Simon Bendall

Actually, the ex NSE snowblower was sent out this evening to work between Carstairs and Abington, reports of 10ft drifts in areas. Beilhacks and independent ploughs have been out for the last three days as have locos with mini ploughs.

There haven't been any come back to work in the UK on RHTTs or whatever for some years. Most recent returnees have all been for heavy repairs at Toton and the last one of those went back to France last May.

Yes, it was only the small number of later Heron conversions that were upgraded to steel.

Andy, this might help. Not an easy thing to photograph!

Since they were painted in 2004/5. The spots have been a feature of regular royal traction since the 1980s, 73142 had one as did the royal 47s and at least one of the EWS liveried 73s.

The green circle multiple working socket was fitted to 47714 in Nov 2004.

West Coast has a vacuum-braked coach set of mostly early Mk.2s based at Southall for steam charters, which is probably the most widely travelled vacuum stock these days.

Pathfinder's 'The Jolly Grid' http://www.railtourinfo.co.uk/161217e.html

It was given a coat of blue at the Wensleydale to make it more presentable.

The location was Sinderby, storage location/dumping ground for an individual's mostly Mk.2 collection, 47540 was also there. Most went for scrap when the land was purchased for the A1 widening but a few moved to a new location at Dalton. There's a few photos at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sinderby/index1.shtml and searching on Flickr and Google images will bring up others.

It may not state it but they are.

The samples seen so far and illustrated in the catalogue are all hand painted though, there haven't been any factory finished models shown as yet.

A full set of info hasn't been released yet so there's not much to add, understand some will be refurbs though.

20032 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpmarks/8155294784 20063 http://www.flickr.com/photos/d33206hg/6335205275 More of both on Flickr

IIRC, its the other way round, they will all be supplied with the same address (3 I think) and if wanted can be altered to individual addresses.

47599's Metals logos were the Class 37 size cut down to fit, proportions are different to a standard Class 47 size.

The £399 is an error/typo, I've checked that with Hornby as it seemed somewhat excessive for two cars

It's a split box.

66136 was prepared for the January launch, it pushed the 92 and the train through the banner. You can just see it at the rear in the photo.

Guard's compartment and cage stripped out completely, large packing tables installed. There's a pic of a GUV conversion in the Parkin book, BGs were similar.

Yep, 55034 was the only one. There were a few of the DTS trailers though.

Also worth mentioning the three FZA wagons, which are used to carry pre-assembled switch and crossing sections with runner wagons if required, eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianews/7593137956 First of these was the experimental air-braked Salmon built in 1983 and it was joined by two converted Perch in the early 2000s.

When the original 47/7s came south from Scotland in 1990, 47703/04/06/12/17 initially went to Parcels, of which 47703/12/17 got the red/grey livery in the first half of 1991. July 1991 saw these five loaned to NSE for use on the Waterloo-Exeter route. 47704 had a generator failure soon after and was sent back to what had by then become RES, it was put through Doncaster and emerged in RES colours that December. The other four stayed with NSE until the 159s arrived in 1993 and then transferred to RES but were never repainted. As for the later batch of 47/7s, as Chris suggests, the majority of these had already been repainted in RES colours as 47/4s before modification and renumbering. Some were repainted at the same time as they were renumbered, particularly those dragged off various scrap lines to expand the fleet. Apart from the Royal pair, the only second batch 47/7 to operate in a non RES livery was 47783, which stayed in Intercity Swallow for a short time after renumbering from 47809.

Do you mean the first batch of 47/7s, ex push pull 47701-17, or the later ones modified by RES? 58049 was the last in Railfreight Red Stripe, emerged from Doncaster in Coal in January 1992.

Metal cab doors were introduced from D3872 (08705). The main limiting factor of the Dapol 08 is the strap hinged bodyside doors, which are good for D3000-D3336 and D3454-D3472 only.