that regard. And, before you say it, yes - it needs a tail lamp. 🫣 Rome wasn't built in a day.

Hello Brian, Ah, that's a shame to have missed you. Thanks for taking the time to post your message. Glad to hear you enjoyed your visit to Shap(!); another time, maybe? Graham

Bit of a Duchess fest but - hey My new Hornby 'Hornby-Dublo' 46234 tackles the grade unassisted with the 10-coach Birmingham-Glasgow. And to complete the colour palette: 'Sir's' maroon 46245 crests the summit with the 'Caledonian'. Layout settled down reasonably quickly and we generally went round the chronological schedule of 39 trains in 35-40 minutes so there was usually something moving most of the time. Also had a layout photo shoot Friday evening for Hornby mag for a future edition.

Hornby (mag) GREAT ELECTRIC TRAIN SHOW REPORT Shap safely back home after attending first show of the season. The Marshall Arena at Milton Keynes (part of the MK Dons football stadium complex) is quite a venue; this is the view of the main hall from the second floor balcony. We're top right but pretty indistinct from this distance. Dominating the view is the remarkable 'Making Tracks' combined three layouts, all 150ft of it. Anyhow ... Here we are at closer quarters. It was a very well attended show, both days and we had a good crowd round us most of the time. Despite us being a couple of hundred miles away from Shap itself, there were those there who were familiar with the location and could relate to the prototype. Always gratifying to talk over the backscene with such folks - a couple were ex-railwaymen who had worked with former Tebay shed banker drivers. Couple more pix to follow ...

Evening Tony, The Hornby (mag) GETS show was an undoubted success in terms of footfall - so much so, that there were car parking and queuing issues on both days (you can read all about such things on the GETS thread in the 'exhibitions' section of the forum). This might give you an idea. This was Sunday morning, not long after the doors opened - it got much busier quite quickly. In the centre of this view you can see the humongous 'Making Tracks' (Pete Waterman) layout, 150ft in length. We were three deep for large parts of both days, which was gratifying. Once a few rolling stock gremlins had been attended to, we were averaging slightly better than a train a minute on the scenic section. I don't think you can improve on that significantly in a show environment. Finally, on the subject of 'budget modelling', picked up this poorly wagon for a few quid. Appears to be a Parkside PC42. I'll let you know how I get on.

Meanwhile, back in the world of railway modelling ... City of London strutting her stuff at the Hornby GETS show this weekend. Thought you'd like to see (Tony) that the loco remains in the rudest of health, on her regular working.

You got me going with LMS vans with previous discussions on this thread! Here's some recent progress, which might illustrate the differences: From left-to-right: Dapol LMS van, repainted from 'I.C.I.' branding and fanciful brake gear removed, apart from the 4 inner shoes. Central 'pusher' rigging fitted (the wrong way round!) to (crudely) create a unfitted wagon - waiting numbering Peco (Parkside, nee Ratio) straight kit build. Morton 4-shoe brake gear fitted to depict an originally unfitted wagon, fitted by BR. Dapol LMS van, fitted with Parkside 10 foot, 8-shoe clasp brakes (Dapol chassis discarded). Numbered as an early BR build, to diagram 1/204. Dapol LMS van, married to a Bachmann 4-shoe Morton underframe from a 'squashed' LMS van (which, you will be delighted to know, I have discarded!). Hence another originally unfitted van, equipped with BR vac brakes. All great fun! The potential two RTR offerings both have issues - the fanciful underframe (Dapol) and the squashed body (Bachmann). Now I'm alive to all this, I'm trying to steadily make my way through my fleet to eliminate the offenders, as well as making up new wagons from kits. (btw, I am aware of some of the subtle body differences between the diagrams if using the Dapol body ... but I'm afraid that's the point at which life gets a bit short!) See if you can spot some of the above running on Shap at the Hornby GETS show at Milton Keynes this weekend!

... most / many of which seem to have been fitted with the Morton 4-shoe arrangement (presumably cheaper and for standardisation) just to add to the variety / bewilderment.

Damn! Must have missed that in my own rummage around. One set of brake gear the wrong way round? Unlike one of my latest wagon projects where I managed to get BOTH the wrong way round - doh!

Nope.

Looking forward to being part of the show with Shap ... even if it looks like we might be seriously upstaged on the WCML stakes on this occasion!

More running ... Goods train arrives, northbound from Dentonholme, as Royal Scot 46159 sets out with a WCML relief express. At Bog Junc. ... ... it meets the inbound Waverley express off the S&C route. Classic Shap Wells view. I've temporarily set out the backscenes here as they need a little bit of tidying up prior to GETS Milton Keynes show this coming weekend. See you there if you're coming along. Going to be a bit of a WCML-fest by all accounts. Nowt wrong in that.

Wasn't Budenberg by any chance was it? Sounds German; based in Manchester. I remember Fred Dibnah popping in there once (by traction engine, of course) on one of his programmes!

Thanks Mike. I've seen the plans in your files for this segment of the depot but don't think I've actually seen photographs of it. Once it became clear that I couldn't include Upperby AND Kingmoor on my scheme, I concentrated on Upperby, with the roundhouse being a key part, fitted into the corner as it is (but not quite the full building). One of the main features of the scheme will be the operation of locos on and off shed, following diagrammed workings, home locos, visiting locos, etc. I'm hoping that at least some aspects of the depot will be recognisable, even though - like yourself - there's considerable compression going and, at least in my case, quite a bit of distortion because of the corner plot. I thought the outside turntable was a 60ft example? That's what the captions in my reference works say!

On a slightly lighter note, the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust was responsible for introducing a new word into the German language. When redesigning the rivetted dia. 118 boiler into an all-welded design (designated dia. 118a), the Germans were completely stumped by the perforated steam collector feature and had to design it from scratch, with full FEA etc. The drawings thus carried the legend 'Banjodom for UK'.

Subtly redesigned to keep within 13' 0" height (to maximise network compatibility). Inside the clothing is the same boiler as Tornado - they will be interchangeable. Smokebox on No.2007 is longer to accommodate. All hidden under cladding - visually it will look like No.2001 (in original condition)

Meanwhile ... I've laid the first lengths of the down goods lines, here demonstrated by a Black 5-hauled parcels train. Come on! Hurry up and get the rest of it laid ...

So - yes, we now have the start of the all-important Upperby roundhouse, as part of Upperby MPD, part of the Upperby complex. Why install this now, in isolation? Simply, that this is the most inaccessible corner of the complex, necessitating crawling about on the board itself. So, better to do it now rather than trampling over other freshly laid track. There was a conversation some way back up thread about a suitable turntable. In the end, there was only really one show in town and I duly acquired a Heljan HO 90ft 'table (cat no. 89121). That's approx 79ft in 4mm. Did I pay full price? No I didn't! I bided my time and eventually plumped for a 'pre-loved' example for half RRP. It claimed to have been hardly used and that appears to be the case (mercifully!). Some minor damage to one of the turntable rails (easily repaired); otherwise G.A.N., much still in original packaging. No going back now! As you might recall, I've already marked everything out on the trusted lining paper. So, all I had to do was to tape the Heljan template in the right place? Well, almost - there was just the little matter of adjusting the orientation to ensure that the 'no track' zone was not where I didn't want it to be (if that makes sense) With the pit in position, I had a fun session mapping out the possible track plan in the allotted space - previously, I had just left a suitable area. (For avoidance of doubt, although it'll be a full roundhouse, the stalls at the back are not full length - some only able to take a 0-6-0T 'Jinty'. That's just to balance out the space available. But at least half should be full length to host my beloved pacifics) The 'Carlisle in France' files, made available to me by one Mr Mike Edge, proved invaluable in this exercise and I think I'm tending towards a trackplan which, although much compressed, contains sufficient features as to be (potentially) recognisable.

More excitement at Upperby: I'll just leave this here for now ...

Ooh - lovely 😍 Think I'm right I'm saying that No.5 was the largest box (140 levers) in the Carlisle area. I suspect however that diagram is slightly too modern an era for me. Looks like some simplification / rationalisation compared to 1950s steam era. Thanks for sharing, notwithstanding.