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I've just done a search - look at this thread

There was a drawing of a VGA in an MRC (possibly an annual?) many years ago. If you ask Paul Bartlett @hmrspaul on here I'm sure he will be able to tell you when

It may well be from when the lockers were removed from the station? I think it was around the mid eighties when left luggage was removed from stations due to the terrorist threat

I was once stopped not long after I'd passed my test in my dad's car - a Hillman Hunter- " is this your car sir" to which I replied no - there was at least 30 seconds of silence, I don't think he'd ever had that answer before! But he then said "what's in the boot sir" - I replied I don't know, "why not" - well its not my car!

I stand corrected then - I'm out of touch since retiring - hope it's a regular flow

Yes Neil has a lot of good photos, that one must've been taken from a crane and inside the docks - there won't be many if any more, photos from that angle

I don't think there has ever been a container terminal on the Chittening estate, the Avonmouth terminal was reached by going through Bennetts onto the docks, as far as I know it's still there but served by road only , its been a while since any container trains have been down there. The terminal is at the bottom left of this view - the stop blocks were pretty much right at the end of the dock!

That's looking in the opposite direction, from the now demolished platform and the bunkers would be just in front of you on the right

Yes it was well known for thefts, and at night time when working trains you often saw cars driving around the (pitch dark) car park with no headlights - they probably didn't realise their brake lights still worked and gave them away! I also had my car broken into there, and a jacket stolen, but they didn't do any damage as I was driving a Mk2 escort at the time and any old key would open the door!

I remember a similar thing , I had a fairly new trainman with me one day. It was the first time he had been up front in the fog, and it was VERY foggy (we were hitting the ramps before seeing the signals) and he was very concerned - almost terrified - that I was running at line speed, like your passengers he also said what happens if there's something in front of us, I replied don't worry if there is we can't stop anyway so it's better if we don't see it - I don't think it reassured him too much! Though he went on to be a driver (still is) so it couldn't have scarred him too much

Have a go it wasn't really difficult except for the chassis - but if you want to model them loaded you wouldn't need to take as much metal off as i did.

Nice to see someone looking at the late notices or is he just writing his ticket out

Never heard of that, I had to Google it! I was thinking about heat shrink tubing and that looks similar, I'll maybe look for some, Thanks

I forgot to say in my last post, but you may have noticed. I removed all of the awful brake pipes fitted by Dapol, and replaced them with Heljan ones, I only needed single pipes for my time period anyway. Luckily I had enough spare as I bought several sprues when Howes were selling them for reasonable prices, I've run out now but won't be buying any more at Gaugemasters prices. I think I will see about getting some 3d printed, but I still have the Dapol ones that were taken off and will try the idea of Hal Nail of cutting the ends off and using some electrical insulation between them - if I can find a bit of correct sized cable - to see what they look like.

Not done much in the last couple of months but i have managed to finish the brake van I mentioned earlier, although it could still do with a bit of weathering Just don't look at the handrails too closely! But the last week or so, like a lot of people I have been playing around with some Dapol VEA's The first one, I have just tried to fade down the paintwork before adding a couple of hazmat stickers and weathering it a bit. Both of the red ones have had the insides painted black, i started by using a rattle can, but then used a few coats of cheap acrylic as I was too lazy to mask the second one! This really makes a difference in darkening down the colour and stopping it 'glowing' so much, on both I have tried to further darken the red with washes rather than respray - laziness again! then just a couple of stickers and a bit of weathering. - I also gave this one a black roof. The third one i resprayed the grey to give the smaller red band, again i just darkened the red a bit and added the black panel, before transfers and weathering. As I've said before I really don't like painting much, but I enjoyed playing around with these, so hopefully it will give me a bit of impetus to have a go at some of the wagons waiting in the queue.

I use self closing tweezers over the end of the shaft, then sqeezing back with your thumb on the hook compressing the spring and you have a free hand to put a pin in.

Yes there were some with red roofs

Good thinking Yes the Reservoir/yellow pipes were removed from most types of wagons in the early eighties (can't remember the date) when most freight trains became single piped. As far as can tell the black backed TOPS panels were applied on the Shildon built vehicles (higher numbers) but they also had a narrower top red band and a different, smaller not stencilled Railfreight panel. I've been thinking myself about respraying the grey to make one of those.

I did try a photo but the camera didn't show the difference very well, but to my eyes it definitely looks better - very quick to do - a couple of minutes with some masking tape and some paper and 30 seconds with a rattle can

Just as an update, I've taken the roof off of one - as Nick G said it just pops off- and sprayed a couple of quick coats of black paint to the inside and it has made a big difference, it also appears to have had a bit of a pre shading effect and has toned the red down a bit, so it's not quite so 'luminous' Also I've weighed them at 138g so they do seem to be heavy enough and meet the g per mm rule pretty well. The brake pipes really are undernourished though and as I said would look better on a 4mm model! Two of the pipes from a VEA next to a Heljan equivalent.

That's handy - will make things easier

Picked up a couple earlier, not had a detailed look, but overall they appear to be pretty good, but the red appears to be the moulded plastic and is very thin allowing the light to shine through it - I think the body will need to come off and put some paint on the insides, they may also benefit from a little extra weight whilst the body is off too - I've not weighed them but they seemed a little light. The main thing that stuck out to me was the anemic air pipes - it almost looks like they have put 4mm ones on!

Not sure if I could be bothered to do it, but it definitely looks better

There was also a signal with 5 feathers (6 routes) - plus position lights and theatre boxes to give 12 different indications - on the Down main approaching Stoke Gifford/ Bristol Parkway, installed for the Royal Mail terminal, it had a short life and is gone now.

I'm afraid the way modern planners design things make little sense to me. Diverging routes to the left were always left hand feathers (JI 1,2,3) and to the right the same (4,5,6) Take this example of a route I used to sign, Penarth curve south jct Two diverging routes to the left so they were J1 and J2 with a plain aspect to stay on the main route - perfect sense. Then on resignalling it became this: So now the second diverging route to left became a RH feather (JI 4) and the main route became junction indicator 5 (no route on a plain aspect). Admittedly the route curves sharply to the right after the first junction, and to a someone in an office looking at it on paper it probably makes sense, but to an old driver like me it is completely counter intuitive. Obviously it's all down to the driver and his route knowledge, but the planning makes little sense to me and probably makes initial route learning even more complicated than it needed to be.