DavidBird

Will there be one like this? "The video of the song ["Breakthru", by Queen] was filmed within two days on the preserved Nene Valley Railway, near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, England. The group members mentioned in the interviews that despite the hot summer weather, the event brought a nice refreshment to their studio work. It also helped heighten guitarist Brian May's spirits, as he was going through a bout of depression from the intense scrutiny surrounding his first marriage and Freddie Mercury's health starting to falter as a result of AIDS. The steam locomotive No. 3822 (fired by Mark Needham) and an open platform were rented by Queen from the Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire and repainted for the video. In particular, the group named the train "The Miracle Express", and this name was reflected in large red letters on the sides of the locomotive." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthru_(song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRaSFk958Js

The ones that I've had a chance to look at closely on my "local" heritage railway - The Strathspey Railway - are presumably LMS/Br(sc) designs. The frame that holds the signal slides is mounted on a fixed base by slots that allow it to move at right angles to the track. There is a fourth rod that secures the frame a fixed distance from the running rail, and so automatically compensates for heat expansion in the detector rods themselves. I'll post a photo when I can find it.

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Looks pretty good to me, Andy. Of course, today everything is a lot paler with a dusting of snow.

My 1st thought was half of Nottingham Victoria. Actually I'm surprised there hasn't been more suggestions of half-a-station. Tunnel or bridge at one end, whilst scenically building an overall roof straight to the end of the layout, at the same time as curving the tracks, as sharply as your stock will take, out of sight to the fiddle yard.

I was at University in Leeds in 1989. I was surprised to see consignments of lab chemicals in "Red Star" labelling, presumably they had been collected from Leeds Station. I had thought that Red Star had ceased by then but obviously not.

A working Isle of Man Beyer-Peacock. The static version is already in Oxfordrail's lists, and very nice it looks too. With Hornby developing mechanisms and track for TT:120, this seems ideal for 4mm scale on 12mm track.

Have you considered using a bit of compression here, and hiding the mousehole under the occupation bridge that's actually a bit further out?

I was a bit concerned about this...

Are you doing the roof with or without the skylight?

Sorry to have missed you...

Although, if it's just one of these without a face for £115, I might think twice....

Thanks very much. More confident to place an order now, just which colour? Bachmann's description, in the video in the 1st post, calls them HOn30, which suggests 1:87 scale (and 2ft 6in gauge). I'd have problems squeezing a 1:76 driver into a 1:87 cab.

Rails of Sheffield says "Scaled to HO/OO dimensions, the Talyllyn will operate on standard N Scale or HOn30/OO9 narrow gauge". Does anybody know are they 1:76, 1:87, or something in between?

Here seen during istallation, the floating pulley wheel mounted on the channel rodding, crank to the lever frame and the point detectors for the facing point beyond. Here after installation, the pulley wheel with chain, the ends of the chain are attached to the wires to the point detector, the return wires from the detector to the signals passing over the whole assemby to the signals seen in the background. Also note the detector boxes on the GF, which interface with the NR Inverness signalling centre. Yes, it was a very wet day that day! Two of us ended up being tentpoles for a piece of tarpaulin to shelter the innards of the dis-box from the worst of the weather as it was being wired up! And the signals that are both controlled from the GF lever 5, the main arm reads to the platfrom and the small arm to the loop, depending on the setting of the points. Formerly from Forres. For more see here http://ontrackatstrathspey.blogspot.com/2019/03/s-progress-at-aviemore-1617-march-2019.html https://signallingstrathspey.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2020-05-20T17:03:00%2B01:00&max-results=7&start=10&by-date=false

If you're ever up in The Highlands, we've 2 pairs on the Strathspey Railway. One pair of these are the signals at the south end of Aviemore station which gives access from NR onto the SR. They are operated by the ground frame, and so all the workings are easily visible from the station platform, the only difference from Mike's description being the pully is mounted on and operated by channel rodding rather than a baseplate pulled by wire.

We have a very similar layout at Boat of Garten on the Strathspey Railway, (except without the upper siding and associated crossover and the rhs crossover is trailing rather than facing). There the points from the Up Loop ( R to L in your diagram) to the yard are worked as a pair (ie. bottom and middle) whilst the main line (upper) points are a single.

Ok here goes. As Phil says above, the blue flashing lights is not, in itself, a permission to proceed. It's probably better to explain from the point of view of a driver, as a bystander will not see anything other than the blue light start to flash. When the train is ready to leave a token exchange point (usually, but not always, a station) the driver will call the signalling centre by voice over the radio, and request a token. If the signalman is able to release a token, he will confirm this and both driver and signalman will press a button on their panels simultaneously. The signalling centre computer will send a piece of digital code over the radio to the cab-based unit. This will show on the cab unit display as the name of the section. It is this display that is the permission to proceed. At the same time the signalling centre will also send a signal to deactivate the TPWS units, and change the blue light from steady to flashing. When the train reaches the next token exchange point, the same process is carried out, except that the first simultaneous button press returns the computer code from the train cab unit to the signalling centre and the name of the section will disappear from the cab unit display. A bystander on the platform won't see any of this, unless you manage to position yourself where you can see into the cab, but at some locations, certainly at Mallaig, the voice calls and data transmission can be heard from one of the trackside cabinets (why I don't know). Hope that helps.

Of course the 91 was at the north end. I'd forgotten about the reversal at Leeds - it was a long time ago!

Thanks very much. That was going to be my next question. So I don't need to fit buffers to my TGS. Do you have actual coach numbers by any chance?

Thanks for the link to James Makin's Workbench link Jo, that seems to be the ideal solution, enabling the fitting of buffer beam pipework. I don't envisage any propelling being done in this configuration, so I will just have to be careful to match the 91 to the 31 on their DCC speed profile. Thanks

I have recently received the Hornby 91 and the unpowered 43 DVT. With an Accurascale 31, I intend to model the train as here... https://flic.kr/p/2mHWzLa Although the 91 has a front coupling, the 43 does not. Has anybody else modelled this train? Have you managed a front coupling on the 43? Is it as simple as getting a rear bogie - with the coupling arm - and putting it on the front? Thanks

Thanks to all who replied. I've managed to track down another couple of photos on Flikr, although these are of 31 drags on diversions at the southern end of the ECML. Was the formation of the coaching stock a standard HST (although with a buffered TGS)? Something like... 91/TGS/4xTS/TRUB/2xTF/43

Thanks very much. Nice photos, just what I was looking for. Was there a need for loco haulage when the HST end was leading, other than just to get the loco to where it was needed to haul the return with the 91 leading?

A long time ago now, I was studying in Leeds. It was the time when the 25kV wires had been put up as far as Doncaster on the ECML, and through to Leeds, but the Aire Valley and Harrogate routes where still un-wired, and even still had AB with semaphore signals. The trains were at this time formed of the HST/91 hybrids, with the buffer-fitted HST powercar at one end, a HST rake of Mk3s and a Cl91 at the London end. I remember ocassionally seeing the Bradford trains along the Aire Valley around Kirkstall in Leeds, they were hauled by a often very grubby class 31, even when the HST end was leading. I heard/read that this was because the batteries on the 91 were not up to the job of completely powering up the 91 away from the 25kV, and presumably even when the HST end could be doing the driving, the 31 still had to get there to haul the train back. Does anybody have any details of which 31s were used for this job, are there any photos out there? Thanks