Stentor

I noticed in the list there is Hornby R1057 Princess Royal listed but no detail of the affected area. I have one and the issue, in my example, is chassis expansion around the gear tunnel and the rear driving wheel causing gear locking up. I also have an addition Heljan 4611 OO gauge Class 47 diesel 47826 "Springburn" in Intercity Swift livery - general chassis expansion causing bowing of the body and eventually cracked cab fronts. Thank you for your work on this list, it is an important and useful resource. //Simon

The markings on the Fruit D look like paint, not transfers. There is no carrier film of any kind, and if they were pressfix the positioning of them on both sides is absolutely identical over raised parts of the body, not easy to do. //Simon

I recently bought a job lot of Hornby Dublo wagons, and I am very pleased with my purchase. There are two of them which look odd to me and I cannot find any references to them through my searching efforts on Google. Can anybody shed any light on them please. The first is marked as DM975161 Unit Packing Van Willesden. The body is what I would know as the Hornby 4 wheel coach body. The paint finish is to factory standard and the transfers are consistent on both sides but they appear to have a carrier film on them rather than being tampo printed. I cannot find the Hornby 4 wheel coach in red. The chassis is a HD chassis from a brake van but unlike any of my other HD wagons there are no lock stops to prevent the body from turning on the chassis, the chassis is slightly long and the body is slightly proud of the chassis at one end. All of which makes me think that this is a re chassis job rather than an original. Am I right ? The second is the familiar HD Fruit D wagon but with LMS markings, in addition to its GWR running number. The LMS markings look to be tampo printed and are consistent with the other markings the wagon and both sides are consistent. The chassis is the standard chassis. I can find plenty of images of the Fruit D but none with these markings so is this an original wagon or a bit of home brew ? As I said I'm very happy with these wagons but their markings puzzle me so if anyone can shed any light on their provenance I would love to know. Thanks //Simon

Thanks to everybody for their quick and informative responses. In answer to a couple of questions I couldn’t see whether it had any kind of running gear or a number as we were short of time, next time I’m that way I’ll have a look. Sad to see it in its current state of decay given that it was up and running a short time ago but maybe that’s just me thinking that 2004 was sometime last week. //simon

My Missus spotted this as we were walking by last Sunday in a front garden in Merton, Surrey. It has a Parry People Mover logo on it but it doesn’t look like a class 139. Did they have other vehicles and is this one of them or is the sticker a red herring? What variety of stock is this ? A quick search on Google could only flush out the same question on Flickr. Any insight much appreciated. Thanks //simon

My thoughts and sympathies are with the staff, it’s their lives and plans that are thrown into the air by this news. We don’t need model railways to live, no, really we don’t, so this was a business based on selling us a little bit of pleasure and that’s why it feels a sad day when such a venture folds.

In 1956 British Railways introduced an all-over darker maroon for passenger coaching stock which resembled the pre-nationalisation LMS livery. Similarly from 1956 on the Southern Region locomotive-hauled stock was generally painted 'coaching stock' green and on the Western Region some express passenger coaches were painted in traditional GWR-style chocolate and cream. So why didn’t the former LNER join in and paint some of their stock in a version of teak, silver or garter blue ? Apologies if I’m going over well trodden ground but I was thinking about it and realised that I’d not seen any photos or references to it. //Simon

He had a sprig of heather next the badge, which and the shape of the regimental crest makes me think that it’s The Black Watch. //Simon

Pure musing this but if it's in the wrong place please move it wonderful Admin team. Lying awake at 4 a.m. the other night trying to get to sleep I started thing about what names the Deltics would be named if they were recreated in a parallel universe in 2023. For the regiments it might be what those original regiments are now called. Looking at the last big name wins of the racehorses it would be perhaps the name of the horse that won the equivalent big race the number of years it was before the original horse names were allocated in 1961/2. So Meld won the St. Ledger in 1955, six years before she was named in 1961 so her name in 2023 would be the St. Leger winner in 2017. So here are my suggestions for what they could be in 2023: 55001 Eldar Eldarov 55002 and 55017 The Rifles 55003 Capri 55004 and 55013 The Scottish, Welsh & Irish Divisions 55005 The Royal Yorkshire Regiment 55006 The Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry 55007 Golden Horn 55008 and 55014 The Royal Yorkshire Regiment 55009 Fame & Glory 55010 and 55021 The Royal Regiment of Scotland 55011 The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers 55012 Anthony Van Dyck 55015 Kingston Hill 55016 92nd Regiment of Foot 55018 Sottsass 55019 The Highland Light Infantry 55020 Workforce 55022 Royal Scots Dragoon Guards So what does this tell us? As we all sadly know the army has been chopped up well and truly in the last 60 or so years with many famous names now just proud memories. As for the horses I can now understand why you don’t see many modern locomotives named after racehorses as apart from Capri, I loved my 2 litre S, they are not an especially inspiring bunch of names unless of course you had a big win on one of them. I certainly cannot see anybody naming a loco Golden Horn these days. Well that's my guess, I'll go back to sleep now.

It’s actually an old public relations trick to leak something in a small way to blunt the story. Large company, for example, will tell the local paper that they are about to close a factory in their town, local paper publishes it, national news picks it up after a few days, large companies says “it’s not news, it’s been in the papers for days”. Shameless behaviour but that’s the world we live in. //Simon

Can anybody tell me where I can source a chimney for a rebuilt West Country in OO please? I’ve sourced a body but it came without a chimney and when I’ve searched the usual suspects on t’web I can’t find anything, even the wonderful Albert Goodall draws a blank. Any help much appreciated, thanks. //Simon

Hibelroad, yes I’m thinking that too, it would be right for a 1930s to 70s electrified railway control room. Maybe from a line that has been subsequently de-electrified like the Bury line, the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway, Tyneside or even Woodhead. //Simon

Thanks Mike & Nearholmer, Traffolyte is a new material to me and I see that it was developed by Metropolitan-Vickers in 1927 at their factory at Trafford Park. So perhaps Metrovic might be the closest my mystery item gets to railways. I’ll keep my eye out for a large switch too. //Simon

I recently bought this item from eBay. lt was sold as part of the estate of a railway enthusiast and modeller by a friend who, by her own admission, knows nothing about railways. It intrigued me and I’m guessing that it is transport related. Its a small plaque made of plastic or Bakelite on a wooden base with a hollowed out oval at the back, about 6” by 3”. I’ve tried Googling it but put in J,M and railway and you just get loads of stuff about JMRI. So can anybody please tell me what a J.M. Panel does and where would this plaque have been put up? Any help much appreciated, thank you, Simon

Hooray ! The perfect St. Patrick’s Day present.

My old boss Peter was a Morris dancer and he always used to say “if you want Morris Dancers put out a couple of jugs of free beer and they will come”.

I’m not certain as I’m away from my back numbers of MRJs atm but I think it was based on the Snape Maltings and I think it was Butley Mills set on the ESLR.

This video on YouTube brings the story more up to date with plenty of shots of the Panoramique running in preservation and some other railcars.

I have come across this charming film of the Panoramique in testing and early service.

Martyn, Going through some slides my Dad took in November 1963 I spotted this abandoned plane at Southend Airport but this is a Bristol 170 Freighter I believe. //Simon

Yes they showed that on the film and the difference in size was very obvious as you say. The film also showed the yard men walking around with a small dictation machine onto which they recorded wagon number, load and destination information which they passed to the TOPS operator for keying in. I presume that way of working remained in place as the operators moved to keying in on a VDU. My first job was installing fax machines, not for BR, and I remember we used to have to order an ISDN line for them to get the transmission to be reliable enough.

I was fortunate to get a copy of the BFI On the Right Track DVD for Christmas. Amongst the films is one called “What’s TOPS?” from 1974. The film goes through the development and use of TOPS across British Rail. In the film all the inputting or transfer of data to and from TOPS is done via punchcards and it made me wonder when (or perhaps even if) punchcards were replaced by terminals or other methods on TOPS and how is it done today? Can anyone shed any light please? //Simon

They are all displaying correctly to me David. Thanks for all the hard work that goes into sharing this wonderful archive with us throughout another year. Wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year. //Simon

I’ve sorted a suitable chassis so it is slowly progressing through my “roundtoit” pile. Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to identify my mystery coach. //Simon

Looking back through the thread there are examples of readers with iPads using Safari who are saying that they aren’t having the problem. So maybe it’s to do with the version of the iPadOS that we are running. You can see that by going to Settings, General, About and you will see the iPad OS Version. I’m running the latest version, 16 and getting the red issue. //Simon