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A very good description of operations there, I thought i’d chuck an anomaly into the mix…. Crept up on me in complete surprise.. but I thought it worth a second look later.. Round the corner at South Merton. I know its not EMUs but if you want to see how 66’s handle the wall of death, and engineers on the Wimbledon-Sutton line I put a video up here… includes the “milk” crossover at St Helier..

Interesting insight. I wonder, where did the last lot decamp to, 2 and a half years ago ? And if you think they were that bad, does it not concern you ? Iirc About 2.5 years ago another much larger, lucrative railway project started.

Sure., its a random quote off the internet. i’m sure the argument could be spun in favour of, or against wfh, but it is what it is, and I suspect If I was to repeat that exercise now I suspect it probably wont have changed much since either. If you abstract from that.., in an everyday office the apps people use, things like Payroll, HR, Tech Support, intranet Portals, ERP systems, Email, Admin suites, Messaging tools etc… its hardly as if your going suddenly use them more or less just because of Covid.. only so many times you can read a payslip or open the same spreadsheet… its how you access them that changed. Servers certainly continued as before. Typical functions like Tech Support can be done remote as easy as local, and the volume flows are not dictated by the employee but the user demands of that service. Deadlines for monthly reports dont change because your at home.. Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Legal all those functions continue.. the 31st is still the 31st. The big change would be telco connectivity to reach that IT infrastructure… 5g, Broadband etc, and security (people using less well controlled networks) as they logged in from home, coffee shop rather than an office… supporting IT was considered one of essential worker categories. Of course this ignores manual jobs.. you cannot operate a metal press at home, or drive a taxi from your garden… And of course the army of Food Service employees who suddenly lost high street employment and had to adapt to home delivery instead. and grapple to keep on topic… my last day of watching trains before lockdown hit was watching the 33’s on the 4TC to Swanage… but I turned the camera on the regular units, not thinking that in 2 years some of these would be gone… This is Merton Hall Road footbridge, South of Wimbledon station, this bridge is one of my more frequented locations.. All March 2020.. The next time I came here was in June 2020 to see a 701 being delivered to Wimbledon, and I never thought 2 years later it still wouldn't be in service.. Appalling weather… this gantry seems to be here for time immemorial… ive seen a 1955 picture of the Bulleid diesels passing this gantry from Merton Hall bridge.. Its probably been there much longer I just cannot find older images, I wonder how long its been there ? (1964 image from a flickr url below, not mine).

but it is purple.. and that seems to be the rage these days. 😀

Two 31’s carried research livery.. 97203 didnt last long however and was replaced by 97204 Ive a picture of 97203 on the scrap line at Crewe shortly after catching fire. Dont forget 31413 Severn Valley Railway in this list. The ice cream van as it was dubbed was a regular duff 31 on the Blackpool, Southport and Barrows for a few years. D5583 Stratford Major Depot was another popular celebrity on the circuit…. And 31116, but lets not go there..

Is it just me thinking the missed oppourtunity here was a Class 345 for the Elizabeth line ?

Personally I think trains should run through London…. Theres no reason Dover to Manchester, Brighton to Bristol etc could not have been a thing. Thats what the golden oppourtunity I think was missed with HS2. Instead of underground palaces at Euston a network of north - south, East - West tunnels with junctions to connecting to major lines. At a minimum Farringdon could have had a XR southbound spur to TL and designed HS2 to be able to use it for through London and beyond services Theres not a lot in HS2 for dwellers of South, East and North London, which doesn't bode much for encouraging business northwards..even OOC hasn't got connections for those regions… I already highlighted the XR is a PAYG risk heading southwards, with 1 zone less at OC and the shorter timelimit / longer journey that risk increases. As it is, XR is a 1990’s era Hong Kong style metro-tubeline.

8 years around Chester, 8 years around Central wales… 3 years in Barry.. 52 years in Devon… i’m feeling confident its spent most of its life in the south west. Just as much as I am believing 7808 has spent most of its time in the dark in Didcot. Some of us, model what we see, but from a different generation…, last time I saw a Manor on the mainline in central wales it had a Green std 4 with it.. History cannot stop in 1965, otherwise there wont be a future. you get this… (One on the left driven by an ex-Swindon employee too). i’m young enough to have many memories in this building as a railway works, but the Manor was on the mainline at the time, rather than a coffee shop… Nice as it is, I prefer to model the top image, not the bottom one of 7819. is that bad, should I cancel, give up and not bother as its outside the boundaries of allowed time ?.. if so why is anything preserved ?.. the creative side of me says cut the boiler, fit glass tubes and pour multi-coloured cocktails through them, served out of the vaccuum pipe into a glass, selecting your drink by pressing the buffers… and have the smokebox door darts as a clock…blow the whistle when the drinks ready, I bet that would appeal to a generation too.

Yes, yes yes, omg yes… Say what ? In the spirit of chivalry, I’ll pass on mine and let someone else have it.

So this borderline my day job so i’ll post carefully. I work in software that monitors several 10ks of thousands of servers in Data Centres, Colos, Cloud etc, globally, for dozens of companies, in dozens of countries in all manner of industries. That IT can be physical, virtual or cloud. In April 2020 I was fascinated to see if there was any trends before and after lockdown. So at high level analysis of that entirety I was expecting to see wild swings, with some IT trending up, others crashing down and wild variations of daily usage. The expectation was a white paper for marketing and publication. I compared it against December, February, March. The sad conclusion was nothing happened. IT continued as it did before. There was a slight spike on Sunday evenings, a slight down on friday afternoons. Compute, Network, Storage etc were unaffected. I did try some macros (Geographies, Days of week, industry sectors even applications themselves). In short IT continued as normal at the workplace, but maybe people knocked off early in a friday and checked mails on a sunday. Certainly there would be trends in domestic network traffic, home entertainment networks, home delivery companies etc, but the average workplace was largely unaffected. Sadly our company saw no value in a document that says nothing happened, so I remain anonymous and the desert island has to wait., but the analysis definitely exists to back it up. I would argue I have access to one of the larger non-biased, vendor neutral data sets from a panopoly selection of IT, geography and industry selections out there, that is purposed design to track such usage. It was however a great icebreaker in opening new customer conversations, so it was valuable to me. now to just ever so slightly keep this thread relevent… here is a lockdown, socially distanced forest walk near Merstham tunnel at Hooley… an empty 700 making a 4 car 377 look small. That drain pipe is a secret weapon aiming to plop an innocent passing 700 and another 700 saying boo to the M25… and a 455 wonders “Are we are related ?” Looking at the 73 next to it..South Croydon. 73 is on the SO regular 1Q69 Tonbridge to Derby via South Croydon and onwards via a magical mystery tour of Surrey that takes about 3 hours to reach Victoria or Kensington from South Croydon. Various dates June 2020.

I used it for a work trip to Bristol last week, out bound from Sutton is easy enough, TL to Farringdon and XR to Paddington, elapsed time exactly 1 hour. Going back the other way, XR to Farringdon, just missed the TL, 30 min wait, + 50 mins.. your getting closer to Oystercard/PAYG time limits… instead I went to LBG and SR to Sutton, but again your running closer to the clock with elapsed time… if the connections were late you could be running into ding’s.

Totally missed the target. Do you think more passengers would have travelled, if it had stopped at more stations ? Running an express Metro to Sutton, on a sunday, that ignores Battersea Park, Wandsworth Town, Balham, Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction and Hackbridge… or inversely, from Victoria, only stopped at Clapham, Carshalton before terminating at Sutton, all day long… every 20 mins or so was a good use of resources ? especially when Thameslink wasnt working either reducing some of those stations to a 30 minute service, and the wimbledon loop saw no service at all… whilst the “express” spent 5-7 minutes waiting at Carshalton or settled for a very sedate trundle around the burbs with a scenic stop at Streatham N jn incline to waiting for time to catch up to its planned departure. You can run a train to schedule, but if it doesnt stop to pick up passengers, you shouldn't be surprised if its empty, when it arrives.

Very short duration between stations, climb up to each station, followed by a decline on the other side. Big open spaces, though it feels like it needs something to distract you. LHR T123 Hex platforms have similar vast long corridors underground. view from the tunnel at speed… wot no driver..? old taxi concourse at Paddington.

Sadly I remember that. Thing is if they wanted that model, they now have the rest of their ownership of it to proudly look at that fault and say “I didnt do anything about that”. If the intention was to delibrately spite a comissioner its actually the wrong way to do it, as many will have already purchased and the sale is complete. Pointing out the error earlier is better as its harder for the manufacturer to ignore it, as to do so, risks attention forever being drawn to it once its uncovered. If all parties treat an EP as aired dirty linen, but accept it is that and report/know its flaws inpassionately, we all benefit down the road if its resolved in the end product. I accept some manufacturers have more care and passion than others, and tbh in our little hobby, I think they seem to be doing better than those who are less so.. but it is a symbiotic relationship. At the end of the day, we are the ones buying and looking at it for the long term, so its only us that benefits an accurate model. we seem to be a long way from Manors.. to drag it back to Dapols specifically… Ive got the 61xx and the 2-6-0, and i’m happy with both (ok one had a pony wheel niggle), Ive spoken with the Dapol guys and felt their passion, indeed they did even go as far as following up a suggestion made on the 2-6-0 some 3 years ago, and ive seen it in the model. Ive full confidence in their model. Ive equally the same in the Accurascale one too, for much the same reasons… but I do wish both companies had gone for more “celebs” of the class.. they both missed this, but no reason they cant come later. So.. anyways Dapol is doing, 7827.. a bit of a shy Manor, most of its time in the deep south west, it has escaped once however…to visit an equally reticent shed queen..7808, which Accurascale is doing. (GWR 175 at Didcot in May 2010). So this line up of the shy ones is one line up you could create*. *with a little bit of extra work

My guess originally was maybe the recess is still there behind the panel, and I was further guessing the reason the footstep is rectangular not curved is because it is part of the original light recess.. But a lot can happen in 20 years. Would be interesting to know if anyones been there and looked around it, quirky piece of history. Apparently it was a flashing light, not fixed, which to me suggests it was about being seen, not to enable the driver to see.. I could imagine a flashing light being a bit annoying myself. I have some GM E8’s and noted their headlights are oscillating mars lights in one housing and rotated, on arrival and departure from stations, crossings etc (as well as a fixed headlight and with a bell also…) and seems to be what prototype Deltic was trying to emulate. I wonder if this was the intention ? if so, its a major safety feature that was just missed being discovered (a fixed headlight) and had to wait over a decade to be discovered… a-bit like 18000’s orange line, and the full yellow cabbed Blue 73’s/Blue Pullmans in the late 1960’s and didnt all combine until the late 1970’s with 56036/84

tactic admission that we cant afford life as it used to be, before Austerity, Brexit and Covid, despite the likelihood that all that debt will be shovelled off into multi-decades of long term finance.. short and medium term we are still broke too. However waste is still among us… I just returned home today on a Victoria to Sutton express… 10 coaches. (2x class 377/7)… 2 stops.. Clapham and Carshalton… empty train, wizzed past Balham, both Mitchams and Hackbridge… no wonder I had a full 5 car set entirely to myself, and perhaps a handful in the other set. I have to wonder what was behind this regular express service today, not that i’m complaining, it was running well early, but cant be good for revenue skipping out most of the stops on a short shuttle like this. some pictures of Sutton..not today. Wall of Death to the right… 1 in 44.. and a 90 degree curve thrown in. For the Ghost in the machine thread, just behind the 377 at ground level is a concrete LBSC sign proclaiming Portsmouth to the left and Sidings to the right… the sidings long since removed in the 1930’s for the construction of the Wimbledon line. It was uncovered during recent tree cutting. Theres another one at the junction of the wimbledon and sutton lines at Streatham South jn

I wonder why they didnt just fit the headlight in the original recess, and make it authentic ? Has the void behind been re-used ?

Can the 456’s come back ?

Front end mods (gangway removal), new lights, led destination display on one side etc (The typical York unit frontend that evolved into classes 150/ 317/318/455, plus 210/316/457 prototypes). you can see similarities and evolution here… pep and with headcode panel space cleanedup roof.. which propogated… i’m surprised Bachmann hasnt taken advantage of its class 150/2 tooling ….

Its kind of hiding in plain sight for many years, see the panel around the footstep here in 1987 at Crewe (not my image), which it had all its life until the 1990’s. (Flickr url not mine). Since its gone mainline I guess that bit of history is gone now with the modern headlight in its place. fyi you dont need to check the AS model of 022… its got the panel 🙂.. but a model in the future with that original light, and as preserved above in the 1980’s (with its 37 bogies) would be nice too someday.

Nah its top left, but after they lifted it off the ship went off balance.

D9000 was built with a headlight, and removed very early on. http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/0363.htm no doubting the fuel tank colour on this one either.. http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/0355.htm Headlights were common throughout Europe, and much of the rest of the world, not sure why we took so long.

Governments / Billionaires do. They refinance it at differing points to repay the expiring loan by funding it from a new one, thus deferring the overall repayment, until its original value is inflated away. Finance makes its money of the accuring interest, which is invariably inflation backed. In laymans terms… Its a bit like buy to let mortgages.. the property is technically yours, your repaying nothing but interest, and at the end of it you reset with a new loan, or sell the property in the mean time in order to pay off the loan… presumably in between your making money off the rental income, and inflation makes the repayment amount much more trivial than when you started. thats how billionaires fund their lifestyles tax free when taking no salary.. they are borrowing/ financing off their future unvested stock options etc. Now substitute a property in the above scenario for warehouse stock, machinery, luxury yacht, company stock options, fine art, vineyards, even the value of existing loan agreements themselves can be traded (2008 Mortgage crisis anyone ??) etc etc… iirc didnt the Glazers use Man Utds own assets as a security of funds to buy the club itself, and thus didnt spend their own money to buy it ? I’d imagine the government will do this with all its covid debts, however 2-3 years of very high inflation would immediately reduce that initial debts long term value, before you goto the banks for longer term financing… convenient that isn't it ? No inference Hornby is doing this in their org, ive no idea what they are doing, but just responding to the suggestion that infinite borrowing isn’t possible… it is and potentially a lucrative route for funding too…

4 more class 455’s off to Newport next week, Monday and Wednesday 1038 off Stewarts Lane. Monday https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:K03592/2022-05-30/detailed Wednesday https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:K03592/2022-06-01/detailed

I seem to recall them being blue but dirty. The inside grill wasnt always scrubbed as much as the body side in the carriage wash, and it seemed to be dirt more than anything else. if you zoom on the next image, you can see the dirt accumulating on the insets of the grill, and it sits in shadow, but its blue. As a kid I used to often darken the grills on my Lima 37’s and 31’s, it made them look better, but it should be blue, however my reason for doing it was Limas paint didnt always cover the grill and it showed up plastic yellow ! Flickr url / not mine. Of 37043. I did look through my own images, none of 043, but pulled this one of 37418, and you can see here its definitely dirty, building up from the bottom, but blue… (taken in 1987, not perfect but I was a kid) By comparison this full shot also in 1987 of 37418 it looks black from a distance. (not mine/flickr url), (as an aside I dont recall air con stock at Kyle that often).