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I’m sorry but 700’s are dull as ditch water.. going to London on a grey morning and seeing a grey unit arrive, rammed end to end is not exciting at all. tbh the bland blue 701’s doesnt do much for me either…SWR will be duller without its vivid colours.

Carnforth Railway and Restoration engineering services lists 159 staff, in 2022 accounts. In the related party disclosures, it says “they handle all the payroll costs for other group companies”. it also operates a pension scheme (assets are independent of the company). I also note this business registered at Helifield station, has overdue accounts in companies house for this year, due December 31st 2023, and a First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off has been issued. all this is on companies house.

Careful on the assets ownership. A long time back I looked at this, theres a lot of companies here, I think the rolling stock, locos, steam fleet, engineering company and land are all different companies… even Steamtown as a company still exists, and separate businesses for Northern belle, and WHL ops. for example this company owns Galatea and FTW turntable according to its accounts… NORTH OF ENGLAND HISTORIC RAILWAY TRUST LIMITED Steamtown did c£2.7mn turnover, not bad for a museum that closed to the public 30 years ago… in the charges section it lists a mortgage for 57313/4/5/6 and another for 57601. Good luck finding who owns what… it all rolls up under 1 name. WILLIAM SMITH (WAKEFIELD) LIMITED £25mn turnover last year.

The now withdrawn exemption was a pretty accurate list of the serviceable fleet. https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-07/wcrc-regulation-5-exemption-certificate-for-wcrc.pdf I checked it against several coaches not seen for a while, for example Accurascales mk2bs etc and the mk2es which weren't listed as they have cdl… the mk2bs havent been seen in several years, so may be in the scrap lines. Reality is WCRC has a humungous amount of stock… way more than 130, perhaps 200.. But a lot of it is rot.. mk1 sleepers, lnw sleeper from steamtown days, RES PCVs used to be at Helifield, abandoned mk2es in Southall. Some has been stripped for scrap already in recent years. They also have the exempt mk2e rake which made a reappearance this year extra to that exemption list and which they can still and are using. Dissecting the now withdrawn exemption, you can pinpoint some oddities, which I suspect would never be viable for cdl, and so are probably never going to return back… 1. Queen of Scots consists of an LNW saloon, observation, GNR teak coach etc… these are all generically listed as “mk1’s…”… each would require bespoke conversions, air braking may never be an option etc… 2. Lakeland Pullman, these are the old Manchester Pullman mk2’s with unusual doors, again a bespoke solution. These coaches arent used very often either, so am unsure if they can return. 3. The others are the Metro Cammell mk1 pullmans, again non standard doors / fittings, though a lot has been spent on these… its a dilemma, VT has a couple also, including recently restored “Eagle”, they may not fit a standard cdl, but are too valuable to ignore. 4. two mk3 sleepers. Take that lot out of the 130 your down to.. 94.. truly mk1/mk2 coaches. of those 94 6 Catering 12 Brakes (one listed as support) 32 First (29 FO, 3 FK of which 2 are in FTW today now as FO conversions). 42 Second (39 SO, 3 SK). Then theres 9 passenger vehicles in the Northern Belle set, these include 325, 3247, 3275, 3267, 1953, 3273, 3174 in the now withdrawn exemption list… but at least enough have been cdl fitted to appear on the mainline in 2024. So brings us to circa 85 coaches… remaining for routine use… WHL uses 28, 14 (a 6x, 7x, 1 spare) and I understand mid summer are rotated for maintenace, tyre wear etc … so x2. various gen groups do support a July rake swap. So leaves 57.. enough for 5 rakes, not withstanding the met camm mk1’s often appear in standard rakes. the figure of 6 catering stands out, as not being very many, a quick look at my Platform 5 lists 15, inc some conversions, so I guess they are in other ways exempt. which ever way you slice it, they have the largest fleet of mainline registered rolling stock, and then largest fleet of spares stock.

not strictly true.. the Ivatt 2-6-0 was always loco drive. For some reason they just stopped making it in 1978. My guess is the new 0-6-0 motor mounting was too high for the Ivatt boiler, the tender too low for the ringfield, so ended up a short life span tooling.. B12 was another, this time a hang over from Triang which over lapped the tender drive revolution and move from x04 motors, but it came loco drive in Hornby boxes. Hornby were making loco drive models of the WC into the 1990’s… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334520739581 Exeter and https://www.hattons.co.uk/14709/hornby_r310_battle_of_britain_class_4_6_2_lord_beaverbrook_34054_in_br_green/stockdetail This iirc was made circa same year as the 8f. The 1980’s Rocket is another, but lets not go there… then theres others like Lord of the Isles, Caley Single etc… which date back to 1961 and still are the same tooling today, just with better profile wheels and motor..these reemerged during Rocket150 (1980) and GW150 (1985), and just recently. 8fs never been offered railroad status, though the latest one with the moulded smokebox handles gets close, even if the price does not. The 28xx is another one where it was never offered in railroad. my guess here is demand, the WD/9F geographically went much wider than the 8f. I suspect the LNER 0’s are similarly afflicted. The 9f is the oddity in heavy freight, the 1978 tooling lasted until 2020, starting and ending with Evening star. It had 4 makeovers, first to separate handrails, later to better chassis/rods, other tender options, then got a loco drive makeover… During this time it flip flopped between railroad and main range. Then bizarrely, the Crosti 9f appeared as railroad, ignoring all the above apart of the high sided railroad 9f tender… if they’d used one of the Brit superdetailed tenders they could pretty much have gone all the way.. and instead of then using the new railroad chassis on the standard railroad 9f.. they carried on as before until 2020… this left the railroad 9f as an outlier, I think the only entirely new “railroad” tooling. of course Hornby produced the opus magnum new full fat 9f.

I thought we werent supposed to name them… ^^^^^ 😀

There are other reasons legit ones didnt make it here.. Full pallet, full container, the factory could have over estimated their own failure rate and made too many, any number of honest reasons. But warehousing costs money, takes space.. 4 years is a long time to hang on..of course it could be a disagreement between the warehouse and the factory that saw them spill out… Theres hundreds of possible reasons, not all nefarious, but unfortunate. They will either soak up if theres a few, and dissappear, or there will be a price war if theres hundreds.. that i’m confident…. They arent high demand models, though i reckon the murphys ones will go first.

Tbh i’m for @maico suggestion. The thing I find odd is neither the Dapol model or the Murphys one have been made for quite some time. So for these two appear now, only has two options… 1. recently made 2. are years old from the last batch. ive struggled with why a factory would knowingly make more (option 1), it would destroy their relationship, not just with Dapol, but any other company that recognises that they made that product.?.Further why would Dapol hold back on naming and shaming the factory… This isnt the first time this sort of thing has happened, its happened at least a dozen, in different forms in different countries models… though most times the box changes, if there is a box. So I go back to old stock… but couldnt reconcile pallets of “hundreds” hanging around for years… warehouses cost money. But the thought of a few dozen assorted rejects sitting in the back of a warehouse finding their way out of the door and to some wholesaler, and then have a dozen or so chancers listing them on ebay looking for a bite and rushing back to the shop to buy and post it some buys it makes a ton of sense. The proof will be how quick they dissapear… these arent really “hot” demand items and the price isnt cheap… they could hang for a while.. so if theres hundreds a price war will follow. If theres only a few in reality, they will seemingly just dissapear as each one sold takes 10 sellers down at a time. The saving grace here is the Dapol ones arent the highest demand items..they were recently heavily discounted. Murphys maybe higher demand, but a smaller, maybe already sated market. What this isnt, is the £20-50 unboxed Bachmann factory samples that streamed out on ebay in hundreds from Taiwan 10 years or so back, or the liliput Kreigsloks on kowloon market for c£10 way back 20 years ago. Ali-express lists some nice, but unfortunate double US stacks in HO, as does some European gondolas and some Norwegian box vans.. those really are knock offs, and come unboxed, cheap and oodles of them.

They obviously had never been to Egypt then, and the staff canal tax.

Yes and no… The original plastic Hornby 8f was 1989, with 48758 one of the first released. Iirc there was 3 different numbers offered in BR and 3 in LMS. The front was all new, the rear used the Black 5 tender (today we call railroad). It was tender drive, and had firebox flicker. This continued in production until it went to China when R2055 in 1998 was the last made with the tooling. In 2002 R2227 (7675 NE) R2228 (8510 in NE) and R2229 (48154) marked the arrival of the new tooling. I do not know how they arrived at the new tooling, but some inheritance has moved across… the dimensions are the same on the body aside of the firebox. Either Hornby got it right first time, or they copied it. The pony truck is the same, as is the pony wheel, If you look through Hornby L numbers you can see some carry overs. The loco body is new though, little things give it away.. the sandbox covers handles changed to horizontal from vertical, the pipe to the top feed has the outer wrapper, and the big lump under the smokebox for the screw has gone… obviously the new tooling picked up new separate details like lamp irons, sprung buffers, cabside windshields etc. other things that give away the new body was a decent back head, footplate fittings, roof vents, doors and fall plate… the old one had nothing inside, apart a backhead rendition. The big mod was the chassis being all new, loco drive, requiring a hole under the firebox / rear boiler to fit it. It is possible to mod an old railroad 8f to the new chassis. The stanier tender is new. As @phil-b259 it was upgraded in 2017 to change the pickups from the sprung plunger to a jst (R3564) at the same time the 8 pin DCC was moved from chassis to tender, to support sound. other mods were made with 48045 in 2017 when the airfix tender was released. The last version made without JST was R3083 (Limited Edition of TCDD 45161) for Proses in Turkey in 2012. The 8f though is really quite old. How accurate it is i’ll leave to others but certainly it lacks detail under the boiler, the pony truck is awful and cast wheels today are much better than Hornbys pressed rims. If your buying an R2227 onwards though, your essentially buying the same thing, with some electrical mods along the way. As far as price goes 48151 was new for £90 in 2013.. so inflations been kind to it. What I do note is volume, the 8f hasnt been big in Hornbys range over 22 years, theyve made 19.. inc odd balls like TCDD, NE, a Fowler tender, a weird orange weathered one and 3 different LMS IDs at once (R2394 + A, B) as well as preserved 48773 and 48151, and recently scrapped 48518… They missed 8624/48624 in maroon, LMR Blue and missed wartime WD and overseas options [Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and 90’s TCDD], which is an omission considering how well Bachmann did the WD making 3x Dutch NS, KCR -Hong Kong, Desert sand, WD and LMR editions… they made 28.. many just plain black BR WDs.

34067 is indeed a worry some machine, especially around the letter W… Weymouth.. hit the buffers, Winchfield .. dropped a conrod, Wootton Bassett .. nearly crashed. But it also had a reputation on Martin Mill, Upton Scudamore, Filton bank, Upwey, Hemerdon, Dover.. the list just kept going and going… its sat down on every hill in the south. I’m not convinced that unrebuilts should be on the mainline… i did a trip with it many years ago and half my video was it slipping… back in the 1980’s 34092 wasnt much better, even with its Giesel it wasnt the strongest. If 34023 ever cones back i’d be interested to see how it climbs Imberhorne.

That could explain it, as the sellers have thousands of random items for sale that certainly dont come across as a model specialist in anyway. That could be misguiding the appearance of hundreds of each to actually maybe being no more than a couple… this could change the thought process quite a bit.. they may just be some left overs at the factory office.

I’m not going to list the vendors, but theres many more…. Same loco range but a lot more sellers… some are luky’er than others, try shipping to Poland, not the Uk, as they arent shipping here… ive counted 10 different sellers just now.

right now the thing keeping them out of the country is price. It also looks like several sellers are not listing them in the UK or for UK shipping, as theres loads more on intl sites. But if they cut the price below the vat import threshold, I suspect many more may find their way in. what concerns me is laundering… if a faulty one comes in a buyer could buy from a reputable store, then return the other… which circles me back to my point of having a serial number on the chassis, and on the box, added at the distributor in the Uk before going to the trade…. Its going to be very hard to undo a screw covered by a warranty seal, and keep the seal intact, and hence the warranty intact. QR code scanning them out of the door also records which retailer got which, and thus the added security of not seeing a return coming from a different retailer, potentially via a s/h route marked as a faulty new return.

a rare photo of the top one there… 5972 in green. nunney castle is an lsl engine, and its a castle…. (Most people would never question it as a sister of Hogwarts Castle). its also got most of the right numbers, just in the wrong order.. 5029 vs 5972. personally i’d love to see it in red with Stanier fittings…. whether it would be allowed on the WHL is something else.

I downloaded my full history of Hattons reciepts at Christmas after I had a prophecy one night in November. I subsequently did it for all my online model railway accounts. whilst its impossible to go back to 1970’s for receipts, having the better part of most of my receipts back 25+ years puts the balance in my favour should I be requested for proof. I’d reccomend doing it.. cloud storage costs nowt on your iphone.

Apologies some confusion.. the B1 .. 61306 is LSLs property, I was suggesting for their mk3’s. 61306 hasnt worked for wcrc since steam dreams was sold to LSL. My thoughts are LSL may try a service this summer with the 37’s, but maybe also the B1, but they could go with the B1 next year. wcrc has been relying on Ian Riley for locos in recent years… 45407,44871 and 45212 for the whl. I think the thing not to under estimate is Ian Rileys locos are a self contained unit… loco, support crew and maintenance business, and daily operation on the whl would require considerable maintenance and support… during and in between seasons. Having 3 near identical locos in a pool probably also helps a lot, as does the legendary standard of maintenance. i’m not sure its quite so simple for lsl to just hire Rileys black5’s… the lsl model seems to be one of taking responsibility for the loco as a hire, or formally absorbing the group into its fold.. Rileys cannot be assumed to be ok with just handing them over, nor LSL adopting a preferential approach to another supplier. I dont recall LSL ever using Rileys for many years, so strategically WCRC maybe more important to them, indeed they must have some sort of contract to supply for the whl in the first place. As long as wcrc are operating the mk 2’s down south, wcrc only have a handful of locos to pick from, including 45407 and 44871 (and 34072).. and as they start the 9 day tour of Britain (The Great Britain) its really only those 3 locos and the 1 set of coaches they can use to do it… a long nationwide trip in mk2e’s awaits those paying upto £4k per head for. Not sure why 45212 isnt out, but it may just not be needed, with only 1 set of coaches in play, but it might perhaps do the Lancaster - Hellifield turn next week on the GB railtour, as a reversal is required at Helifield… and 34067 goes to Glasgow, steam starts becoming a little short, as both 45407 and 44871 are double heading to Inverness. Its maybe this trip that is the decider on whats lucrative to WcRC… a 9 day railtour, or a daily grind in the highlands, for its 1 rake of coaches. After this trip is over, they may take the mk2’s and Black5s north and make a go of it this summer. That said.. we are in winter heat season currently, what state is the aircon in these mk2’s and will it be bearable in the summer, any where, not just the highlands, to use them ? Of course wear on the whl affects coaches too, and arent the coaches rotated with replacements from Carnforth mid season, but thats not possible with 1 rake. As for next year, 1 loco and one rake would be foolhardy for LSL to start up a daily operation.. locos fail, need washouts, maintenance etc… A minimum of two would be needed, but if they are different, you cant just borrow one bit off the other whilst someone heads in a van back south for a spare part… so 2 locos and 5 days a week maybe prudent with 1 train a day… LSL couldnt do more than that anyway as they only have 2 suitable locos (45231 and 61306) and 1 rake of Scotrail mk3’s… unless they cannabalise other parts of their operation… which begs the question, what happens if the mk3’s need repair mid season ?

They already are, and have been for 2000 odd years… you stand on a moving platform that suddenly stops, without something to stabilise yourself with or an object to stop that movement.. you will propel much further than someone seated, whom has an object to hold onto, or barrier infront of them stop that momentum… anyways it is off topic, ive made my point and let it rest. more relevant, Elsewhere reports LSL loadings of c70 monday, c40 tuesday. The hardy faithful made it on Monday but already sunk by Tuesday. tbh I cannot see a Scotrail mk3 set with a 37 having much appeal this summer, but apparently its staying around a while. As much as I like the mk3 set in Scotrail, I think its appeal is more to enthusiasts than tourists. It doesnt offer anything different to a 156 on this route. Perhaps they should move the B1 up there, that may change things a little, and lets face it the B1 is over cooked in the wrong restaurant down south, no one would miss it down south, but it would liven up the Highlands a bit and help establish LSL for next year. It also carries the name a lot of American tourists will relate to. maybe repaint the mk3’s into 1980’s WHL Green and Cream for next year ?

my desk is level, but my house could always be on an angle… I was told if I went for a long stand I might be able to calibrate it better. Failing that a short weight would improve its haulage. 😀 being more of a techie, I had to question why I needed to constantly press “start” in order to shut down my computer in the 90’s/00’s.

I was all for believing this until I saw Bells mentioned. if you said there were 3 extra, i’d be game. Its a minging whisky is Bells.

the bogie is fastened by the same style fastener used in many Heljan locos… this piece.. (still on a sprue in my above example, gold dust from the good old days of cheap Heljan sprues). I went heavy duty today to show the height difference, mounted it on rails… note the sprit level measures.. I was going to measure height but my steel 4mm rule seems to have wandered to my little ones school bag..

Not available in Europe … https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp you’ll need a proxy or a vpn outside Europe to access it, as the page is blocked.

Case study on cdl for preserved railways right there. what i’m questioning is selective safety, which is pervading this thread. seatbelts work, have worked for 7 decades on every single mode of transport, except rail… cdl is designed to protect, yet despite the known dangers artificial barriers are constructed to ring fence certain groups from safety requirements. its feel a bit hypocritical to attack one company challenging safety because of its expense, whilst trying to protect the artificial barriers ring fencing others from incurring the same expense of safety in others… especially when using 1990’s stats for enforcing said safety on one group (cdl) , whilst ringing up 1990’s stats on not enforcing it on those behind the artificial barriers (seatbelts)… But if someone falls off a viaduct at 5mph theres got to be questions asked about cdl for all… and I am concerned with riding 800’s after the NL incident, and do feel seatbelts on 100mph+ services are not a bad idea, even if they are optional. its somewhat worrying knowing British people dont know how to use a door handle anymore in 2024, despite living in a world of door handles for over 2000 years, just because its on wheels, I should know better, Alexa had an outage last night, and Twitter was heaving with statements about not being able to turn on/off lights… perhaps its time the studies and stats were revised in a 2020’s context, and the barriers ringfencing be considered against learned lessons from outside the rail industry too ?

Seatbelts protects anyone, whether they were previously standing or not, who decides to use them at an unsafe time or location.

Doesnt this same logic apply to CDL ? if i am sat in my seat, or even standing in the saloon, CDL offers me no protection at all… zip, nada, nothing. it only protects those standing at or trying to exit the door…specifically those who using it when they shouldnt be. it is in fact the opposite of the above in that its a safety feature protecting those standing but doing nothing for those seated. You could argue everyone uses a train door eventually, but equally I doubt any passenger boards a train without expecting a seat too. i’m not arguing against cdl, i’m arguing for seatbelts on trains, as at least an optional… as a family man i’d have my kids wearing an airline style lap belt on a higher speed service, just as they do on a plane, car, anywhere else. If we hadnt scrapped over 1200 rail vehicles in the last few years there might be less standing passengers. I’d argue a passenger without a seat should pay less fare as they arent getting a seat, but I know that will never fly, as your paying for a journey, not the seat. However if someone isnt entitled to expect a seat on a train, then surely they arent entitled to expect equal safety… afterall standing is more dangerous than seating anyway… as the seat gives better protections today even without a seatbelt….. so standing passengers already face greater safety risks… yet ive not seen any lawsuits about this… people have been standing on transport going back to the Ancient Egyptians.