Wheatley

Whilst looking for something else I stumbled across this: https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/25-june-1-july-2018/virgin-trains-east-coast-rebrands-as-london-and-north-eastern-railway/ So it mustn't look like GWR's spikey charachters and it mustn't look like Virgin with stickers over the top. Failed twice there I think.

In the same sentence, cut and pasted twice !

It depends which works renewed them, and when :-) As for the roofs, the carriages were jig built from standardised sections, I suspect the different roof panel widths are to fit the bodyside sections below them, the exact layout of which would vary from diagram to diagram. At some point someone will have decided that having several different widths of steel sheet for the roof was more efficient than having several different potential positions on each bodyside section for the roof rib bolt holes.

At the top of the tender whatever it is goes over the top beading and continues down/over the other side. It's also catching the light on the outside edge which suggests conduit rather than overlapping bit of sheeting. The clips (or whatever they are) have a hole at the top, like the eye of a needle.

Must not have been the DVT then, they were only just coming in. It was the last vehicle anyway.

Still being observed in the breach on the LM in the 1990s when the guard (understandably) declined to detrain 400 very happy but very very drunk northbound homeward travellers whilst we detached a defective DVT at Penrith, on the grounds that they were likely to become very unhappy but still very very drunk. "How are we going do this then ?" "Very very carefully." Penrith is, of course, a very long way from anyone in real authority on a Saturday evening. Observance of many ScR photos from the 1950s and 60s suggests that a brake third/composite combination (gangwayed or not) was very common on branch or local trains, often with the brake inwards to accommodate short platforms, and adding the strengthening TK outside the standard BTK/CK/BTK set was also very common.

My bold. The reason every single plastic kit range (not just Airfix) contains Spitfires, Messerschmidts and Dorniers is because they still sell by the bucketload, for all sorts of reasons. It's within living memory, those of us for whom it's just outside living memory were brought up on a diet of Warlord, Action Man and B&W war films on BBC2 in the afternoon, and from a modelling interest rather than nostalgia point of view it represents probably the most concentrated period of accelerated technological development ever, with more varieties of any particular subject than you could hope to cover in a single modelling lifetime. Anyway, a significant number of Airfix's new toolings have been Cold War - TSR2, NImrod, Victor, Valiant, Canberra, Harrier, Lightning, Phantom, Jet Provost, Gnat, Shackleton .... What amused me about the Hornby announcement was that in at least two of the mags this month, it's accompanied by a full page ad for ... er ... the Hornby Thomas range.

Any TOC doing that would have to duplicate the structure in place in the ROSCOs to get any new vehicle through all the regulatory hurdles involved in bringing a new train into service, and the mryiad of rules around modifications and refurbishment to existing trains. The ROSCOs do that for a living, the TOCs could do it if they chose to but it would be duplication and costly. Even where vehicles were bought outright (144 centre cars for example, by WYPTE in this case) they are still managed by one of the ROSCOs for exactly that reason.

Depends, but it doesn't look like it on this occasion. Byelaw 6 covers 'Unacceptable behaviour' but the comments from those actually in the carriage suggest he wasn't offensive, threatening, abusive indecent or disorderly. There was an issue a few years ago near us where the police were arresting street preachers on a weekend for public order offences which of course caused outrage amongst those who had heard about it but not seen it. Standing on a box in a city centre reciting scripture, even very loudly, is not a public order offence; however these were standing outside nightclubs shouting 'whore' and 'jezebel' at every woman who went in.

'Improved' as in 'all now equally mediocre'. RM and MRJ are still my only routine buys, the others hardly at all and only then when there is something of significant interest. 45 pictures showing how to glue figures into a cab is not worth 4 quid.

Caused largely by the late delivery of the BPN-PRE electrification (and late minute advice of the lateness of the same) which is where the driver training delays started. Which followed the extended closure of Vic-Bolton because of the late delivery of the Farnworth Tunnel project and the continuing issues on the Calder Valley because the platforms will only take 4 coaches and there are a limited of 155s and 158s to run it due to the previous franchise being let on a 'no nett growth - no investment' basis by ... er ... the DfT. Unlikely, it goes through two marginal constituencies and closing it would involve bussing half the voters' children across the moors every day.

Yes they have, and to reiterate my earlier comment and to back up Mike's above, they haven't suddenly forgotten how to do timetabling. Or driver training. Whereas the current Secretary of State has been in post for less than two years and is still the longest serving of the minsters currently in charge of the DfT.

Through services to MIA will be re-introduced from Dec 19 as part of Northern Connect.

Blackpool and Barrow depots provide the crews which is why (on the 'normal' timetable) every third service or so is extended to Preston or Lancaster. So to run even a basic shuttle that's at least 3 crews to cover the full service, all of whom could be more usefully employed at the moment on peak services in and out of Manchester. It is a no-brainer - it's a resource-hungry service to operate in terms of crews and a very simple one to replace with a bus trundling up and down the A591. Units and fuel are not the issue.

Just to expand on Sandpiper's and 31A's comments, most of the Northern timetable planning team has been there for years and they haven't suddenly forgotten how to do it since Christmas.

True Mike, in normal circumstances, but this is the largest timetable overhaul I can remember in 30 years and in some cases they were almost starting again at the 'basic agreement' stage. Either all 20-odd train operators have had a collective brain fart twice in a) agreeing to a massive cascade of rolling stock which relied on all Network Rail's key infrastructure projects being delivered on time and b) not noticing that they weren't going to be, or some other party which isn't publicly accepting the blame has pushed it through knowing that the TOCs and Network Rail will get all the grief. [Edited for spelling]

The short version is that the timetable planning process (and subsequent route/traction training , preparation of station workings etc) has been done in 4 months rather than the usual 9-12 months.

Quite. "Oh look, the rabid capitalists appear to have created a privatised labour market for our members. Let's play both sides off against the middle for the next 20 years." 1. Go to the Intercity TOC with the most ambitious/punitive franchise premium and ask how long a strike they think they can withstand and still make the premium payment without eating into profit. Secure a pay rise. 2. Repeat with all the other Intercity TOCs, pointing out that their drivers no longer have parity with TOC 1, and how unfair this is. Secure more pay rises. 3. Point out to the Provincial TOCs that they are now haemorraging members to the local Intercity depots whose members are now on 15% more money, and who don't recruit ab initio drivers because they don't need to. Suggest that they pay their drivers more to assist with retention. Secure pay rises. 4. Go back to TOC 1 and point out how much the pay differential has eroded between their top link drivers and Pretty Scenery But No Revenue TOC's drivers, and how as a result they aren't quite as easy to recruit. Ask them again how much their franchise premium payment is. 5. Repeat for 20 years. Which is why drivers are now on more than most TOC managers, and why the former MD of Northern (Rail Ltd) once described it as "A driver training school with a TOC attached". The TSSA isn't even in the same league.

Sister-in-law glued one of those multiple-coat-hooks-on-a-bit-of-wood things to their newly redecorated hallway wall with No Nails, and not suprisingly it fell off a couple of days later bringing half the wallpaper with it. She swears blind to this day that there was nothing wrong with her bit and still blames her husband for not sticking the wallpaper to the wall properly. Conversely a mate was once asked to put some shelves up for his brother "strong enough to put my LPs on". 25mm blockboard on wrought iron gallows brackets, anchor-bolted into a 1930s party wall made from what we assumed to be engineering brick (based on how many drill bits we went through drilling the holes)and the bolts glued in with silicone. They make quite good bunk beds.

Mike alludes to an important point here, often lost on a lot of modellers; not all stations are within Station Limits, and not all Station Limits have a station in them.

Given that Aberfeldy was a) very small, b) a long way from authority and c) largely populated by people who knew each other, I doubt that any 'agreement' would consist of more than giving the porter/signalman/ticket collector a polite nod on the way past.

This has been their business model for years. They buy in bulk or buy up manufacturer discounted stock and take the risk of being left with unsold items. The popular items sell out and they are left with the slow sellers (Bachmann Mk 2s, Intercity and NSE Mk 1s, Gresley buffets and sleepers) which are heavily discounted to get rid. As soon as they are down to "less than 10 in stock", it goes back up to RRP (or thereabouts) because by that time they are the only retailer with any stock. It's not cheeky and it's not profiteering, it's supply and demand. In the meantime there is a supply of Hornby Gresleys at £14 which makes them attractive for adding Comet sides, or WDs in garish liveries at £60 to be resprayed black. The only difference, as Dibber pointed out, was that Keith Hatton used to manage all this in his head.

From S&M's website, my italics: In other words, they got their fingers burnt. Authentic Airliners are resin which doesn't require heavy duty tooling. Vacforms are generally unsuitable for less experienced modellers, my AIM Nimrod is the only kit I've ever built (out of more than 200 builds) which required woodworking tools.

They are yellow because someone sufficiently senior in Northern sees no reason why they should not be yellow. Thankfully.

Agreed. The yellow end is designed to be seen at a distance so the more yellow the better, whereas a yard shunter is more likely to sneak up on you from close up or from behind something. At short range something which visually jars, like yellow and black diagonal stripes, is more likely to be seen even if only out of the corner of your eye. There are no similar diagonals in nature and very few on buildings and structures* so they jump out and grab your attention. *This assumes of course that you don't paint all the ruddy shed doors in yellow and black diagonal stripes as well, thus camouflaging the shunter.