Wheatley

Not necessarily the case. The Wensleydale branch is owned by Network Rail and leased to the Wensleydale Railway plc.

Did you really get all the way to tooling without wondering what the inside looked like ?

For those touting reservations as the solution to the problem, all EMR services leaving STP are reservable, and they ran a full service apart from the one shortformed set for Leeds which made the news. Even that was rectified at Derby with the 5 car swapped for an 8 car. I love working for the railways, its as easy as football management. Every one and his granny thinks they can do that better as well.

From Rootes at Linwood I think, there is a Derek Cross colour pic of a 40 on a similar working in 1966 in "On G&SW Lines" by David Cross. No evidence of car trains on the Port Road (so far !).

Meanwhile the fourth side of the circuit has taken on a distinctly NER appearance...

All train operators in tier 3 or 4 areas are pushing the 'essential travel only' message. The government (which is now effectively setting service levels) is generally requiring as much of the timetable as possible to operate. Those operators who operate reservations are operating a 'reservations only' policy (certainly LNER are, not been anywhere else recently). Those operators who don't operate a reservation system have no way of controlling ticket sales for a particular train. Rail staff are not there to enforce social distancing or check your reason for travelling, passengers are expected to behave like grown ups and take responsibility for their own actions. We didn't make you all go shopping in the first place. BTP can enforce the restrictions but they can't marshall every train and they've got better things to do.

Not a fan of wiring, it’s right up there with carpentry and wheel quartering in the ‘evil but necessary’ jobs list. Newton Stewart is code 75 Electrofrog so I’ve had to re-learn how to do how to do proper wiring. There will normally only be one operator (me) so there only need be one controller, but I’ll probaby have one for the scenic level and one for the fiddle dungeon if only to have a spare. The fiddle yard is code 100 and the half a dozen points fitted so far in it are insulfrog, but I’ll probably switch that over to electrofrog too (there is only the double loop down there so far). Apart from 200 yards of red and black wire from Peter’s Spares most of the switches, connectors and tag strips used so far were recovered from a couple of EM layouts half built in the 1990s and stored until now. The mahogany frame for the section switches control box was also recovered from a display case, it hinges up out of the way to avoid damage when not in use. The graph paper diagram is temporary. All the pointwork in the main circuit is laid, although most will be replaced as Peco expands its bullhead range. The passing loop is also laid but the rest of the layout will have to wait until Peco’s supply returns to normal. Most of the feeds for the tracks laid so far are in and being soldered up, it might even be working by Christmas although a shortage of accessory switches for frogs means some jury rigging may be required.

Don't believe it ! Northern's fleet engineer was convinced that they never had two Class 142s in exactly the same mod state at the same time.

Your table is extremely handy for me trying to track down Port Road Black 5s (for renumbering) secondhand, thank you. I'm up to 8 so far I think, 7 Hornby and 1 DJH on a Hornby chassis. Just to chuck my two penn'orth in to the knowledge pool, the longer wheelbase was because the Skefco roller-bearings used on the first lsuch batch were bigger than traditional bearings so they had to be further apart to clear the firebox. Once the length was changed I believe the longer wheelbase frames were used regardless of which bearings were fitted (but I can't remember where I read that last bit so don't quote me !). The 'as built' variations are a nightmare before you start on boiler and tender swaps. I have a couple of examples where photos of the same loco over a twenty year period show it changing from front to rear topfeed and back again, on at least one occasion with a different tender thrown in along the way.

Not easy to see on a phone but I think what has happened is your rail ends are not quite level with each other before pushing the track together (I'm assuming its flexi). The bottom left hand rail is a mm or so further forward than yhe bottom rh rail. If you get both rails on both pieces of track square with each other across the ends first it should sort itself out.

Back in 1993/4 we were reinstalling the sidings at Kirkby Thore to take desulpho-gypsum from Drax to the plasterboard works. Part of the planning work was to determine whether a single 60 could manage the booked load over the S&C in bad weather, so 47 HAAs of mine waste from Selby were borrowed for the week and I and all concerned had lots of fun playing with it. In winter, in Cumbria. When it eventually arrived at St Johns (Normanton) for disposal all 47 wagons were frozen solid.

Must be a north west thing, you all still only just getting used to electricity and all. All the pubs around here in rural Yorkshire take contactless, and I can only think of one eatery nearby which doesn't.

Barnsley P.Way were still being paid in cash in 1992 because I was part of a team effort to regain access to the £35,000 sitting on a desk after our chief clerk locked it and the keys in the office. One of my signalmen was still being paid in cash a few years later until he retired.

In both cases mentioned above where the traders only take cash or cheque, I believe their ranges are only there at all as an extension of their own modelling requirements i.e. Dave Bradwell had a load of 12ton hoppers to detail so he drew up some bits and had them etched. Neither are relying on the income for survival so if they choose to only accept magic beans over the counter at Scaleforum then so be it. They could just not bother. Masokits takes international bankers drafts but you need to get it right first time off your own bat as he chooses not to mess about sorting out wrong amounts, bank charges etc.

Still in use but not very often. I've just sent one to South Eastern Finecast for a kit as it was easier for me than phoning the order through, the kit arrived a week later.

Indeed. Any kit chassis with separate solebars (Parkside, Cambrian etc) can be glued direct to the Mainline/Airfix wagon floor on opens, it's an easy conversion. Ratio solebars with part of the floor/ side attached are a bit more of a challenge on opens but, if built on the kit floor fit inside van bodies easily enough.

We've done all our Christmas shopping by post this year, including ordering stuff to here and then posting it on to friends and family. So far almost everything has arrived when the sender said it would, including by Royal Mail and most of the courier firms. The only two exceptions were a DHL parcel which arrived a day late after the courier was held up by a pile up on the M62, and a parcel from Smyths which actually arrived 10 days before the date stated on their website. There are a lot of people working very hard in less than ideal circumstances. There's a box of chocs in the porch for our postie the next time he rings the bell with something else which won't fit through the letter box.

That's them. The octagonal base is sawn off (flame cut ?) a few inches below the tarmac. If you drive down the car park in Streetview the ends of the supporting timbers and the pad stones for the girder rails are still there (just visible below the foliage) along with the arch spring for the end cells. The pad stones suggest two roads over the cells. I suspect the outer two roads on the NRM side are on what is now the top car park access road. Its hard to see on streetview but dead obvious whan you're walking along it, but there is a distinct hump in the coal cell sidings still reflected in the retaining wall.

As a one man band I do everything, but wagons are my favourite. At one time my layout was goods only (complete with 4mm scale closure notices) simply because I hadn't got round to building any coaches ! I know a couple of people away from here who only build wagons for club or mate's layouts.

The bases for the cast iron gateposts, just visible on the extreme left of your aerial pic, are still there buried below the pavement. There is one amongst the collection of stop valves and manhole covers between the current car park wall and the Marble Arch, York Water Works had some fun routing their mains pipes around it when they were putting those in. From the size of the base I would say they were similar to the extant ones outside the NRM main entrance.

Those look comparable in terms of level of detail and finish but whether they are accurate for what the real Messrs Telling and Bramley were actually running is another matter. Beware the 10' wb / 17'6" long wagons still in Dapol's range pretending to be 9' / 16'6" minerals, those are more directly comparable with 1980s Lima but from the photos I don't think these are they. The last couple of Dapol wagons I bought had decent wheels but they've certainly had some ... er ... interesting flange profiles in the past.

Gosh that brings back some memories ! I spent many hours leaning on those barrier controls with a mug in one hand watching the world go by. (Signalman, Jumble Lane, 88-90). Thanks :-)

It's power operated and any collision will be between trams about 10 feet off the platform end at a terminus, either way it will be low speed. I suspect it's been done to simplify the controls to a binary 'all normal' or 'all reversed', there being no need for anything more complex.

For context 1 billion pounds is 13% of Network Rail's maintenance budget for CP6, or, roughly what they would have spent on maintenance from the start of Lockdown 1.

That visitors to preserved railways tend to either buy railway-specific stuff (books etc) or cheap tat suitable for school parties and kids rather than hand-crafted artisan products ? Having said that, the NYMR online shop has some nice stuff including vintage luggage.