roythebus

Nice pix! I've just been given one of these models as a birthday present and I'm very impressed by it. the only complaint I have is the wheels have very thick flanges. I use DOOGAF standard and the wheels won't push out to 14.8b-t-b as this then puts them at well over 17mm gauge! Seems like I'll have to find replacement wheels from somewhere.

Re the wipers, I don't see a loco with only a short life expectancy being modified. Having spent many hours peering through said windscreens, I didn't take much notice of what locos had twin or single wipers! Twin wipers were prone to getting jammed up at high speed.

Interesting that nobody has noticed the prototype has an NEM coupler pocket under the buffer beam... As one of the few members here to have been trained on the Met electrics and T stock, though I never went on one in service, I want one anyway! There's quite a wide variety of BR b/g stock you can use with them, including early mk2s which were used on District Line tours at times. The mk2 were "route tested" with battery locos on the DR tunnel section, but were slightly foul of the tunnel roof in places. There's a link on District Dave about this. As for tours on BR in later years, again a variety of stock! Luckily the locos were dual-fitted, so could work with anything. They also appeared on some freight workings in Met days. Today of course Sarah can be seen with the LT VEP/TC/whatever they use; top and tail with a class 20, Black 5, class 66....

I feel some empathy with JJB's comment above; I was in a similar situation with BR in the 1980s. They got rid of me. I became self-employed and earned more money running rail replacement buses for my former employers than I did driving trains for them. A month or so after my departure saw the Clapham rail crash. I had nothing to do with it obviously, but it shows how lax things were in those days.

My last ride on a Deltic was light engine from KX to FP. a few of us drivers from Waterloo wanted a last Deltic bash, so we went "route learning"... Luckily I knew the KX driver and he let 6 of us in the cab!

Oh I wish I had a decent camera when I worked on them at KX!! There is a separate class 55 group in the "specialist" section, and somewhere on here there's a thread about the fastest Deltics, including a timed log of very fast run I had with one in 1978, 110+ mph for many miles...

Local bus services are being withdrawn all over the country, not just Purbeck! Good luck to the Swanage Railway on their venture.

ISTR the track was still in place in the 1980s when I used to drive trains on the SW. Addlestone was by then controlled from Feltham box. I don't recall seeing any movements into or out of the mill a I suspect the sidings had been disconnected from the main line by then. Like so many odd connections that had been removed by that time, I didn't take much notice of them as they were no longer used.

Weighed in at the local scrappy would be a more profitable.

Mortlake, correct, I know the area well.

Weighbridge, a dyslexic place between Surbiton and Woking.

But Nigel seems to drink British real ale...

I think we ought to congratulate the media for once in their coverage of this episode. For once they seem to recognise the importance of the railway network to the community as a whole and managed to stop their usual gripe of "overcrowding" "late" "inefficient" (insert other negatives as required) trains. All we need to do now is educate them that it's Dawlish RAILWAY station not train station...but that was on another thread! Where's Ben Ando when you need him?

BBC national news reporting the first trains passed at 0600... well done again to CK and everyone for getting the line back. What HAS been forgotten is the gang working on the closure of the Tonbridge-Hastings line which re-opened this week!

Fleetwood Shaw also designed the track used on the MRC's Longridge, Brampton Sands and Calshot layout in the early 1960's. It consisted of punched plywood sleeper bases with the rails held in by clips every 4th sleeper or so and only fixed at baseboard ends. It was ok until the BBC turned up at on show with the TV lights. The track expanded so much the rails were at platform height! After that we pinned the track down. The last time I remember meeting Fleetwood was at the York Way shop in about 1968 when I was working there and he was bargaining with me on the price of a Hornby O gauge loco.

I see the Hastings-Tonbridge line re-opened yesterday.

LMS port hole stock was still in use in blue/grey when I joined BR in 1973. Only a few brake coaches from what I remember.

I chopped some Hornby Dublo EMUs to make overhead electric units following an article in the RM in 1963! I sold them about 15 years ago at IMREX when I was short of money. They cost 10/6 when new...

As an aside, my late father in law (formerly station foreman at Earlsfield) used to live in a big railway house at Tooting Junction. His back garden backed on to the lifted Merton Abbey line.

So, the prototype for everything department strikes again. Glued ballast, we've been using it for years. Now 4mm scale pasties...

When I ran a bus company from Willow Lane in Mitcham my office overlooked the line. The service went from a train with about 6 people on every 50 minutes or so to a tram every 7 minutes each way loaded so much you couldn't see daylight through them! Tramway Path at Mitcham might give a clue; the old tramway bridge on the A23 just before the M23 junction is still in daily use, clue to the S.I.R. Crossing over to the Kings Cros Model shop slightly, I met a Waterloo driver in there one day who was showing odd a map of London dated about 1820 and he said "there's no railways on it".....until I pointed out the S.I.R clearly shown. the British museum reckoned it was the fit time they'd seen that particular issue of that map.

I remember seeing the short suburban brake van conversions at Camden Road in the late 60s being used as Freightliner brakes. they were painted rail grey and has the wording Freightliner Brake on them. Quite how the guard kept warm is a mystery unless they had stoves fitted.

The concrete towers were there until the 1980s; the site is now occupied by IKEA. There were mentions of the sidings being used a as preservation base at one time in the 1980s but as usual nothing came of it. If it's any help to anyone, I took a load of pics of Mitcham Junction being rebuilt for the Tramlink works complete with contractor's loco on site. There might be some pictures of the area in the book on the Surrey Iron Railway which the Spratt & Winkle followed for a distance. Would this make Croydon Tramway THE oldest tramway in the world still operating??

The Russians have the best answer, already posted on here, of the "bus bollard" type plates that come up from the road and physically prevent you from driving any further. Re the recent RHDR case, I believe that if the CPS had brought the alternate lesser charge of "carless driving" the driver would have pleaded guilty and been fined £100 with 3 points. Sledgehammer, nut, = another CPS cock-up. The train involved was the morning "clear the line" diesel plus engineer's wagon.

There was a regular DMU service from BY to AY for servicing in the 1970's.