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Only during their withdrawal period, to say i’d been there and done it. I think they were chalk and cheese though, some were refurb, others less so. After Horwich stopped overhauling them.., who overhauled them ?

as 50’s retreated from Oxfords, and 159’s took over Waterloo, displaced NSE mk2’s moved up to Manchester for Holyhead, Southport, Blackpool and Barrow workings, initially to cover for 156’s which were reclaimed to cover for 155 failures, later conversions... and that the followed by 158 introduction issues. Additionally pacers required door mods and gearbox issues. Initially some had the NSE red band replaced with blue, later some were repainted to Regional Railways (and the Scotrail Regional Railways equivalent) as the temporary six week summer season turned into 4-5 years continuous operation... it was possible to see 3 liveries on a 4 coach train often. The service started out with non-eth 31’s (Railfreight 31/1’s), and a varied mix of 47’s, that turned to Mainline Tinsley 37/4’s, inc 37408 in large logo blue. (above) 31144 arrived from the coast, you can see the rear of 31248’s train (below) on the other platform. After winter Dutch 31’s started to appear, they turned to 31/5’s but made no difference. As the winter drew in again 31/4’s appeared, and in early 1992 31410/21/439 made an appearance with Regional Railways stock. 31415 Other regular 31’s included 31400/5/8/413/423/465/8 They lasted a couple of years but were knackered, so bad at one point 4 coach trains ran with two 31’s on.. and they’d return to Manchester with a different pair, often dragged back by a Springs Branch 60. They had a nickname of Toilets (Thirty One, Inside Loco, Expect Trouble) as invariably it was the inner one that blew up, making a return journey more difficult as it was wrong way around. Following that Tinsley 37/4’s returned to do the job properly, and several ended up in Regional Railways livery, with the now Regional Railways stock. Manchester regulars included 37415/7/8/9/21/22 and by far the most prolific regular was 37430 Cwmbran... which was an almost guaranteed daily sighting. if only BR knew what was going to happen, they could have sent the class 50’s with those mk2’s... NSE stock also ended up at Inverness for Wick / Kyle services with 37/4’s, some repainted Green/Cream and named after a clan. I remember taking an 8am Blackpool to Manchester with 37430 and NSE mk2’s, taking a tram to Bury to then ride behind 50008/15 also on a rake of NSE mk2’s at The ELR... it was hard to tell the difference between preservation and reality in Lancashire in 1992/3, as it occasionally felt like the speed limits were similar too in them days.

I’m not sure which were in worse condition, the class 503’s were rotten... I mean lean against the body side you’d leave a dent, and you could scratch a hole through the window frames with your fingers. Whilst riding you’d be bounced about, but with hard landings. Manky seating, rotten wooden interior, windows ready to fall out. not my picture (flickr) I think the 1938 stock today, after 3 decades on the IOW, rough as it is, is today still in much better condition than the 503’s were 4 decades ago when withdrawn. I assume the outcome of this report, was after an official visited Liverpool from Ryde, laughed, returned home, complained and then filed for a refund of the report ?

I’m somewhat au-fait with it too, in 1992 I was working with RES at Ryedale House in Euston, above Platform 1, translating rail delays, their reasoning, and fault & resolution as RES was one of the earlier business sectors to have to pay for delays, in this case to Royal Mail for delayed trains. Overall the biggest causation was vandalism related. One brick through a loco window, could delay a dozen mail / parcels trains nationwide in a night, and not only require a rescue loco, but multiple relief locos, sometimes for a week, as consequence of being out of place/time and extra movements to recover... locos which the sectors didnt have enough of... the sharing of once pooled BR fleets using mixed usage diagrams meant dedicated sectors no longer had enough locos to reliably operate their fleets with contingency. I recall in my report one such example, where a delay to a parcels train near Bristol lead to an extra train the next day in Scotland.

if you notice their it’s collector shoe bars have been removed, presumably for gauging for this specific journey. Whilst taking gauging precautions, they neglected one aspect...I wonder if it managed to return from the shire’s with its builders plates still attached when it got back to London ?

there were exceptions... Intercity was always borrowing Parcels 47/86’s... Regional Railways was always nicking Engineers 31’s...* and of course class 20’s were still going to Skegness with Intercity mk1’s. Railfreight 90’s were not uncommon on passenger traffic, especially Manchester -Birmingham with mk2’s. Correspondingly Parcels was nicking Mainline liveried class 47’s. Crewe and Bescot being the usual culprits for sharing stuff out. After the 158’s came into Scotland, Scottish 47/4’s spread out nationwide, in turn setting some NSE 47/4’s loose to wider territories..., Intercity nicked those up north too. But agreed, by 1991 class 50’s in particular, were somewhat restrained in their voyages. * It wasnt all solid to sectors in 1991, the 31/5 fleet was created specifically to stop passenger companies robbing them in 1991... 47/9 (97/5)s happened earlier but still didnt stop it, indeed unions forced 97/5 to be renumbered back to 47/9 as drivers were claiming not to be trained in their use on passenger trains.

Ive a photo of 50008 in the up bay at Stafford having failed. It was there for at least a week, only time I ever saw that bay used. The final swing of the class 304s was at Stafford, dumped in the CE sidings before scrapping. The Mk1 bullion van used to be stored in the sidings south of the station too for many years. if you widen your scope a little, say Staafordshire: 1986-1996 you could feasibly fit (+ occasionals with excursions and test trains).. 08,20,D7672, 97201,31+(97203/4), 37, D200, 45106, 45112, D172, 47, 50 (Inc Blue,NSE, 50007/8/15/19/D400), 55, 56, 58, 59104, 60, 81, adb968021, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, Eurostar, HST. missing from this is a class 33.. I don't ever recall seeing one, but it surely must have happened. Of course 1986 just nudges class 25 in there too. Liveries including :Green, Blue ,L/L Blue, Intercity, Swallow, Mainline, Regional Railways, Midline, Provincial, Scotrail, Railfreight, Redstrip, Dutch, Engineers Grey, RTC, Technical Services, BRT, Yellow, Railfreight sectors, Parcels, Res, Police, Porterbrook, NSE, Virgin, Mainline, Transrail, EWS, Royal Mail , ARC and more. Didnt really note stafford for DMUs, but Pacers,150’s had been seen there, as had Royal Mail and Newspaper DPUs.. and of course class 304’s, 310.... If you stick with 1991, your options shrink... 08,20,31+(97204), 37, 47, 50007/D400, 56, 58, 59104,60, 86, 87, 90, HST. Liveries including :Green, Blue ,L/L Blue, LNWR Black, Intercity, Swallow, Mainline, Regional Railways, Provincial, Scotrail, Railfreight, Redstrip, Dutch, Engineers Grey, RTC, Railfreight sectors, Parcels, Res, NSE, though you get to keep ARC, with 59104’s Scottish journey in July 1991.

R3501 was announced in 2016 and looks like it was delivered September 2016.. its not that long ago. if its been lost, Its unfortunate, but i’m still not convinced making new is money well spent. People will happily buy multiple locos, but I’m not sure its not true on multiple rakes of coaches. If its lost, then buying up the cheap £5+ Mk4 intercity coaches may not be a bad idea to get some respray material and some modelling potential. Looking at how popular the LMS Coronation set looks to be, and at a higher price point, a set of LNER silver jubilee coaches may proffer greater rewards than mk4’s....The silver A4’s have all been done several times, and dont have coaches either. Maybe convince LNER to paint a “silver jubilee”.. silver / grey Azuma .. might look quite good if LNER one day decided to revisit its past. :-) Personally I think theres a vocal few that want new mk4’s, just like a vocal few want LBSC coaches for the myriad of LBSC terriers out there, but thats never been an issue selling Terriers, the Lima / Hornby National Power 59’s were lonely for 30 odd years, and their wagon is still yet to hit shelves. but anyway.

My rationale is the 225 set was done, done and thrice cooked, theres thousands of them out there.. if you want a “modern” train a rake of intercity mk4’s is as cheap as it gets.. you could have a rake of 9 mk4’s and a DVT for £100 second hand if you tried... everyone has got one. So if it were retooled, your sitting there thinking a nice new tooled rake of IC mk4’s and DVT would set you back £400.. and the residual value of the old is nil.. why bother get rid of the old at all ? - in which case why buy a new one ? GNER doesnt far that much better, it too is massively oversold. So that leaves East Coast, which wasnt that popular, followed by todays intensely popular LNER.... which I agree many will buy 1 set and probably only 1 set... so why not offee the LNER coaches off the current tooling and meet that residual demand ? Now forwards thinking to the future with GNWR could sit well with a GNWR class 90... the 90 is railroad, so the current tooling offers matching potential, as a “Bucket and Spade” set using the Blackpool destination..., add a stick of Rock and a model of Blackpool Tower this could be popular for kids, need no new tooling at all, and offer a modern budget trainset thats relevant to todays kids. If I had money to tool something up, I think theres better selling potential out there. I think existing tooling still has legs in my opinion, a new tooling wont fetch a higher resale value than new paint on the old tooling.

The coupling between the 91 and the last mk4 in the rake uses buffers, and as its always the last one before the loco it doesnt have a gangway end. The rest of the rake is without buffers (like HST mk3’s dont have buffers either). Hornby never tooled this variant, back in the late 1980’s. Personally I dont think the Hornby mk4 is all that bad. if you move the screw on steps onto the under frame, and fit a roco 40343 Kinematic NEM adapter used to allow the coupling to remain tight, but pivot on curves, the mk4 is quite acceptable, but to most people, as a budget coach I doubt many will complain if LNER ones were produced on the current tooling. If Hornby has a stash of spare cash sitting about personally i’d prefer some new post 2000 built EMUs or DMUs, like 175/180/185/Electrostar from todays railways over a new mk4 tooling.

R3501 is the only pack. if you want to make a 6 coach rake ( and still be minus the buffet) you need 3x R3501.. a cool £600+ just on coaches, leaving you 2x DVT and cl 91’s spare from that lot, unless you get lucky... I saw 1x VTEC mk4 sold ex-set for £85 once....

Fourth hint... A well known researcher tweeted his modelling weekend consisted of cutting the end off a mk4 and making it a buffered end coach using keen systems end moulding this weekend. oh I wish I knew where he found those VTEC Mk4 coaches though.. I badly need some of those ! double bluff or just a modeller doing some modelling ? - you have to take him at his word...Though it begs the question, why bother to do that, to the most valuable mk4’s out there, if you had the inside gen of making some newly tooled ones ? Hornby haven't announced mk4’s, until they announce them, i’m not expecting them. If I could find some VTEC mk4’s, sub £50 each, i’d be doing the same... the loco body alone, no motor sold for £60.. the sets selling over £200 s/h on ebay, you need at least 3 sets to make a half decent rake. if there was a mid-year announcement, a re-run of LNER mk4’s, maybe TfW, would still sell off the old tooling, with no new tooling cost to Hornby and will probably suffice to serve any current demand for mk4’s.

Depending on your project, an Electrotren Santurce or Barracaldo has a chassis almost equal spacing and size, at half the price.

becareful using blutac around glue... blutac wil react to and set it self to the plastic and the glue.. i learned the hard way fitting smokebox door knobs to a castle...only a miniscule amount (less than a dab at the end of cocktail stick) accidentally caught the tac, which was enough to set a 2mm blob of blue tac hard and rip off the paint finish of the door & removed the door handles too when removed... completely welded itself to the plastic, left indelible blue marks on the door.

No its a subtle rename, they are removing axles from one set of bogies and adding a lot of axles to the other.. Bo-Jo....

I had a class 68 that leaned to one side, easy fix... the bogie tower had a small (really tiny) piece of plastic wedged under it where the tower joins to the chassis body. blew it out, all was ok... a left over of its previous owner in my case. Ive had a Bachmann 66 withthe same symptons, in that case an-errant body screw had wedged itself between the Bogie tower and the chassis mount. so i’d suggest taking a look around the towers mounting points to the chassis and making sure it moves freely.

Another picture of the LMS tender on 42942 here, with a Blue & Grey mark 2... seems ELR wasnt the first time this combination was created after all. (images are from flickr) Though given how “clean” this is I doubted it lasted very long.

Besides initial delivery from EE in the 1960’s, the only class 73’s north of Birmingham until privatisation I can think of would be the Mersey rail 73/0’s. A 73 in Birmingham was a hugely rare even in itself. On the Midland and Eastern 73205 got around a bit with its rtc test train and ex-class 33 83301. This was Intercity livery. I dont recall seeing 73’s at BR opendays up north, might have happened.

I thought I had a 108 here, but I think its a 116... eitherway its a long way from Home in Bolton, only time I ever saw one in the North west, but it would be c1989... its all Blue, with a 101 centre car in it...

42942 got a bit of over enthusiastic cleaning, rubbing through its BR logo and revealing its LMS letters in 1967... https://www.anistr.com/media/1e073bb7-933a-450d-b9f3-7298e6795b09-steam-loco-crab-42942-goole on a tangent Horwich LYR 0-6-0’s ran around with BR logo, but LMS numbers... 11305 was one example, not to carry 51305.. but the cab side numbers were BR style.. https://railphotoprints.uk/p730306914/h88456AEB#h88456aeb

of that List Hornby would be the one with the highest population density reach.., beyond usual modellers.

Given the long lead times, would it be relevant when it arrives.

Apologies if already covered, but why the ship yard grey choice of livery anyway ? its hardly LNER standard and it wasnt a freight loco?

After prolonged tube repairs an extension could have been sought, this is an industry norm.. the “10 year” ticket is a myth in reality, many drop earlier, many have repairs to prolong etc... how many years did Tangmere run ?

Are you working saturday Dan ! I feel a call is overdue..