The Pilotman

It may be of some comfort to know then that in the world of commercial aviation, on the mainland, heights and altitudes are given in feet, most distances are given in nautical miles and speeds are given in knots (rather than vulgar and simple metric units). Even the French do this, all in the name of maintaining some sort of, what you might call, concorde

And going further west, the canal and railway are more or less side by side almost all the way to Pewsey. The stretch from Great Bedwyn up and over Savernake summit is very nice.

There's a typo in the caption of that last photo, Ian. I don’t know which 47 it is but it's definitely not 47705 (or any other 47/7) as the caption states.

Nice pictures today, but I think that’s a 24 or 25 in J3276. More likely to be a 24 I suppose (but I’m not an expert at type 2 identification) but definitely not a 26.

On the contrary, I'd pay double for that!

I’ve been in this shop a few times before (and very good it is too) but whilst in there yesterday buying a few bits and pieces I noticed three loco nameplates on the wall behind the counter which I'd not noticed before: MELD, Greyfriars Bobby and one off an HST.

They were called stickle bricks

Could be; it’s got the correct number of wings and engines. But besides that, more than 24 hours after it was posted, not a whiff of an attempt to identify the Deltic in C4427!! Are all the Deltic experts at Warley?

I’ve heard some strong rumours of a forthcoming increase in aviation fuel traffic to Colnbrook. Sounds like a long-term contract with 2-3 trains per day from Isle of Grain and infrastructure improvements at the Colnbrook terminal. Anything official surfaced about this yet?

Whilst not wanting to make light of the situation (no pun intended) as outlined by the OP, I am guessing that the sun's reflection as shown would only affect a relatively small area for a relatively short space of time on a few days of the year, and then only with a clear sky. Given the number of glass structures on and around the railway these days, the occasional flash of the reflected sun must, I would have thought, be viewed as an unavoidable and short-lived nuisance.

From an architectural point of view, St. Pancras (since it was done up) is hard to beat but on a personal level, Dawlish as I remember it from childhood holidays in the late 70s and early 80s wins. Back then, it seemed like an almost constant procession of trains with a great variety of loco types; classes 25, 31, 33, 37, 45, 46, 47 and 50. Happy days.

C0801: a very atmospheric shot but probably one of the most gloomy views you've shared with us so far.

I can't find an explanation of this anywhere else but it should be a quick and easy answer for someone in the know. Why did some VBA wagons in the Speedlink era have a light-coloured roof? On your marks, get set, go!

A couple of Belted Galloways next to a new Oxford Cortina. They don't look that underscale to me; what do others think?

Life got in the way, sorry. I'll try to do a piccy next week.

Looking at your pictures Trevor has made me think about some of the first railway picture books I had in the late 70s. I particularly remember a couple called Diesels Nationwide (Volumes 1 and 2). I presumed the pictures contained within them would have been among the best available at the time but your pictures, from the same era, are streets ahead of many of them in terms of quality and composition. Did you ever try to get them published somewhere back then? The recent images you've posted on various threads of Deltics, Westerns and 50s have been quite brilliant. Thank you for sharing them.

I'll post a picture later of them up against something British for comparison.

The cows may be slightly small (92.5% of British N) but the ones outside are far away....

I spent most of yesterday at Eurospoor 2017 in Utrecht where, despite much temptation, I managed not to spend too much money. One stand that caught my eye was a small outfit called Van Petegem Scenery who make cows, horses and sheep for N and HO/OO. What sets them apart though is that they make lots of different breeds. I was very impressed with their range and came away with some Aberdeen Angus, Belted Galloway and Hereford cattle to populate a corner of my layout. I have no connection to the company but thought I would post their website details for anyone who wants something a bit different when it comes to layout livestock. http://www.vanpetegemscenery.com

Thanks for all that, Mike. In all my visits to that part of the world, I'd never noticed that. The old ground signal numbers rang a bell; when the Didcot yard shunters needed to shunt a loco out of one part of the yard and into another they'd call up and use just the signal numbers. E.g. "Loco shunt, 430 to 432" (or 192 for the Didcot North exit signal, or 317 for the east end exit signal). They probably still do, but with different numbers now, of course.

Where was that then, Mike? I don't remember ever seeing anything like that. The only place that I can think of where it might be is coming out of the yard next to the west end of platform 5.

Who says they don't?

Two lots of tooling? Can't see that happening...

Agreed. That's the Burngullow to Sittingbourne "Clayfreighter" that started running in 1967 and ended in 1985.

Should've gone to Specsavers.... That's 5012 Berry Pomeroy Castle