roythebus

Hello Brian, seems you are keeping well too. I understand John Hewitt kept the Sandalmouth buildings, copies of those that appeared in the Railway Modeller in 1963 (I think) that first coined the term "modelling the Modern Image". It had plans for Ditton junction station, that's what that station was modelled on. I mentioned Frank's motor bogie used for hidden siding shunts in an earlier post, but it was so long ago I forgot exactly what moves it was used for. Frank was indeed a showman, and his layout always seemed to have something moving somewhere. there's a picture in an old Railway Modeller, 1962-ish showing a huge crowd round the original Borchester at Central Hall. I've just found some more of the proposed New Annington plans, another trip to Staples to get them scanned to memory stick!

And to repeat what I said in the Dorchester thread in Modelling Musings etc., Frank Dyer built the track for the Dyers End branch to 16.2mm gauge. It worked perfectly with proprietary stock of the day except Lima cheese cutter wheels which ran along the sleepers. the rest of New Annington was built to BRMSB 16.5mm gauge. That was circa 1980. BTW, I've posted a couple of Frank's other track plans on the other thread too, more to follow.

AFAIK New Annington was dismantled. I ceased being in charge in about 1989,. Sorry, can't turn off this scoring out bit..

01-151012-0002.pdf01-151012-0003.pdf Thanks for reminding me Brian, after all I'm trying to think back about 37 years! Whilst I made all the paintwork at home for the main station, New Annington, the plain half track was made by others maybe at their places or at the club. I certainly cut all the sleepers myself. And yes, you're right about using Kings Cross bullhead rail as Jones Brothers had probably closed down by that time and it was easier to file bullhead rail for points than flat bottom. Frank, as I said earlier, had designed a number of plans and I'm not sure who else contributed to the ideas, I know your good self and John Hewitt had a hand in them, along with the wishes of the club committee who of course held the purse strings! Also at that time there was very little "modern image" stock available, in fact virtually nothing except the Tri-ang Brush type 2, English electric type 3, a diesel shunter and Metro-Cammell DMU. Whilst the layout was being discussed, Lima came along with their offerings and Tri-ang (by then renamed Hornby) with the HST and the Joueff class 40. So we were not over-supplied with diesel-era models. Yes, Practical Model Railways was the magazine, I've got a copy of it somewhere, along with pieces of the track being built at home in my place in Mitcham Lane. Anyway, the layout was built, it ran, and as Brian says, was modernised after about 10 years with colour light signals, modernised track plan and overhead. ISTR mentioning the elevated curve that Brian mentions; he built it very nicely but we then found that stock collided as we'd forgotten to allow for gauge widening between track centres! But the sight of John Hewitt's HST tilting round that curve made a lovely sight. Thanks Brian for your input to the layout. Hopefully I've attached 2 PDF files of Frank's track plans, they're scanned form the pencil drawn originals so might be a bit difficult to follow.

Frank only built the track for Dyers End, the branch station. all proprietary stock of the day (1980's) ran alright on it apart from Lima with the cheese cutter wheels whose flanges were so deep they ran along the sleepers. Frank explained how 16.2 would work and indeed it did. The rest of New Annington was built to 16.5mm to BRMSB standards by myself using Jones Bros TT flat bottom rail. We also used Kings Cross bullhead rail for some of the layout. I suspect Frank used the Jones Bros rail too. Meanwhile I'll take a trip to Stales to get the plans scanned to disc. There was an article in a model railway mag in about 1982 of New Annington in its original form, can't remember which mag, but it stopped publication quite a while ago. Len Weal done the photos for it.

Having had the pleasure of Frank Dyer's company at The Model Railway Club for a number of years, I make no excuses for repeating what I may have posted on other threads. Frank was a regular at the MRC in the late 1970s, early 1980s and was in on the discussions for what was to replace the original MRC OO layout, the Longridge, Brampton Sands and Calshot layout, built in the early 1960s and showing signs of wear. Frank offered to draw a number of plans for us which I still have in my possession. We drew up a list of what the layout should contain, and we eventually chose the plan that was to become New Annington. The original plan was to quite a small scale, so Frank re-drew it larger (before the days when everyone had a photocopier) with immense detail on it, siding and loop lengths, radius of curves, signals, the lot, and a Borchester style fiddle yard! Frank offered to build the track for Dyers End, the branch terminus. A few weeks later he rolled up at the MRC with an armful of track and points, all built to 16.2mm gauge. He explained that stock to BRMSB standards would happily run on it the difference being narrower flangeways on the points which gave a more realistic appearance. His track certainly worked without fault during the life of that layout. In fact one of the buildings, a country pub that had been on the LBSCR layout was deemed to be good enough to be used on New Annington. Remember Frank was in the architecture business and would have used Perspex in architectural modelling, this may explain why he used that for his platforms. Frank certainly had an eye for detail, and this showed in his workmanship, achieving a visual and operational standard that many of us could only dream of. the only thing that let Borchester down was the huge girder across the buffers on his stock, his version of the tension lock couplings, but as he pointed out, with the sharp radii he used he couldn't afford buffer locking in hidden sidings. In his hidden sidings he used something called "the Bug" to shunt stock. This was a Kitmaster motor bogie just fitted with the bar across the buffers couplers, so it would never actuially couple to anything; it was only used to push stock out! I've actually built another of Frank's "New Annington collection" layouts at home, though it's far from finished yet! I tried using DOOGAF-fine standards, but it doesn't work properly; I'm having to rebuild the pointwork to 16.2mm gauge to save pushing any more wheels out on their axles! Does anyone know what happened to Frank's rolling stock? And yes, I remember his original layout at the 1962 Central Hall show; it was a roundy-roundy but never operated as such. I wish the present custodians of Borchester well and hope they get the layout back to the operating standards that Frank insisted on. Edited to add that most of the plans Frank done for the MRC included a centre loco release road with a 3-way point and a ladder of diamond crossings and slips! The fiddle yards were also full of slips and 3 ways and a loco turntable or two.

A few tips for removing stubborn screws, soak them in WD40 first; get an impact screwdriver, one that had a metal bit going right through so you can hit it with a hammer; hold errant item firmly in a vice, insert impact screwdriver tip in the screw head, firmly grip the screwdriver handle in one hand and turn it clockwise while hitting the top of the handle with the hammer. This should loosen the screw, then twist the screwdriver anti-clockwise, gently tapping the top with the hammer. If that fails, gentle heat from a blowlamp usually works. I have to use these principles frequently when restoring old buses!

Level crossing accidents are rarely that, accidents. They are usually deliberate acts by road users. Very seldom is it an accident, caused by failings of the railway equipment or personnel.

When K's made the moulds for me they didn't put the boards on as they weren't shown on the Derby works drawing. Later pics showed them, so they were added on in the early stages of production. The plywood sides seem to be of the same material as refurbished Routemaster floors!

Sorry I can't help; when I planned the kit nobody ever thought of modelling the interior! Nice to know some of my kits are still around!

A passenger train must always have a vehicle fitted with a handbrake. A BG by its name (Brake Gangway) has a handbrake, so could be with a coach in a passenger train consisting of something like a TSO/FK/whatever.

The pic in post 17 is a shunt move so doesn't count! Yah boo sucks... Note shunt signal cleared and no tail light on the rear coach!

Yeah, seen that one before, it was re-posted on the KESR FB page yesterday. The bus driver was Walter C. Hunt. Deserves to lose his PSV licence too.

The original Brush type 2 (class31) was beautiful model in its day, setting new standards for detail including the builders plate which was quite readable.

A few pics of my holiday in India, mostly taken around Golden Rock/Trichy Junction (Tirruchirappalli). I found the staff there very accommodating and friendly as I was a BR driver at the time and welcomed me on the footplate for a real main-line experience.

Rummaging through various boxes has found some more photos of the Nilgri locos where I was lucky to have had a footplate ride from Udagamdalum (Ooty) to Coonnoor. The two boys on the cab steps in picture 2 are my sons Vince (now Assistant Fleet Engineer on the Southern Railway at Selhurst) and Keith, a theatre technician.

A signalman was badly injured on Friday at East Farleigh station, Kent. He was closing the level crossing gates when a car failed to stop. the signalman was badly injured and was transferred to Kings college Hospital, London, with life-changing injuries. This information taken from the KESR Facebook private section. If I get a link to other information I'll post it. there was a video of the incident but that has been withdrawn due to the ongoing police investigation.

According to my son, a Bluebell volunteer, the take per day was the same as the usual weekend take. He did mention figures but I won't mention them on here. So 3 times the usual revenue for the 3 day event.

As I posted on the other thread, I went to the Bluebell on Friday with as friend. We had a great day out and met up with some old time bus friends who really appreciated the Deltics, as indeed did I, having worked on them in the good old steam (heat) days. As luck would have it, the Bluebell accepted our KESR grade cards for free travel, so we put some money in the donations box; spent well on refreshments, and a load in the shop just before closing time. a splendid day out with fine weather too. Would I go to another diesel gala there? Maybe a Western event, probably not a Scottish or Southern event. I worked on 33s and 73s but they don't have the same aura as the Deltics. Well done the Bluebell for a lovely weekend. Only one slight gripe, not enough staff in the Bessemer Arms at lunchtime resulted in a lengthy queue at the bar! Deltic alone at the end of the line at the end of the day.

I was helping my driver prep a class 40 at Finsbury Park one day. He told me to go in the back cab and release the handbrake. I did; the loco rolled towards the outlet points, stopped, rolled back toward the stops, stopped, rolled back toward the outlet points...about 3 times before the loco built up enough air to stop itself. the handbrakes were next to useless. They must have borrowed the canoe handbrake design. They weren't provided with chocks.

Here's a couple of pics of the Nilgri Hills X class taken in 1987 at Coonoor. I took 34 rolls of film; the processors lost 17 rolls, the future ex threw away the prints from the other 17 rolls. It seems this is all I have left. Except my memories, riding on the YP and YG class metre gauge locos out of Trichy Junction.

One of my first memories of working the outer suburbans in early 1976 was a Brush 2 with 8 on, me driving, the driver telling me to look out for a bridge as a marker for the next stop, one of the short platforms after Hitchin. it was foggy, I didn't see or hear the bridge, nor did my driver. "They don't knock down bridges" he said. a pway hut was the final braking point, we saw that and just about made the platform stop. Next night it wasn't foggy. We looked out for the bridge. There was a line of brick dust across the railway. They HAD knocked the bridge down to put the wires up!

There were a couple of suburban stock workings to Cambridge in the last couple of years of them. I know, I worked them!

Conversely, I made a Trix 81 into an 85 many years ago! I may still have it somewhere. When they were available for £4/19/6 as kits!

And Price's Candle Factory...