BernardTPM

Mind you, the 'Duke' was a strange pub with all the charisma of a housing advice centre. That just leaves 'The Queens' and, right down on the corner with Barking Road, the superb Edwardian 'gin palace' 'The Boleyn'. I would imagine the football crowds will keep those two going, at least until West Ham move to the Olympic stadium. 'The White Hart' building survived (survives?), but was a restaurant (and had been for some time) when I left.

Plashet Grove runs from Green Street (Duke of Edinburgh) to High Street North (Burnell Arms), crossing Katherine Road at the Green Man. Katherine Road (going South) then crosses over the railway, but not the yard or its entrance, though it's not far from it at that point. - note only the 'Duke' pub is still standing (or was in early 2013).

There's an interesting set of shots of a derailment of a coal train in 1978, starting here. The footbridge over the Tilbury and District lines I was referring to is visible in the last three shots from here. Ah, this is what I was really looking for - a picture showing the short headshunt adjacent to the main line.

Shouldn't you be using extruded aluminium?

I remember this yard quite well and, until early last year, would often walk by the site. I'm not 100% sure but I think it kept one of the old ER blue and white enamelled signs to the end, though with later Corporate BR style ones too. When I first moved to the area (1959) the line was still steam operated and though I remember little of the pre-electric passenger trains I do have distant memories of largish tank locos using the connection to this yard (there's a handy footbridge round the back of Upton Park station). The road entrance was in Grangewood Street.

How about supplying it ready connected in a long box (with a broom handle in to make sure it won't bend)? An N gauge one wouldn't need such a long box, of course

While below the footplate the Tri-ang 'model' is a work of fiction, the bodywork is a fair representation of a late 1950s Bagnall, similar to the one here.

Nicely done! (Far too) many years ago I started doing one of these up, though as the insulated van variant. The new wooden underframe was from some old 3H LNER underframe mouldings, but the project stalled when I got into N gauge. Recently I've finished it off as an old grounded body, though it still need painting and weathering:

A few retained aluminium on the window frames, though not many. I did have a list of the minutiae of NSE loco-hauled coaches compiled from either clear magazine and book photos or my own observations. Unfortunately I suspect this was lost in the move, though there are a couple of boxes of unsorted paperwork that was fairly randomly grabbed on the day.

Thanks for posting these fascinating old photos. What they may lack in technical excellence is more than made up for in the subject matter; not just the locos but the peripheral period detail too.

The majority of NSE coaches were in the light blue, even after darker blue was being used on EMUs/DMUs, particularly on the West of England sets.

I've made* Mk.2 BFK interiors using the seats from the old Graham Farish corridor coaches. On early versions it was really easy to splice the seating up as the corridor partition was moulded separately; later they reworked it as a one-piece moulding, which is not so good. The corridor partitions on Mk.2 shell BFKs (& FKs other than the very early Mk.2, the ones with the different sliding vents) had deep glass windows so I made the whole thing from clear styrene, ruling the 'aluminium' lines with one of those silver fine line marker pens and colouring the lower parts from the reverse in black and 'wood' (just a buff colour), though the NSE ones were recoloured, the partitions gaining 'Edward Pond' murals. There are several good shots in that flickr set.The guard's compartment and luggage cages are the same for BSO & BFK. * back in the late 1980s!

They'd be further apart still if they were P4 As a P.S., here's a link to a blog with a picture I took of various British made plastic figures by Merit, Triang (Railways & Model Land), Hornby Dublo and Subbuteo. Incidentally, the latter also made some rather good models of photographers, various TV O.B., policemen, including an officer mounted on a horse and a police motorcyclist without a motorcycle, and St. John ambulance men as well; perhaps a bit specialist, but maybe useful for a cameo. Thanks to Oxford the St. John figures now have a suitable Bedford Ambulance!

1. Two of the Dapol figure sets (C008 Station Figures and C002 Railway Workmen) are based on the Airfix 1979/80 figure sets, though they are new tools with detail differences in the sculpting and, in a few cases, minor details of the poses. 2. The third set C012 Station Accessories is the old Airfix set from around 1960, however these are H0 and towards the small side of H0 at that, so best avoided (unless you model British H0!). 3. Have a look at the earlier thread starting here . Not all are plastic, but most figures that have been produced do get a mention in it. Note Bachmann have listed a promised 1940s/50s Station Staff (ref: 36-404) for some years, but they're still awaited. They also list 1960s/70s Standing Passengers (ref: 36-402). No pictures of either yet and the latter may be too modern for you. They have done a dinky set of Trainspotters though 36-401.

Good to see how well it's all come out in the end, Colin. Not only are the sides more accurate, the consistency in both size and glazing with the 4-SUB must be most satisfying.

The AW roof fan bosses are quie distinctive, being a streamlined cone shape as on an aircraft propeller. The best shots of the roof fans and grilles in the Brian Webb book are on pages 19, 103 & 108. None are actually D9, but they are, in various respects, similar. You're right there!

It's just an old whitemetal Westward kit, Colin, nothing special, made some years before the EFE version and VERY heavy. There was a fair bit of added detail and the rear was reworked to an Elite III instead of II. Mounting the glazing that way had two benefits to the standard inside mounting: the real things were more or less flush, the rubber beading holding the glass about level with the curved sides; also by painting the rubber beading round the edge of the glazing to hide the glue the width of the pillars was effectively reduced. The polycarbonate film was originally used as a form of cheap double glazing, so when this was replaced with 'proper' secondary glazing frames I saved a lot of it, but I can't seem to get it thinner than 10 thou." these days and that would stand out too far for this method. PC is very clear and much more scratch resistant than clear styrene. You can scribe it though and I did that for the sliding driver's window on the offside, running silver paint between the scribed lines.

The side glazing I put on this old Westward Plaxton coach kit was 5 thou." Polycarbonate boiled round a can (may have done it by filling the can with boiling water, it was done a long time ago). That wouldn't otherwise stay curved. No crazing or fogging. The windscreen came with the kit and isn't quite as clear.

Very strange, the way Farish managed to get the wrong bogie centres on the Cl.87. The really strange thing was that the original batch of Class 90s (which shared & still shares almost all the same mechanics*) were actually correct. I based my old Cl.87 kit on using the original Cl.90 chassis only to have Farish release theirs a few months later - I assumed they would produce a Cl.86, the biggest class of AC electrics with many more livery variants (especially at the time) and a wider geographical spread. Then I found out that the Cl.87 chassis wouldn't fit my 87 kit - the coupling boxes clashed with the bufferbeams. Very odd. It was a while later that I found out that the Cl.87 bogie pivots (the adjustable part) were being assembled the other way round. In those days the Poole version of the chassis had a Tomix style spring/worm drive so it was simply a matter of loosening the chassis blocks, turning the pivot pin round, pulling the bogies inwards on the springs, tighten up and job done. Unfortunately the 'wrong' centres then seem to have been adopted as standard for the revised Farish by Bachmann versions so the simple correction was no longer possible because of the new solid driveshafts. The error also explains why the fairings on the Cl.90 no longer line up correctly. * cosmetic changes, of course, to bogies and underside detail.

I got the postcard set for these and the 321s at Collectors Corner (Euston) about two dozen years ago. Think they were about £ or two a box. Happy times!

Phew Colin, there isn't a button for 'big sigh of relief'! Good job they hand a proper cantrail rainstrip though.

You're doing a great job, Jason. I learned a lot about these locos as I was designing my own variations, including this little exercise. The Brian Webb book was a very useful source as were pictures of some of the preserved locos. Though these are mainly shunters you can see there was a lot of similarity in the components.

Pretty good representation of the radiator elements, though there were no diagonals visible; on the drawing they may represent something behind the visible parts. Incidentally, the steps/handholds are little pull-down affairs. If you look carefully, they can be seen in the folded out position in this photo.

I see the front of the new Transit appears to be a tribute to the 'pig snout' of the original diesel/V6 version!

Ironically it's NOT a Leyland National!