Wheatley

This is Kirkcudbright in SW Scotland, looking from the buffers. The facing point for the run round loop is just visible towards the far end of the platform. https://www.google.com/search?q=kirkcudbright+station&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&prmd=mnixv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp88-49__1AhUxQ0EAHZBRAi0Q_AUoA3oECAIQAw&biw=384&bih=726&dpr=1.88#imgrc=fNUVzcSimik2kM

Plus one. Apart from anything else it's much harder to fall out of a shed.

Saltburn still has a loop short of the platforms, same (or similar) at Whitby. Alongside the platform is conventional but there were plenty of exceptions and unusual configurations.

It generally started at privatisation, when corporate branding, marketing and other similar owning group functions got in on the act. Most had an overriding policy at group level to protect their brand regardless of what individual MDs and TOC marketing managers thought but went about in different ways. Some permit no reproduction at all, some charge a commercial fee and others a nominal fee. Since then it has spread to government owned departments, the "ROYAL AIR FORCE" logo is trademarked for example, but the roundel itself cannot be (they tried and lost) because it has been in use as a fashion statement for too long.

Just found this. It would have been way out of my area of interest until my sister moved to Witney, since then I have spent a bit of time at the end of Brize's runway watching the comings and goings (and getting my numberplate noted by Mossad !). I think you've killed the cliche of the chocolate box GWR branch stone dead - nice one ! There are too many layouts with pretty buildings set in a perpetual summer, the countryside was not that pretty in places and I'm all in favour of corrugated iron and Air Ministry / austerity brickwork. Long live rural grot !

As a D Supervisor in 1992 I was paid about £12k, we were budgeted £25k and questions were only asked when one of my colleagues (on a much busier patch than mine) managed to breach £27k for the year. My 'manager', with 'Manager' in his job title, was an E supervisor and very happy with it. No-one wanted the MS1 posts as we would have lost a third of our income, so they tended to be filled by management trainees and ex COs with a bit of aptitude. Most of them were great but God help those of them who rocked up expecting us all to kow tow to their superior grade and bow to their authority. It is of course very very easy to obey a completely stupid instruction knowing full well what will happen, and then take great delight in pointing out that you had done exactly what Sir had ordered you to do despite you telling him what would happen. More recently our management grades are now allegedly based on Hayes points (although no-one appears to be able to explain the system) and a lot of 'managers' are indeed what would have once been senior clerical posts. The advantage to the company is that you don't have to pay them overtime or allowances, you can require them to 'volunteer' to cover striking wages grade staff, special events etc, and you can generally require them to do things they don't really want to do. The advantage to the employee is that the pensionable pay is a bit higher.

Eversholt Street might be its Head Office but the majority of its support staff are in Milton Keynes or the regions (whatever the regions are called this week).

A station car park in the North West, 1993, a shout from the cleaning gang van window where a heated debate is taking place between the three cab occupants: "Hey Wheatley, what do you think the speed limit of this van is on the single carriageway bit of the A6 ?" "50" "See, told you you were ****ing speeding, the copper was right" "How fast was he going ?" "84" "You seriously argued with a copper over whether 84 on an A road was speeding ?" "The argument was about whether we was 24 or 34mph over the limit. Its alright though, the points will go on me railway licence" "Er...." A different colleague discovered that the maximum speed of a Bedford HA in third gear is 75mph, in which state it go about 20 miles before the gearbox disassembles itself all over the M6. The failure to notice that the gearbox was literally screaming its nuts off was blamed on a 16 hour turn of duty after a possession overran. Then there was the colleague who started as a driver's mate on a station delivery dray in the 1960s and, when the driver retired suddenly on ill health, took over as driver for four years without so much as a moped licence.

No point offering people cash to go if they're going to leave of their own accord in a couple of years anyway. Previous VS schemes have made that obvious, the amount on offer declined rapidly after about 60, but that's now illegal under discrimination law. So now you just offer it and decline their application. On what little has emerged so far train crew will still work for the privatised service providers. Also mostly declined here.

Despite the lack of a visible plan (the fear being that there is an invisible one which makes Serpell A look progressive) they have at least learned that lesson. In 1997 MTL took over the RRNE franchise, announced 40% redundancies across the board with a very generous (BRB funded ?) redundancy package and then wondered where all the drivers had gone. Then they cocked up their stock market flotation, went spectaculary bust and left Arriva to sort out the mess.

Exactly. My own TOC has let no frontline staff go and in fact barred most of them from even applying. There are more new posts on this week's vacancy list than were allowed to leave from 'other' posts. If there is a plan it meets no definition of 'plan' that I've ever heard.

It is, but it's the only tangible output of the process that any of us have seen so far, unless you count a voluntary severance scheme which almost no-one in my particular TOC has been allowed to take. Meanwhile we wait for someone to explain to Mr Shapps what the 'plan' bit of the Williams-Shapps Plan For Rail actually is. Once they get the crayons back off Boris to write one.

They have been for internal communication ! Expect the new livery to make Boris' VIP Voyager look tasteful.

One of the most effective anti-mobile campaigns I've seen on the railway was actually aimed at track workers around 1995ish. We'd struck and killed an Engineering Supervisor (I think) in a possession because he was making a perfectly legitimate call on his newly issued company mobile. It featured in a briefing video, except instead of the usual dry voiceover they used an interview with his widow over the video of the re-enactment. Cut to the end where she looks at the interviewer and said "... and I'd just like to ask everyone watching this to be really careful because my little lad is never going to know his dad...." - I glanced round the room and there were a dozen or so signalmen, Pway and others all blubbing like babies, me included.

It must be some kind of record for the advertising/branding business too. Possibly Ford, maybe one or two others ? It's even the original arrows, not the slightly distorted RDG version. What's really annoying is that someone will have been paid for that.

Ooh - a Black Mac ! Working straight up to the boxes either side then.... That's really nice :-)

The BTP report doesn't say exactly where his emergency brake application was made, I believe there is set of TPWS loops further out from the final 'bay platform' set but I'm not that familiar with the location. The RAIB hasn't reported yet so as far as I know the full sequence of events is not yet in the public domain. I'm as intrigued as you at the moment, but it could have been worse.

There is. He was only doing 28mph when he hit the buffers.

There's a hint in the press release that the "boxes only, one retailer only" arrangement is temporary. I hope so because I only need a couple of yards ! I should have stocked up on Colin Craig bits when I had chance.

They built more than 2000 of them so I expect so.

The holes should be half etched. If the drill is not going through then it's blunt, try again with a sharp one. It needs to be a decent quality one or it will go blunt very quickly.

This appeared just now on the way to "Model Rail Scotland 2022": I don't think I'm a Russian spy and I haven't been searching for Russian mail order brides. I have been googling Zvezda and Moelcollect kits on this phone though.

Before this gets locked like all the other advertising threads, can I just say that I'm fine with most of the adverts, event the caterpillar videos, but the full page ad which has to be swatted between clicking on a topic and getting to that topic, is a pain in the bum. Especially as all the ads seem to be in Russian.

Agreed. But has anyone else spotted the dead horse ?

I found the plates themselves fairly useless for the same reasons as Harry. The magnets were another matter though, with two fitted my Bachmann Jubilee will pull 9 Mk1s up a 1 in 50ish gradient. As this will all be on the hidden section, instead of the plates I will be using a bit of 1.5mm piano wire stapled in the 4 foot. The curved mouldings over the gears on the driving axle are an issue though.