Wheatley

In the early days of privatisation I sat in on a pitch from a manufacturer of plastic torches which were brighter, lighter, and easier to carry than a Bardic, and used standard batteries. Colour changing was by means of removeable and easily lost lens caps and it was generally a poor bit of kit. The HQ Trains Manager vetoed any purchase on the grounds that it was useless for fending off drunks.

Re Blackpool. Stopping traincrew is a bit extreme but Blackpool generally has more than its fair share of members of the public who should not be allowed out without a responsible adult. The platforms are closed until departure time partly for crowd control but also because its easier to contain a fight on the concourse than across the platforms. Hence the no tolerance approach.

This site is heavily biased towards Scotland so you will see more tartan liveries than you might elsewhere in the UK, but there are some 50s/60s colour photos in here if you rummage far enough. https://public.fotki.com/boballoa/ Logos tended to be used only by the larger firms if at all, signwriting was the order of the day.

You may also notice spoked at one end and 3 hole disc at the other, on all sorts of wagons. Generally (i.e. unless your chosen photo shows otherwise) steel solebars and everything below them were black, wooden solebars were body colour with black ironwork. There were exceptions both ways though, often dependant on which works last painted it.

As far as I know the casings were made in house at the various works although the burners might have been bought it. The casing is a fairly straightforward tinsmithing job. Quite a lot if things were made in house, there is a cast iron hole punch in my desk at work which certainly had a BR catalogue number and was reportedly made by one or other of the works. It has outlasted many others ovr the years.

It's presumably some kind of trendy heritage nod to its former use before it was a cycle path / footpath. Someone probably got a grant for that.

His ability to absorb information was astonishing. In RRNE days one of my colleagues was tasked with going to his office on a Monday morning and bringing him up to speed on what had gone wrong over the weekend, and Stuart expected the update even if he was already on the phone to somebody else. My colleague, Chris, was reasonably sure that no-one could possibly listen to two conversations at once and that he was talking to himself, so one Monday he chucked in the classified football results as well. Stuart briefly put his hand over the mouthpiece, snapped "Stop waffling Chris" and carried on.

Same here, and even more fun when you discover it was you who answered the question 5 years ago and have forgotten the answer since. If I know the answer 'll post it. If I'm not sure of the answer but I'm reasonably sure I know where the answer is and I've got nothing else to do then I might go looking for it and post the link. Otherwise I'm guilty of the "it's in here somewhere if you look" type response. If that's bad etiquette then the alternative is I just ignore the question.

I have one of these 3/4 finished, built as per the instructions. The pivot for the rear bogie is a bolt through the cab floor with a spring/washer/nut arrangement to secure it, adjustment is by making the spring longer or shorter. I cut away all the whitemetal dummy chassis at the rear as it was causing shorts, I've yet to replace it with styrene. Considering what you started with the result is remarkable, its hard enough straight out of the box.

Using the very scientific method of measuring the Bachmann Jubilee, DJH Black 5 and Bachmann Compound on the shelf in front of me, they're all about 4 feet above the running plate - about half way between shoulder and elbow. Edit after rummaging in the stock box - Duchess handrail 5' above running plate, Princess about 3'6". Oh well, so much for that idea.

This particular one was between Garsdale and Kirkby Stephen (so PW hut in general rather than LNER concrete but the same principle). It had been used latterly for something to do with an HABD hence the power; that was long gone and no-one thought it necessary to let anyone upstairs know that the heater wasn't needed. I did offer the PWME the opportunity to have the bill transferred to his cost centre first.

Why so many ? Before motorised gangs P.way and S&T work was done essentially on foot. Huts were provided where the gangs were based for storage of tools and materials, and at intervals for further storage and for somewhere to get out of the rain when patrolling. At stations and junctions they could also be required by the S&T or for signalbox lamp rooms etc. Both p.way and S&T staff tended to 'acquire' accommodation given half a chance, sometimes for legitimate storage, often to avoid having to actually clear stuff out. I incurred the wrath of my local p.way by having a 2kw heater in one of their 'middle if nowhere' cabins disconnected as it was on continually so the patrolman could warm his backside once a week.

Depends on the location. Some did (Killin, Loch Tay, vaguely recall a discussion about some GWR BLT on here a few weeks ago) where they were useful for shunting purposes insofar as they avoided a lot of shouting and waving. The distinction between 'signalbox' and 'covered ground frame' could be as much about the grade of the bloke working it as the complexity of what it did.

If it's 10' wheelbase then it can be fitted but I can't tell from the photo. I'm not aware of any 9' fitted open wagons still around at that date, certainly not in large numbers. A bog standard unfitted open could have virtually anything in it which did not need to be there in a hurry.

The ones in Shrewsbury Rd sidings are to be recovered by road, that being the road access point. I believe the north end of the through sidings has been plain lined for now but I'm not certain.

If it's a china clay wagon I think it should have an end door. It has a clay sheet but under that it appears to be a common or garden open. I'm not an expert on china clay wagons thoigh !

No, you just have to talk funny (even funnier than Yorksher) and call everyone 'mate'. Sorted. Although even as we speak a Very Secret Listening Station Near Harrogate is filtering out all your posts and passing them on to the drugs squad.

Parkside PA16 chassis kit will fit. I don't have one to hand but I think this gives you parts for a standard 10' chassis and the LMS J-hanger version with auxilliary suspension. Both/either are correct so you only need buy 2 and you'll still have one spare. PA07 gives you the 9' unfitted version but I think you only get 1.

Quite. I did a derailment investigation course years ago as part on my on call commitment. It was huge fun but in the 5 years I was on call I never used it once. If I had needed it I suspect I'd have been so out if practice I'd be more hindrance on site than help. We stopped non-ops senior managers and directors doing PTS 'just in case' for the same reason, they were lethal on site. Conversely I reckon I could still do Working of Single Lines by Pilotman (1990s rules) in my sleep because the block between Barnsley and Huddersfield fell over so often we were doing it almost every week.

Technically yes, but the UK Treasury holds the purse strings for the Block Grant. So not the DfT directly but certainly Westminster. I wouldn't put it past them to attach strings along the lines of not funding lame ducks, especially as Holyrood will get the blame. Having said that there are equally quiet lines in England not (yet) under threat.

The latter. We (Northern) had a 150 sit down with a damaged bearing at Altrincham a few years ago, it needed a wheelskate to move it to NH. It was there 48 hours longer than it needed to be because both DB recovery crews were already on other jobs. Also you aren't allowed to leave people on site for 72 hours and just throw tea and sandwiches at them anymore until they've finished.

Real ones or Flangeway ones ?

1. As already mentioned, closing lines is (currently) politically unacceptable, even to traditionally anti-rail parties. 2. There is virtually no through traffic on the S&C, and the local traffic between Appleby and Carlisle could transfer easily to Penrith. Yet Network Rail spent millions the other year when it fell off the side of Eden Brows, the sensible option would have been to close it north of Kirkby Thore. But that is politically unacceptable, see 1. 3. The Port Road was built specifically to go after Irish mail traffic, not to serve local populations. It's route reflects that and the sensibilities of the big estates / coastal shiping interests / potential shareholders along the coast who wanted an income from it but didn't want it on their land or in direct competition with their other interests. They had their direct connection eastwards via the almost contemporaneous Kirkcudbright Railway so didn't need the PPR running along the coast, they would make just as much money from it as an inland route.

Moving wagons by pushing with a locomotive on an adjacent road by means of a long wooden prop fixed across the buffers. Also referred to as pole shunting.

As nightstar says, closing it is politically unacceptable and the ferries have only been gone 9 years, not long in strategic planning terms. Even less pro-rail governments won't close lines, pretty much since the S&C was saved by one of the most anti-rail governments since Marples. You might lose the odd station here and there but I'm struggling to think of a whole route which has closed in the last 40 years. Total patronage south of Ayr is about 250,000 passengers a year (mostly from Girvan) so it still serves a purpose. It doesn't need a new station, the existing one is inconvenient but it isn't about to fall into the sea and doing nothing is a low cost option. There are bigger populations in Scotland with existing railway lines and no station at all to invest in first.