Jim Martin

14 minutes ago, Ray Von said:

3M "Spray Mount" produces a fairly misty spray, you have to keep yer nozzle clean between uses to avoid clogging. 

How permanent is Spray Mount? I've seen it recommended as a method of attaching brass overlays to coach bodies, but I'd want to know that it wasn't going to separate after a couple of years.

Jim

11 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Because those who go fishing are usually quite well connected politically and so are able to lobby ministers / government that they are a special case. 

I think you're confusing "angling" with "polo" here. Easily done.

Jim

15 hours ago, slg said:

I do remember it well, especially the advert, most of our photos of the area were taken when we would go shopping with our mother and we would get an hour of that visit to take photos and numbers.

Only later in life after everything good had sadly gone did I visit Southport regularly when I worked for Blockbuster.

It's not what it was, in a railway or any other sense 

The big building that dominates the skyline in the photos looking down the platforms at Southport was the now-demolished Leaf UK factory, the home of the Chewit. I went there for work several times in the 90s: at the time I did all the Common Agricultural Policy work for Customs & Excise in the Liverpool area. They had a huge still from the classic "chewier than a fifteen-storey block of flats" advert on the wall in the foyer.

Jim

1 minute ago, Jim Martin said:

As I recall, he grew up in one of the towns at the end of the Forth rail bridge - Dalmeny, Queensferry, North Queensferry, Inverkeithing: somewhere around there.

 

Jim

Turns out he has a Wikipedia page. Born in Lancashire to Scottish parents, moved back to North Queensferry as a child.

Jim

Ian Jack has written numerous pieces over the years that have touched on his childhood love of railways, and he's obviously kept up with the subject. As I recall, he grew up in one of the towns at the end of the Forth rail bridge - Dalmeny, Queensferry, North Queensferry, Inverkeithing: somewhere around there.

Jim

27 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

Perhaps 'No Highway'?  I have not read it for years, this type of novel goes out of date very quickly in technical terms, but as I remember it was about crashes of a new type of airliner.

"No Highway" was filmed as "No Highway In The Sky" - presumably for the benefit of anyone who hadn't noticed it was about planes - with James Stewart in the "we need an American star to sell this in the USA" role. I remember seeing it on TV years ago and it's not bad, albeit a bit formulaic.

I didn't read much Neville Shute (my teenaged thriller reading was MacLean or Brian Callison. I'm next to certain that Caradoc was right about "Night Without End".

Jim

1 hour ago, Shadow said:

Think it may be a A13 Mk.III Cruiser Mk.V Covenanter (Only has 4 driving wheels, Crusader had 5). This was the predecessor of the Crusader.

https://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/gb/A13-III_Cruiser_MkV_Covenanter.php

They're definitely Covenanters, which introduces an interesting railway link, since the design was done by the LMS!

It was a notably unsuccessful design, largely because of engine cooling problems. In order to reduce the height of the tank, a special low-profile engine was used; but that meant that there was no space for the radiators at the back, where they normally go on tanks. Instead, they were at the front-left, next to the driver (the flat panel there is an armoured cover for them). The long pipe run between the engine and the radiator was a cause of unreliability; as well as making the crew compartment very hot - something which prevented them being used in North Africa (possibly a good thing for the crews).

Covenanters never served outside the UK and the type regularly appears in "worst tanks of WW2"- type lists. That so many were built (over 1700) was a massive waste of resources.

Jim

51 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Possibly 'Night without End' published in 1959 ? 

 

That certainly sounds like it. The funny thing is, almost nothing in the plot description rings a bell (a couple of bits do); but as soon as I read the comments above about rear-facing seats, that one point sprang into my mind!

Jim

There's an Alistair MacLean book where forward/backward facing airliner seats is a plot point. I can't remember which one it is (I read loads of his books in the 1970s; but I haven't read one since) but it was set in the Arctic and began with the narrator rescuing survivors from a crash-landed airliner.

Jim

I think it depends a fair bit on whereabouts on the WCML you're thinking of. For instance, there are many photos online showing lengthy block workings of IZA twin vans (the type done by Revolution in N) but these are generally taken at the southern end of the route.

I've been doing a lot of research into train formations north of Warrington in 2005-6; and there wasn't very much van traffic at all, apart from MoD traffic in VGAs, and that was operating in "Enterprise" mixed freights. What there was, though, generally seemed to be in groups of identical vehicles. For example, the 6N42/6F42 Arpley-Blackburn and return, an Enterprise feeder working, seems to have been always between 2 and 8 of the type of IWA van done by Dapol in N and, I think, Heljan in OO (sometimes with 1 or 2 BYA coil wagons tacked on the back).

When vans other than VGAs appeared in Enterprise trunk workings (not the Blackburn vans: they must have gone south or east from Warrington, because I've never seen them in photos taken north of there), which was rare, it was usually no more than 3 or 4 at a time, but generally of a single type.

There are certainly exceptions, though. There was an Arpley-Knowsley feeder service which was all vans and sometimes had different types in the formation; and here's a lengthy Bescot-Wembley train of mixed vans at Ledburn Junction some time after 2005 (beasty vinyl on the loco): https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-a-class-92-electric-locomotive-number-92009-working-a-freight-train-10959175.html.

Jim

2 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

Final straw was Gill getting spat at.

Honestly, what is the matter with some people? I don't care how exempt people are (and I've seen a suspiciously large number who claim to be): there's just no excuse for this sort of thing.

Jim

This is exciting! I have two on order from C&M, which necessitated eBaying huge amounts of non-essential rolling stock so that the 92s are, as they say, "cost-neutral". This is where my decision to switch from modelling the Liverpool area to something based on the WCML takes shape.

Jim

I take it that the idea of the predictors is to tailor the amount of time the barriers are down to the speed of the train; so you don't get the situation where the barriers close then nothing happens for ages because the approaching train's going well below line speed?

Jim

3 hours ago, duncan said:

I know the car drivers were in the right to cross, but did they not glance to the side when about to cross - don't most people ?  Were the train lights not clearly visible, as it was after dark ?  Or am I just IAM trained ?

I had a look at the crossing on Streetview. Because the track and the road are at quite an angle, the stop lines are well back from the railway tracks. There's very little view along the tracks until you're on them.

This is the crossing (Google says that the road here is called Salhouse Road; it becomes Norwich Road almost immediately out-of-shot to the left). The train would have been coming from the bottom of the picture towards the top:

This is the view of the tracks for a car stopped at the barrier, for the vehicle crossing from left to right in front of the train:

And this is for a vehicle stopped at the barrier crossing from right to left (i.e. train coming from the left), which would seem to have the better view towards the approaching train:

Jim

Strewth: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-152020-near-miss-between-a-passenger-train-and-cars-at-norwich-road-level-crossing

I've searched, but this doesn't seem to be on the site yet. You'd like to think that this would highlight why "leaves on the line" are no joke; but I doubt that's how it'll come across.

Jim

11 hours ago, pH said:

‘Worlds Apart’ - Sinceros
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N4R5d_P6GEc

 

Lyrics:
https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/the-sinceros/worlds-apart-07

 

(Edit to add lyrics)

 

 

As a matter of interest, did you know it from my description, or are your searching skills just better than mine?

Jim

THANK YOU!

That's been bugging me for days. "Worlds Apart" was one of the titles I'd tried searching for, but there are quite a few songs of the same name, and that one didn't come up. Also, it looks like the snippets of lyrics that I had were just wrong enough not to come up in searches.

Jim

I have somehow got a tune from years ago lodged in my head and I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called or who it was by. I know that I'm pretty much in the heart of the RMWeb demographic (mid 50s) and there are plenty of people here with a fondness for the music of the late 70s and early 80s so, in the full knowledge that some other poor sods are going to have this inserted into their heads as well (sorry), I'm hoping that this rings a bell with someone. Over the last couple of days I've managed to recall some of the lyrics, but not necessarily in the right order or consecutive bits. What I've got is:

"I do the Secret Service thing, swallow the piece of paper / but now I'm choking on the words, forgot the information"

"It's only then you tell me that I'll self destruct in seconds"

"It's only then you tell me that we're worlds apart (each minute?)"

"I should have stayed awake last night, remembered who I was last night"

Anyone? Please?

Jim

Presumably that'll be a low-relief structure on the backscene behind the office building?

Jim

4 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

I have run out of the ordinary RCH jumpers, but I do still have some of the 1405 Mk.2 rubbing plates etch that includes jumpers. The Mk.2 jumpers are shorter than the standard versions though. Sorry for any confusion my reply made, Jim.

No need to apologise, Bernard. I asked about specific etches and didn't say what I was going to do with them. I'm actually looking for something to put on the end of a Super GUV that I've been working on for several months (or, more accurately, not working on for several months after a period of feverish activity). I'll have a look at some photos and see how the Mk 2 end compares with the connections on the GUV.

Jim

9 hours ago, Steadfast said:

Thanks Will, glad you find it interesting!

I've got a small update of a few bits in progress, these are the ones that I could grab a photo of today.

First up is a Modellbahn Union (produced by Dapol) steel hood wagon that although of a European prototype to 1/160, sizes up nicely to represent the blue IHAs in use in the UK when placed among 1/148 wagons.

The graffiti on this model is actually a commission I did for someone else, but I liked the design (I think they're aliens?) so much that I decided to get some extras and do my model as this wagon. The plaques that the black decals sit on weren't big enough on the model, so some were knocked up from 10 thou plastic. There's a few rough edges to tidy up before matt varnishing and weathering. I'm also doing a trio of grey IHAs, but they're not sufficiently advanced yet to be worth photographing.

Here's the kind of look I'm going for with my steel rake, you can see that the IHAs are shorter than the BYAs by some margin!

 

On the previous page I showed the start of work to reproduce Mk2 generator coach 17105. This has gained a coat of blue, just needs the roof painting and it'll be ready for transfers. The rebate on the roof will receive a piece of mesh, and the underframe still needs a little work but I've included it to show where I'm up to.

The door nearest the camera has been filled and rescribed to model it as a wrap around door as this is a later type of Mk2 to the Farish base model. The real thing is actually a corridor brake, but often seems to have the curtains drawn so I may add curtains rather than trying to scratch build a new interior. This end also shows the rebates cut into the end beside the corridor connector. Presumably they originally had jumper cables in when it was in Royal Train use.

Finally a close up, showing the work at the other end. A bit tricky to make out due to the glossy finish, but it's there as best I can.

Handrails from 0.2mm wire, TPM RCH cables and tail lamps are a BH Enterprises etch of loco marker lights.  Additionally the ETH cable socket was modified to sit higher and at an angle as per the later Mk2s and the guttering was extended to wrap around using 0.3mm square Plastruct strip.

 

More updates soon hopefully, I've got one for my loco thread ready, once I process the RAW files off the camera. Hopefully in a day or two, all being well.

 

Jo

 

Hi Jo, where did you get the RCH cables from? I tried to get some from Bernard Taylor recently, but he didn't have any left.

Thanks, Jim

On 04/11/2020 at 22:44, exet1095 said:

I’ve never worked with CET but the Fuchs is probably ok to load onto rail. (Having used them in the JNBCR on Telic in 2003, and with the RY in the 1990s. There’s probably a loading manual somewhere; I’ll ask around.

Paul

Many thanks! I've got an assortment of CVR(T) types from PG Models to use as loads on warwells and warflats; and the NGS commissioned a Scimitar (also from PG Models) which I'll be buying some of as well. I was looking for something not available ready-built for a bit of variety, and those two vehicles suggested themselves. I'd probably have gone with a PG DROPS load carrier if PG hadn't ceased trading.

To be honest, the Fuchs looks like it would be a whole lot easier to scratchbuild in 1/148 scale than the CET!

Jim

<post deleted>

This is a bit niche, but I know that some RMWebbers have a military background, so I'm hoping someone can answer this.

Can the FV180 Combat Engineer Tractor be moved by rail in the UK? If so, can it be moved on a warflat or does it need a warwell? How is the anchor moved - is it loaded into an accompanying wagon? Finally, how is the bucket end tied down: there seem to be lashing points built into the bucket itself and also higher up on the hull?

In a similar vein, can the TPz Fuchs 1 be moved by rail in the UK? They're pretty wide, which suggests not, but not as wide as a Warrior; and Warriors can loaded onto a warwell, as long as the special frame is fitted.

Thanks a lot in advance

Jim