Holmesfeldian

Va-va-voom! https://youtu.be/DLulQjtCUxA

One former BR loco engineer said to me that BR were very kind to the Class 40 - they were in effect a Type 3 and a half in all but name! (and 40s are my favourite class before anyone has a go!)

Are you sure you don't mean the building on the far left of this picture ?.... https://flic.kr/p/gw3nfs

DP2 was a thing It existed DP1 was not a thing It never existed. There was a DELTIC The End

Proposed but never built DMUs in 1959 : Diesel Inspection Saloon Unknown vehicles General Manager's Inspection Coach Could be a good little conversion project for someone.

North British only having Imperial spanners and being one strep away from being blacksmiths probably didn’t help with the reliability of precision metric German equipment built under licence.

Mine hasn’t been out of the brown box. I opened it very carefully to make sure it was in there. Then carefully closed it again. One day my layout WILL be built. One day.

Class 38 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11038519 Class 48 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11038520 Class 88 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11038518

My parents were on a "disco train" c1975 which was chartered by Sheffield Round Table for an evening jolly to Cleethorpes and back. They have the ticket somewhere in a scrapbook - I'll try to find it.

It was director John Schlesinger (who had a cameo as a city gent earlier in the film) who asked a family member if he could "borrow" her son Matthew for this scene. She hid from Matthew during filming so the tears were real.

If you want to know about TOPS, I uploaded the 1974 British Transport Film explaining the subject to youtube about a year ago..

With the peaks I always found it strange that random 45s were ETH fitted (as and when works overhauls came up) rather than just the entire Class 46 series (plus you got 6 extra ETH fitted machines!). Perhaps even in the early 1970s the 45s were deemed to be "better" machines. Anecdotal evidence suggests Crompton Parkinson electrics was more highly regarded than Brush. Toton and Tinsley had 47 experience so maintenance shouldn't have been that much of an issue.

Warships and Westerns carried them also

47601 was renumbered 47901 because its power plant was changed from the class 56 prototype to the class 58.

r The inspector in the middle was seen in the cab in the Blue Pullman film.

With wraparound windows !!!!!

Seeing as we're having a brief diversion into pairs of D800s in the West of England, British Transport Films had this to say in 1968 for their Ninth Rail Report - "Top Levels of Transport".

Our company does metal cutting and milling on CNC machines and I'm happy to investigate the economics of producing new chassis blocks. We can cut steel and phosphor bronze quite easily and are our regular materials. I note on the interweb that the density of mazak is roughly 6.6 g/cm3 whereas steel is 7.8/cm3, brass is 8.5g/cm3 and phosphor bronze is 8.8gcm/3 I would imagine phosphor bronze would more desirable due to its higher density but steel or brass would obviously be cheaper to buy If someone can supply a CAD drawing of the Hornby chassis block (or a pattern) - or even an accurate dimension drawing, I can cost the production to see if it's economical to offer high quality CNC engineered replacement blocks. Clearly the more produced, the cheaper the uint cost. Would there be a demand for this (and other affected loco types if successful) ? And are the Hornby chassis blocks the same for super detailed and RR models ?

After several years hoping for a quality RTR Co-Bo model to be produced I have held off buying these as my (still unbuilt!) Derbyshire Peak District based layout would require models featuring the original wraparound windows - and I would buy 3 or 4 of them ! I even asked the chap at Extreme Etchings if there was a case for him to produce a "de-furbishment" modification pack but he suggested it would be too difficult because of the curves in the design. Would there be any interest in crowd-funding a new bodyshell ? As an aside, I was always under the impression that the window mods were part of the major rebuilds c.1961, but there are pictures of class members in store at Trafford Park shed awaiting works entry (in all over green) all having the revised window design which I found to be a revelation (see separate Trafford Park MPD diesels thread for links)

Here is correspondence I had with a certain individual whilst working on the Co-Bo World website in 2005... "During my last few months working in the BRB Procurement Department, as well as reviewing a file about sending Claytons to Cuba in exchange for their class 47 clones I also reviewed one about the purchase of twenty diesel engines from English Electric - for re-engining the Metro-Vick Co-Bos! These engines were actually purchased, but instead of being used for the class 28s they were used to re-engine the first twenty Brush type 2s to be converted from class 30s to 31s. For a file to have been in the BRB Procurement Dept records, the purchase must have been carried out by the British Railways Board, not the British Transport Commission. Consequently, because of the way the BRB worked, there would have been both Investment Committee and Supply Committee submissions seeking approval, initially for the investment in the engines and then for their purchase. BRB's investment procedures would have required - as part of the investment submission - a financial appraisal of the project, and this would have required a "pay-back" period for the investment. I believe, therefore, that at the time the replacement engines were purchased, a reasonable further life for the Co-Bos must have been anticipated - if it hadn't been, investment in replacement engines wouldn't have been forthcoming."

Geoffrey Freeman Allen wrote, "Whether it was in response to a BR specification or whether the builders off their own bat decided to go for a 50,000lb maximum tractive effort I can't discover. No other entrant in the Type B, mixed traffic category of BR's original 1955 Pilot Scheme had such starting punch. Despite the slight rating superiority of its original 1,250 hp Mirrlees engie, the Brush Type 2 could muster only 42,000lb. That high peak effort and its corollary of a continuous 25,000lb were the primary reason for the type's quaint, though not worldwide unique, arrangement of odd bogies. Only by resorting to five powered axles, with no idle wheels, could the designers achieve their target and at the same time keep the locomotive within BR's Type B parameters. The 97 ton Co-Bo was in fact markedly lighter than the 104 ton Brush effort. Another distinguishing feature of the high tractive effort was the small diameter of its wheels - 3ft 3.5" against a Brush Type 2's 3ft 7". BR invited the Co-Bo's candidacy in the Pilot Scheme chiefly to evaluate a two-stroke diesel engine against the four stroke models adopted for all the other types. Theoretically, a two-stroke promised higher output per pound of engine weight because in the two-stroke cycle, each cylinder generates power at every revolution of its crankshaft, whereas in a four-stroke, the power comes from alternate revolutions. The difference also minimises temperature variations within a two-stroke engine's cylinders. The two-stroke also dispenses with cylinder head valves and their operating gear, but on the other hand, the means by which a two-stoke "scavenges", or scours the burnt gasses of each ignition from a cylinder by injected air fom a blower are less efficient than the processes in a four-stroke cycle. On the face of it, the Crossley HSTVee 8 cylinder power unit looked an engagingly simple alternative to four-stroke engines. The power on offer from each of its eight cylinders was high, yet was obtained without turbo-charging or the many other mechanical complications of four-stroke engines. This itself was the source of much mechanical problems in traffic. Spring metal air inlet 'reed' valves were a constant source of problems as the brittle metal soon shattered under load.

Class 24s were used on the ConDor train from Aston in Birmingham to Glasgow

Hmm... Works okay for me...

http://www.oliviastrains.com/wp-content/files_mf/147999057732515A1.jpg

I cant help with the 101s but I presume you are aware of Bachmann's RTR Derby Lightweight with Hayfield blinds on one end.