Wheatley

Pedestrians and cyclists are (mostly) less likely to extend their crossing time by wandering off in search of fresh grass or interesting smells. But see below. With a few exceptions the plethora of signs and telephones mostly appeared after the Nairn collision in 1982. https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=802 . BR learned the lessons from that (eventually) and started a campaign to buy out the rights on accommodation crossings and close them, the amount offered generally being pitched somewhere below what it would cost to bring the crossing up to 'Nairn Standards' in terms of sightlines and gradients on the approaches. In a lot of cases where there were two or three adjacent crossings and all were now on the same landowner's property, one would be improved and the others closed. The typical 'pre-Nairn' farm crossing* would be a 9 foot field gate (opening away from the track as previously stated), a timber deck (sleepers, originally 9' then 8'6"), a trespass notice and the 40 shilling 'close the gate' notice. A multi-fatality accident on a footpath crossing at Rossington on the ECML in 1990 spurred a similar campaign to improve or divert public footpath crossings. A woman and two of three young children wheeling their bikes across a multi-track crossing were struck and killed by a 120mph train. https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=406 * Accommodation crossing - generally field to field accommodating a landowner's right of access to land severed by the railway, right of way only exists for the landowner and their tenants, servants and agents. Occupation crossing - usually on a non-public road leading to a property, right of way exists for the landowner, their tenants, servants and agents, but also to tradespeople and others whose calling or occupation requires them to call at the property. Public rights of way on foot (if there are any) across either usually accommodated by a separate wicket gate at the side.

Thank you. I'd convinced myself Gibson only did bevelled 20mm driving wheels but there is a plain one in the catalogue so I'll go for that. I have one set of Sharman wheels but they're reserved for the 300 Class when Jim Smellie finally releases it !

I love that, especially from such an indifferent kit ! Whose wheels did you use please ? I have two currently doing my head in on the bench , there has to be an alternative to Romfords ...

Because they cost a fortune to run and there is a finite number of people for whom 'enjoyable day out' consists of paying a not inconsiderable sum to get in to just wander around looking at the paintings and furniture and maybe buying a bit of cake in the tea room. See numerous other threads about getting families to visit heritage railways to pay the bills so railway enthusiasts can play trains, and how to attract them in the face of multiple other attractions all competing for people's disposable income. Provided it doesn't damage the fabric of the building it'll either work and help secure the future of the building, or it won't and they'll have to think of something else.

I took my last Jazz to the local Halfords (shop only) for a headlight bulb and, having already seen the ridiculously small access hole on the inner wing paid them the extra to fit it. It was booked into one of their service centres for a service a week or so later but I dont like driving around with a light out. After an hour of swearing the fitter said he could get the clip on or the rubber dust cap on, but not both. "Did you say it was in for a service ? Ask them to fit the dust cap" he said, and refunded the fitting charge. The service centre took the entire headlight out and did it in about 5 minutes flat. Easy when you've got the widget to realign them afterwards.

I suspect it's linked to the outgoing head of the Army's widely reported remarks that we are a pre-war generation and we ought to be thinking about a citizen's army for when we eventually end up fighting Russia/Iran/Panem/the French again. Insert favourite conspiracy theory at this point. As you allude to, You Gov is just a market research company.

Deleted. Pointless.

"At the end of the day Trevor Chaplain walked from the woodwork room to the staffroom, clutching a fully-assembled hedge and verge trimmer. To do this, he had to go up some stairs and down some stairs, even though both rooms were on the same floor. The school had been designed in accordance with the design philosophy then in vogue at the Ministry of Education, which was based on the theory that arduous and complicated journeys from A to B created initiative in the young." Alan Plater - "The Beiderbecke Affair". First time I've been to Pontefract exhibition. Only managed a morning there but I enjoyed it, thanks.

Network Rail's obligations to WCRC (and vice versa) are set out in their Track Access Agreement, same as every other operator. There's no need for anyone to play hardball.

A couple of TOCs use preserved railways for low adhesion 'skid pan' training, saves having to bring an otherwise revenue earning unit with you. Quick conversion for 153s if you dont already sign them and off go.

Agreed. For me the collections at each property should have some relevance to the property or the area, not just random collections of stuff. And railway engines should ideally be on or at least near railways. If the previous owner of the house collected railway engines or owned Hudswell Clarke (for example) then that's different as they're part of the story of the house. Likewise if the previous owners were a succession of slave owning union bashers then that's (part of ) the story that should be told. Your mileage may vary.

No, the lines running from firebox to smokebox above the handrail. You need to open the pics rather than view the thumbnails in the blog to see them. They're on the 2MT as well, I assume they're where the insert for the various topfeed/dome combinations joins in. At least when the seam ran along the top if the boiler it followed an actual joint on the real thing.

I'm hoping that the moulding marks (including the 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock ones on the boiler), gaps all over the place and general wonkiness are a result of this being a pre-production / livery sample. It does say the ropey handrails have been referred back for further work. I see the bling brush hasn't been binned yet. At the moment fixing the old one is still my preferred option. (Come on Accurascale, you know you want to ...)

The wall mounted telephone, desks and stove are fine. The chairs look rubbish for sleeping in and would very quickly have been replaced by a domestic arm chair (in earlier days before fire safety regs etc). The lever frame looks a bit like the Ransomes "horse rake" https://old.signalbox.org/frames/ransome.htm or the LMS 'turnover' type https://old.signalbox.org/frames/lms.htm but only a bit. Definitely not typical.

Found the ARC kit of the 12" Barclay, here's the comparison with the Hattons 16" version: Rather than replace the signalbox why not repaint as per your photo of Carron further up ? Brown up to waist level and cream above, including the corner posts and other blue bits.

Yorkshire Tar Distillers was in business 1920s - 1970s when it became part of Croda. There are some photos of tanks out of use at Croda on Paul Bartlett's site, mostly crudded up but with odd bits of yellow lettering visible so I suspect the livery is correct if not necessarily the exact type of tank. There are some employee reminiscences here - http://stairfootstation.co.uk/tar/ - coal tar was the starting point so my guess (and it is only that) is that the rail tanks were used to bring coal tar in in bulk as a raw material with the finushed products (pitch, naptha, creosote etc) going out by road.

Use the 0.3mm wire but crush it slightly (not wafer-thin) in a pair of flat smooth jawed pliers. If that makes it flat but too wide one of the metal section suppliers (K&S ?) does 0.25 or 0.2mm wire instead.

Looking a bit more like a building now, this is the road/forecourt side with the tea room / parcels office extention nearest: The stonework around the windows is 5 thou sheet stuck over the Slaters embossed stone, it will shrink into the mortar courses so will need a wipe over with some filler before painting. The real ashlar trimmings were flush with the coursed rubble used for the rest of the wall but cutting out all these was tedious enough without trying to inset them ! Platform side. The working drawings for this were done in 2017 as soon as Andrew Swan's book came out (saving me a trip to West Register House to see the originals !), and the walls were set out a while ago. On sticking everything together I realised I had got the double doors on either side of the building leading to the booking hall about 6mm offset from each other so I altered them to be directly opposite each other. On checking Swan later for something else I noticed that the PPR had built them about 18" offset from each other so I'd been right to start with ! They'll have to stay wrong. The boarded over window had a small poster board, totem and gas lamp fastened to it so I decided boarding it over was probably correct. The others marked with crosses will have larger poster boards covering the whole window.

Your weird zigzag thingy is a kickback siding and headshunt, they are popular with modellers because they are awkward and therefore interesting to shunt, and unpopular (but by no means unknown) on the real thing because they are awkward and therefore tedious to shunt :-) For layout ideas Carl Arendt's site is still available here - https://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/micro-tymesaver-designs/ The link goes to the Time Saver page, a popular shunting puzzle invented by John Allen in the US. It's s been done so many times its a cliche but I quite like it. For UK layouts have a look at some of Iain Rice's books, there are several covering small layouts !

OK, I really didn't mean to drag this off into a fight about the rights and wrongs of the ASLEF strikes, it was simply a inference that even the DfT must have been aware that a significant part of the network would be unavailable on the day their promotion started. But Clay Country has it bang on. ASLEF didn't create an internal labour market that only ASLEF members could fill, the privatised industry did that. ASLEF didn't then spend the next 25 years failing to notice this fairly obvious open goal and playing both sides off against the middle nor did they fail to notice that, generally speaking, railway staff loyalty is to "the railway" rather than Sea Containers, Arriva, Stagecoach or whoever, and that the unions represented stability which the constant procession of names on TUPE letters did not. They also didn't fail to notice that they were rather better at this negotiating lark than the various well meaning but (in many cases) naive HR types they were pitted against in negotiations. ASLEF exists to serve the interests of its member and (barring the odd punch up at barbecues) it has done and continues to do that very well (clue - they're on £60k a year). Until someone perfects Google Train that is likely to remain the case. As for doctors I don't think anyone disagrees that they're underpaid for what they do but that's not how capitalism works. NHS doctors are also a closed labour market represented by a single union, maybe they should be asking their union how such a pay gap arose?

I use code 75 bullhead on the scenic bits and Streamline in the fiddle yard, the only difference being I used code 100 and made up my own 100/75 rail joiners. Code 100 was even cheaper than 75 and it's bomb proof, also it meant I could use 3rd and 4th radius set track for the inside curves as tight curves are more prone to kinking. Bog standard PL10s used with the mounting base are pretty bomb proof too, the slimline surface mounted motors tend to be a bit more prone to going out of adjustment in my experience. The only restriction using small radius points will impose is that some things will buffer lock more easily when propelling through them. Shouldn't be an issue if you're using the as supplied hook and bar couplings though.

It wasn't a criticism of ASLEF, more a comment on timing.

This is Cheddleton, not a million miles away. 27th (!) photo down - https://www.churnetvalleyrailway.co.uk/cheddleton Check out Google Streetview too, they appear to be still there at Cheddleton.

"between 30 January and 15 March 2024" Check with ASLEF first ;-)

Another vote for Barter Books. As mentioned it isn't cheap for the good stuff, because he knows what he's got and how much its selling for elsewhere. But as mentioned when I was handing over 50 quid for a copy of Vol 1 of "LMS Carriages", all the online sellers check against each other, as does Oxfam, and the alternative is checking every charity shop you walk past in the hope they don't really know what they're doing or what they've got. And the cafe is excellent :-) Also Nick Tozer in Huddersfield if it's railway books, he does mail order.