big jim

Yesterday was cancelled as was todays mainline run but I had to take an 805 into wolves and back round the oxley chord to turn it before spending the day doing coupling and uncoupling tests Into wolves and changed ends, alongside the pride Pendolino supposedly put on the 807 tomorrow but I’ll know later if it’s cancelled again

I like that narrow gauge loco, think I might have to invest in one of those, other than that nothing for me but that 31 in petroleum livery with ploughs looks good!

3rd warwell finished, foxhound glued down and straps made up, the final wagon to be done is the warflat with the 2 Trains4u vehicles, got to glue them down and make straps for them (need to order a load of T4U chocks for all the vehicles too) then I went back to my class 50 with its removed gearing I managed to get a set of gears for it from eBay so I set about refitting them only to discover that when the previous owner removed the gears they also took out the metal pins that held them in place! I experimented with a off cuts of plastic sprues from some 3D printed figures, pushing them through the holes and placing the gears over them The sprue plastic isn’t very strong so I’m not going to use it but will pop to my local model shop to see what Albion metal rod he has of a similar diameter to the Hornby part and make the spindles myself from that as I couldn’t do any more with that I went on to painting some figures this lot I primed with warhammer figure primer which went on lovely for the topcoat I have used Vallejo and warhammer acrylics and they have gone on so much better than the previous lot on which I used the wrong primer ive really got into painting figures now, quite therapeutic, before I knew it about 3 hours had passed! all these figures are from scale 3D some very cruel close ups, noticed a few areas that need touching up in the photos but I’m really happy with them man on phone, skinny jeans, obligatory brogues and no socks! Man with a camcorder, the viewfinder bit snapped off though Tracksuit and backpack man Photographer Girl taking selfie, unfortunately her other hand broke off milf (based on one of the mums on the school run!) Nicholas cage as I say some need touching up, I really need to look at methods of highlighting the facial features, I’ve got some warhammer flesh tone wash but when I put that on I think it makes the figures worse as they just end up looking dirty Going to get some more figures ordered to practice on soon though

I normally reverse into spaces, only problem is when it’s in a busy supermarket you can’t get the trolley to the boot to unload your big shop if other vehicles are either side or in front of you

never been there, should do really when I’m in the toton area with work

id missed this bit in the announcement nice little bonus as I’d ordered 3 with hattons and wondered why it wasn’t showing a total of £75

To me it seems the general mood about this announcement on here is a bit ‘Meh!’ It’s certainly not made me jump up and down with glee but I suspect for every one of me there is an opposite who is over the moon (saying that I wasn’t excited by AS announcing a 31 either as I don’t really have a fondness for them) Be interesting to see the price and livery variations tomorrow though

With this shop shutting where are the nearest alternatives? TTC diecast (Derby) topps trains (Stafford) A to B models (Matlock) Hobby goblin (Stoke) Those are all I could think of off the top of my head, none of those are particularly close though

Hope your wife’s not reading this!

There is a separate thread but you should have had an email from Hatton this morning

I’ve just had an email from accurascale confirming my pre-order of 3 warwells and they are showing in my pre-orders too, that was quick now, the question is do I order some more!

rather you than me having to organise that!

I take it my hattons preorders (warwells) that are moving across to accurascale will automatically populate my ‘preorder’ at some point, they aren’t showing at the moment

The first thing that came to mind for me was the castlefield area of Manchester which has 2 mainlines parallel (rather than a mainline and branch), both are on bridges and they are of different types too, Cheshire lines and midland

Went shopping earlier, came out to this clown in a mini… note how empty the rest of the car park is!

Unit testing today 807002 Into Wolverhampton and back to Stafford, we can’t go round the oxley chord as this unit is pure electric and there are no wires down there Stafford Outside Rugby Into the platform, 2 generations of WCML electrics Ready to head north Waiting at international and new st And back to oxley Cancelled tomorrow but back to it Wednesday

Saturdays crewe to small heath was cancelled so had a sneaky day off, ended up underground where I had no phone signal so couldn’t get any ‘can you justs’ id passed speedwell caverns on my way back from hope last week so decided to go and have a look, a great trip if somewhat claustrophobic to start with when the boat set off into the tunnel! cavern at the end, ‘the bottomless pit’ today was a toton to bescot light loco followed by an intermodal back in the opposite direction 66787 was the loco, it came in on a ballast which I took down the yard and uncoupled Into bescot Jumped on the intermodal and worked it back to toton and a walk back to the car a week of 807 testing coming up

dont think id like to be anywhere near a 100mph out of control ‘missile’ if they get shot on the move! The by-pass past small heath yard is awful for ‘street racing’ and the side streets feeding it are lawless, I don’t like driving round there, yet alone cycling like I did regularly the last few years

Noted on Google maps that Tutbury models (Staffordshire) closed down as of the middle of January, I was going to call in on my way to toton this morning but luckily checked before I pulled off the A50 This is the notice in the window courtesy of Google Used it a few times, was one of those shops where if you had a bit of a dig around you could find a few hidden gems at ‘old prices’ my last purchase from there was a ‘new’ Bachmann NSE mk1 for £20 shame to see another model shop go

common as muck round here! (I can see the factory from my bedroom window)

Job cancelled today so wa still to keep my phone on, well I did but went 100s of meters underground where there was no phone signal! had a trip over to speedwell caverns near Buxton, I passed them the other week on my way home from Hope on a possession job and decided to visit them today with the family, a great trip, took about an hour, I could see gethin was a bit anxious when the boat set off, admittedly I was too as it was a bit more claustrophobic than I thought it would be but after a couple of minutes I felt fine and we enjoyed the trip, the threat of ‘no refunds for claustrophobia’ willing me on then gethin decided to sprint up a mounting for a picture!

one from Buxton, the water column at the end of the disused platform but all is not as it seems, it’s not an original one on the ends of the old midland platforms toward Matlock but one that was placed there in the 80s? By peak rail when they had a site in Buxton, they built new platforms but nothing came of it , I believe they planned to run through to their current line in Matlock sharing running rights with BR toward Blackwell then raking what is now the monsal trail to Bakewell and onward given the amount of rail traffic that uses the line between Buxton and great rocks and the popularity of the monsal trail it’s hard to imaging how that would work now however there are still plans being mooted around to relay the line for quarry traffic which if it happened would be wonderful but I can’t see it happening in my career (or indeed lifetime!) Here’s a pic I took of the site in nov 2021 while waiting at the signal on the Hindlow branch, since then the building behind is finished and the Aldi is also a ghost in the machine as it’s closed and moved elsewhere in the town!

This doesn’t look like an 805 Unit testing cancelled but got a can you just to take an intermodal from rugby to birch coppice, running about 4 hours late due to a loco failure, as you can see above I got on at rugby Kingsbury, changing the points and into birch where another driver took over Another 66 shunting around crewe to small heath tomorrow

Had a mild panic just now as this thread has disappeared from my feeds and I thought I’d deleted it but I found it again via my notification settings! anyway short job today showing someone round basford hall, as it happened a class 69 came in on a road learning trip so we ‘borrowed it’ for a few trips up and down the yard to see the moves Not many pics as I was concentrating on showing him what’s what! class 66 Filthy 69 and a couple of DRS 37, there were a couple more behind too 805 to Euston tomorrow

If I didn’t laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation I’d cry!