Ian Hargrave

I’d love to live long enough to experience it. Fingers crossed.😇

Your observation is interesting Mike and yes it is noticeable that the work atm doesn’t seem to be causing too much disruption in this part of Middle England. There is much going on further along the M42 from the NEC in each direction which isn’t thankfully adding to its usual traffic congestion and if you travel into New Street from the Tamworth direction you will see quite a bit of construction work. Further north,work is apace across the WCML at Lichfield and I can’t now drive into the city directly off the A38 due to it and won’t be able to do so for several months.This adds a bit to my monthly Arts Soc. travel and does cause peak time road congestion on the “road to hell” . We’ll see how it progresses.Watch this space….

It seems to me that persuading Rapido,or for that matter any manufacturers of OO gauge model locomotives to eventually provide us with both a County and a Saint is akin to Salome asking for the head of John The Baptist on a plate. The 44xx is undoubtedly going to be excellent….but why avoid the glaring GW/WR omissions ? The Saint is already there for the taking. I am royally miffed.

I questioned the absence of such with Hornby at GETS early last month. I met with a blank somewhat puzzled response. Good luck with that then.

Having just completed a (mercifully) short return journey between Temple Meads and Bath with one piece of hand luggage,I am tbh lucky to have completed the entrance and exit without injury. Why is insufficient concern given to the mismatch between platform edge and unit access? Had it not been for a prompt assisting intervention by a fellow passenger,I might have been posting this from a local NHS hostelry….always of course providing a space there would have been available . So Hitachi afford you the option of haemhorroidal inducing seating or falling gracelessly on/off their trains. Survival seems optional. Unimpressive…..especially when combined with transiting via a jaded and run down GWR cathedral which inadequately serves its travelling public.

An evocative image. Euston I think ? And yes I remember them in original form.46137 being the final rebuild. My own final memory is of 46148 at Colwyn Bay in August 1952.They had “presence “. I think that’s the right word ?

Please ask on my behalf.Would be grateful as I shall be “elsewhere “.Ta.

Would this be the place on our esteemed forum to comment on the current state of Temple Meads ? If not,then maybe some kind soul would direct me where .Many thanks from one with a genuine beef and who has known the place for nearly 70 years.

Would have been good but unfortunately I can’t make it this year as I’m away doing other stuff. Best fora successful weekend at the NEC.

Which I’d totally forgotten. Thanks for the nudge Mike. Well done to Paul for a fascinating and absorbing video introduction……a lesson in marketing if ever there was. Now perhaps one question…that being one of coal loads as an accessory. I suppose though that hides the nifty interior details of these wagons . The NE has been sidelined for years.No longer it seems. A ray of sunshine for us on a dreary day.

Just ascended the Lickey in a Voyager 221……just saying 😴

Oh yes…..😁😁😁

“Oh dear,how sad,never mind…..”. Quoting the late great Windsor Davies in BBC TV’s “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum” 🤣 The first tongue in cheek reaction then….

Agree .But “ impossible to fit” resonates with the tender bar coupling on H’s new 9F.

A vivid reminder of the Phurnacite plant at Abercwmboi and it’s pervasive filthy yellow stench on a cold winter’s morning when the fog and frost was slow to disperse. You have to wonder …what long term effect did it have on the health of all within the area ?

Have just summoned up the courage to outwit both rheumy fingers and dodgy close vision to fit both sets with Hunt Elite buckeye couplings.A slight but nonetheless perceptible improvement IMHO.I am impressed with the fit and quality of a product new to me . Tribute also to the NEM on the coaches.They withstood my interventions with ease.I shall invest in more of these ..well both couplings and of course coaches.

Twenty years prior to this social life after lectures revolved around the Berkeley at the top of Park Street. Now the University Tower and its surroundings are history but apparently still used …well so my son,who is an academic unlike his father informs me. How time goes by…

A collier fresh from a shift….

Fog. Stale beer on the bar.

Well then,Happy LSWR set ….from an octogenarian.Bless !

Thank you for this.Yes,I was already aware of the issue with the droplight dimension. I respect your opinion and decision but I’ll still go ahead as I’m fixated with a vision of a Q1 gliding around my tabletop with a set in tow 😁.I’m pretty sure the discrepancy isn’t going to bother me as my eyesight isn’t quite as sharp as it once was. Regards,Ian.

Er…door window height ? So then this is sufficient reason to vent wrath ? Well,us ordinary mortals will have to live with our complicity in such errors.🤪Life’s too short….

Excursion traffic from the SR worked into Torbay from the Meldon Quarry line with its own locomotives in addition to traffic from Plymouth which came over the S.Devon WR main line.These trains were thus spared reversal at NA and came via Okehampton and Exeter St.David’s. It’s likely that it would be these you would have seen.

And to get the flavour of what these familiarisation workings were,refer to the work of Peter W. Gray. One example from July 1959 in ‘West Country Railways’ is of airsmoothed 34063 with WR Hawksworth leading on Dainton with a Goodrington- Plymouth working ( reversal at NA.) .It should perhaps be pointed out that these workings were introduced during the war as an emergency measure.

Regrettably your latter supposition would be confined to SR motive power rather than coaching stock in route familiaration terms.