The Bigbee Line

Its relisted, with comment 'no loco'

Just made a cuppa, a cold has me coughing and spluttering, must have been raining as I can hear the wet as cars go by. Relieved by yesterdays hospital visit, I'd been referred after my first 'diabetic eye test'. After the usual stinging drops and photo session, the consultant had a good look and declared them 'a good pair of eyes' and discharged me. It was interesting that he could see scarring from a couple of episodes of brake dust being removed in the 80's. Today will be more packing, collection of prescriptions and the chiropodist visiting. For all you youngsters, that's what happens as you get old. You might think you can dodge it, but it will creep up on you. Enjoy the day.

Without wishing to bore non SR enthusiasts: LBSC K class - 2 cab options LBSC D3 class or SECR H class LBSC C2X class SECR D1 or E1 class SR CC electrics SR S15 class or H15 class SR 4 LAV or 2 NOL SR compartment coaches built with LSWR bodies Thanks for asking

No opinion, just to comment. I checked out the site and he has loads of stuff (seem super top prices). Reviewing the feedback he doesn't sell many very expensive items. Just 3 negative feedback in the last 12 months. He obviously fills a niche in the market. It must pay to keep re-listing items in the hope that you eventually get a bite. It's an eye opener to view all the items and put them in highest price first order.

The night there was a major cable fire in the London Bridge area we took a 12 car from Charing Cross to Cannon Street, changed ends and set off for Blackfriars, then changed ends again heading for Ashford and the Kent Coast. At Blackfriars there was an enormous rat ambling across the platform, not worried by the presence of a train at an unexpected hour.

I'm still packing for the move and finding things that have been hidden for ages: This is a freelance excess height boxcar. Kitbashed from 2 Athearn 40' highcube boxcars. Very crude I'm afraid, but effective from a distance. Unfortunately the 2 bodies used were slightly different, one was nice and crisp, the other not so crisp. A coc-cor gondola lowered on Accurail trucks and kadees added. It needs the grabs etc tarted up. When weighted a reasonable runner. A Marx flatcar and bits of body from an Athearn wide vision caboose. When finished will be a Southern Transfer Caboose. There will be plenty of things to finish off when the move is complete.

Nothing wrong with a change of venue. The Hornby Maroon LNER suburbans are tempting, but horrendously expensive. What formations are you thinking of?

How about a pink 56?

When the French were building TGV routes, people were proud if it went by their house. When we lived in Ashford there were years of protest against the building of the missing part of the M20. I had to chuckle when some 'protesters' were then hemmed in by the CT route. What happened to the 'good of the country' ethos

Nice and sunny in Eastleigh, can't wait to move to Norfolk. Just seen a trailer for a program with Shaun Ryder on UFO's, if I had self medicated on a similar scale I would have seen more than UFO's

I worked into Holborn Viaduct in the early 1980's. Mostly EPBs I think. Mostly suburban (Sevenoaks, Orpington as destinations IIRC) There may have been the odd long distance commuter service in the peak. Someone needs to check the timetables. Parcels and Papers had stopped by then, but a small shift in the space time continuum will sort that. As always any pictures are appreciated.

I agree that it might seem expensive, but the seller has got to provide packaging of some kind, get them to the post office, then pay the postage. There must be a minimum charge or it's as easy to throw them in the bin. After all if you don't want them you don't have to bid.

56116 at Toton on 23 11 2002 When I worked at Toton I was in the yard at least once or twice a week. One day I thought 'I need to start taking pictures of locomotives', here are some of these pictures. More in a set of images on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/sets/72157635987860666/ Somehow I have embedded a slide show. Don't ask me how I did it... (Monkeys , typewriters, works of Shakespeare etc)

...mmmmmmm... I'm sure this must be an HG lok from WW2. The pink matches Hermies uniform,,,, It shows some battle damage, must get it on ebay, with that provenance it will be worth a mint...

I wonder if Adolf had a train set.... That would have been fun..... At least there would have been no debate about P4 etc. It would have been ".....nice train Mein Fuhrer......."

In the 90's I was at Crewe for a meeting at the traincrew depot. Whilst attending a call of nature I saw some scrawling that showed a healthy interdepot rivalry existed "Flush twice, it's a long way to Saltley"

You can tell that your getting old, when after a week away, all the post was various items of hospital correspondence for SWMBO and myself. In a couple of weeks time we have appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Monday's feeling left out......

The vans coupled on the 24" curve easily, Not on the 18", I can live with that as the 18" is only really a test. My next mini project is a test track with some reverse curves with and without transitions (a bit of straight between them)

Money where my mouth is time... Still waiting to move house, but found a box with a few bits in... Take two Bachmann BR Fruit vans and some Kadee #5 couplers. The first attempt was to fix the box under the headstock. I was able to use the Bachmann bracket to clamp the Kadee Box into position. I used the #242 coupler box that snaps together http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page242.htm The results were promising, They would couple easily on a 24" radius curve and would run on 18" radius curves. The gap between vehicles was much improved over the hook and bar coupler. So far so good. The only thing I didn't like was the slightly droopy coupler head. I experimented with a small strip at the front of the coupler box under the shank. It was difficult to get it tight enough to stop the droop, but at the same time keep the easy action for uncoupling. I then had a brain wave (steady on now). I glued the same strip to the top of the box at the rear. Then when glued under the headstock the coupler box slopes up slightly towards the buffers. The coupler head sits nice and square, plus the side to side action is unimpaired. See the coupler box stuck directly to the underframe with a slightly droopy head Now with the rear of the box packed slightly to slope the box, note the nice square coupler head This is the view from above when on a Roco 888mm radius curve The tilting of the coupler box also sets the trip pin just clear of the rail heads, as per kadee specifications.

More private shunt locomotives from the archive. An evening visit to Snailwell revealed 2 shunters: Another visit to Croft had this loco busy shunting:

More Longbridge shunt locos added to my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10089399263/ Unable to upload to RM Web gallery at the moment.

Some pictures from Longbridge 1996 1997, more on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10087325745/ There will be more to follow, enjoy....

In 1977 we lived in Acklington, Northumberland. The local Opencast Coal Mine was run by Derek Crouch. It was in use at the Acklington site when we arrived. During 1977 it was moved to Butterwell. To get there it 'walked'. As the route crossed the ECML, there was an 'engineers possession' and a small P Way crane lifted some track panels. Big Geordie walked across and the track was re-instated. I took a couple of snaps, now on Flickr; http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/9841474433/in/set-72157635696792364

Personally I am currently a 'brick counter' my method to sketch out plans for brick built structures. Works well, except for when the image quality is not quite good enough to see the actual bricks. An observation is that we often model based on historic photographs. How typical are these? The majority are of loco only, then it's the more interesting ones at that. My biggest frustration is the movie clip where it gets cut just as the loco goes out of view, just when I was waiting to see the wagons or coaches..... I am always on the lookout for interesting things in the background of shots.