31A

Strikes me as being an unusual thing to see at Wemyss Bay - anyone any idea what it was doing there?

Hi Mick, According to the RCTS 'Green Book', the first 10 (8301-10) were initially in unlined black with 'NE' on the tenders. Before nationalisation all of them had this changed to 'LNER', but three were repainted green - 8304 in September 1945 (still with 'NE' on the tender), renumbered 1003 in January 1946 and lettered 'LNER' in June 1946, numbers and letters changed to unshaded yellow Gill Sans in February 1947. 1000 (ex 8301), repainted green at Doncaster in September 1947, unshaded Gill Sans insignia. 61002 repainted green with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' on tender at Cowlairs in April 1948. Hope this helps, Steve

He looks like The Third Sam to me !!

Just had a quick look in my copy of Ian Allan's 'British Rail Headcodes' (undated, but it cost 4/6!). 'T' on the LM does indeed indicate "Excursion and special trains local to LMR". In the LM section, there are lists of route indicating codes using the last two digits, but it isn't clear (to me anyway) when these were used as such rather than indicating individual train numbers; anyway, one of the indications for '61' under 'Manchester Division' is given as "Crewe or Chelford and Manchester (Piccadilly) via Styal", which seems to make some kind of sense.

So it appears, Ian. Ah well, I thought it was worth a punt, but for now my thirst remains unquenched.

Interesting to see this topic resurrected, with some discussion of alternative traffics for these vehicles - I was wondering whether anything was known of their use as Ale Vans? There's a picture of one of the ex train ferry cattle vans branded thus at Rugby in 1971 in Robert Hendry's 'British Railway Goods Wagon in Colour', but beyond that I don't know much about their use for this traffic, which could provide a good excuse to use cattle wagons on a layout where they wouldn't otherwise be suitable. I was wondering if anyone knew where and when, and numbers involved? Were there any other modifications, and how was the load carried, e.g. were the barrels stacked vertically or horizontally, and how many layers of ale barrels could be carried in an 8 ton van?

A VERY interesting formation, BD - interesting to see a Fruit D on a GN outer suburban train (legitimises what happens sometimes on my layout!); but do you think the blue 'un could actually be a CL? There COULD be a yellow stripe above the further windows, the gaps in the footboards look a bit different from those on an SLO, and a train like that would normally have included some first class.....??

You are quite correct, Mr. B B; 'Burley Park' and 'Poppleton' are not included on the destination blinds of Northern units, but are used on station displays and announcements to describe Harrogate line services to avoid confusion with York-Leeds via Garforth, which is much quicker. To that end, as a Guard I used to put 'Harrogate' on the rear of my trains when leaving York or Leeds on Harrogate line services, and changed it to read 'Leeds' or 'York' as appropriate at the earliest opportunity after departure. If not, especially from York, I invariably had some poor unuspecting passenger ask me when we would get to Leeds (usually around Starbeck or so)! My driver would normally have put the 'correct' destination on the front and as he couldn't easily change it en route, and the front of the train wasn't so often seen by passengers boarding at the termini anyway. There are a few regular York-Leeds via Garforth workings for Pacers, but in the minority - one being 0748 York-Leeds, which should have a 153 + 144 combination. Otherwise, as mentioned, it's mostly 158s on Blackpool services.

Thanks Alan, the unintended weathering effects didn't turn out too badly in the end really! I think the camera's picked up on the 'powdery residue' more than the naked eye does really, to be honest.

A few weeks ago, I asked for advice on lettering the Parkside kit PC40, which makes an LMS 4 wheeled CCT (Diagram 2026). Several members were very helpful with information, so I thought I'd share the result. Here's the finished product in ex works condition. As you can see, I managed to fit the lettering from the Modelmasters sheet 8026 into the space available; it did however mean putting the running number onto the lowest plank and to do this I removed the label clip which is moulded in this location. The instructions say the label clip was added in BR days and photos of the real thing sometimes show the running number to be on the next plank up. The lettering was still a tight fit - although I tried I wasn't able to avoid some of the dimensional data lettering falling in the middle of the plank joins, and the left hand edge of the running number etc. falls on the corner angle iron, which I suspect would have been avoided in reality. Anyway, it looks quite smart. Apart from this, this must be one of the simplest kits going to build and it goes together very well, but it isn't always very interesting to do things the easy way so I made a couple of modifications. I wouldn't normally bother with compensation for 00 vehicles, but have had some bother with long wheel base vans being inclined to get off the rails, so I fitted an MJT inside bearing compensation unit to one axle. This is designed for wagon size wheels, so to accomodate coach wheels I had to cut a hole in the floor and fit a false floor inside, to attach the compensation unit and allow the vehicle to ride at the right height. The other modification was to the roof; I've probably got a bit of a 'thing' about roofs and think they often let models down. There's nothing wrong with the roof moulding supplied with this kit, but to make a better join with the sides, I made a base (or false ceiling) for it from a lamination of two layers of 20thou Plastikard. This is a method I remembered from building coaches from PC Kits many years ago. The lower layer fits between the sides which provides a secure fixing for the roof, and prevents the sides bowing inwards with handling etc.; the edges of the upper layer represent the cant rail. I also added the curved rainstrip above the doors using 10thou square strip and informed guesswork. A few weeks later our photographer caught the same vehicle again, once again stabled in the middle road at Finsbury Square with a varied assortment of other rolling stock: By now it's acquired the usual patina of grot associated with parcels vans - in reality this is an attempt to cover a bit of a disaster! I'd painted the van using Halford's Ford Burgundy Red to represent BR maroon. This gives a nice gloss finish for the transfers, but then I gave it a coat of Vallejo acrylic varnish. This is a very good varnish, but then I went and weathered it with Humbrol enamels...disaster!! The enamel (or white spirit I used to thin it) seems to have reacted with the acrylic varnish producing a pale powdery residue in corners, grooves etc! I should have learnt this lesson by now having fallen for it several times previously. Having gone to all that trouble with the lettering I hadn't intended to produce a very filthy vehicle, but the best I could do to try and mitigate the disaster was further weathering, so the result is as you see above.

Thanks, Ian and Giz - kinda ties in with what I suspected. I didn't 'spot' any lightweights in action, although there were some stored specimens still lurking in '68, and I had ridden on them earlier on the Cambridge-Bedford. Ah well, 'it's my layout' rules can apply! Nice picture, Stewart!

You're not wrong, Stewart - for example, a picture in 'Aspects of East Anglian Steam, volume Two' shows 44423, 43937 and 44412 lined up on a siding awaiting their next workings at South Lynn on 1st August 1953. The middle one being RH drive, the other two LH. If you're interested, the same book has a picture of J11 64420 passing South Lynn on a goods on the same date!

Quite agree in general Stewart, although 'First Generation DMUs in East Anglia' (John Brodribb, Ian Allan) has a couple of pictures of a 2-car set including E56362 on the Hunstanton line and a similar set (could be the same one?) at North Walsham, all taken in 1969. The 'Combined Volume' I used when I started spotting at Cambridge in 1968 has this car and E51204 underlined - at the time I hadn't travelled far afield on spotting trips, and I remember seeing a Metro Cammell with the distinctive lining in Cambridge around then - which stuck in my memory as being unusual compared to the DMUs we usually saw. I'd be interested to know when this set came to East Anglia (and whether there were any others) as I've recently modified my Limby one to a 2-car and given it those numbers just as an excuse to run one on a 1960s ER layout (and as such, ought to have predicted this announcement from Bachmann!). The buffers Phil refers to look like this: As noted, similar to the ones Bachmann have modelled on the Derby Lightweights - perhaps unsprung for 'technical' reasons associated with the unusual design?

Thanks for the confirmation, BV - I suspect my wallet is about to take a dent, too!

Are the forthcoming Heljan catalogue numbers 2320-2323 Baby Deltics the original (disc headcode) versions, then? sorry but Hatton's (and other) adverts don't make it clear!

Thanks for the suggestion Mick, I will check the back-to-back of the bogie wheels; I did find one of my L1s had a slightly wide to gauge bogie wheel which caused its bogie to go the wrong way on slips occasionally. With the B1, at first I thought it was the drain cocks and I cropped them a bit (they looked a tad long anyway?!) but to no avail. The NEM pocket on the bogie is certainly a bit obtrusive but I haven't done anything about it yet as I'm in two minds - I do sometimes run light engines coupled on my layout, when the front coupling is needed. I don't think it's a cause of derailments though, but I will check.

I've been thinking of 'grotting up' mine too but haven't got round to it yet, but I was wondering whether it might be a mistake to make it too 'grotty', bearing in mind that they were used for a fairly 'prestigious' type of traffic, and possibly also didn't put in the kind of mileage that other types of NPCCS would have done?

Looking good there, Mick! I'm currently trying to work up the courage to weather mine, but in the meantime I was disappointed having fitted the front steps to find that they caused the bogie to derail - not a problem I've had on any other locos including L1s and various Pacifics. The sharpest curves on my layout are in the Peco double slips, about 2' 6" radius I think, and I wondered whether you (or anyone else) had experienced similar problems? One solution might be to glue them slightly further outboard than the locations moulded for them; alternatively I might try some kind of side control spring on the bogie, but haven't got my head round that yet.

Hinges painted body colour I think Bernard, to judge by a couple of clear pictures in 'Steam in East Anglia-a colour portfolio' (R. C. Riley, Ian Allan, 2002 pages 19 and 25).

As an early Christmas present to myself, 61138 rolled into Finsbury Square this afternoon - wow! IMHO knocks the old Replica / Bachmann version WAY into touch. Full of the usual subtleties (I wonder whether I can really bring myself to remove the AWS 'sunflower' from inside the cab?) but does anyone know whether mine's missing a sliding cab roof ventilator, or is it just moulded in the 'open' position? If the latter, I shan't be too sorry to see the passing of this feature as the sliding shutters on the L1 (in particular) seem far too thick, and I'd been thinking of replacing them with new ones made from thin metal. To be honest, having compared the model with several photos of the real things (mainly in 'Locomotives Illustrated' no. 30) I can't see what all the fuss is about with the chimney, and hope this issue doesn't become one of these 'urban myths' which sometimes come to haunt certain models. The B1 seems to run OK on my layout with the drawbar on the closer 'display' setting, after just trimming back the front tender buffers very slightly to allow the loco to go round the curved sides of Peco slips without sometimes jamming.

Thanks for those pictures Mike, isn't the teak finish wonderful! Not sure whether the Brake 3rds are in short supply or not but I was able topick up a BR liveried one from Monk Bar Models in York easily enough this lunchtime, although they hadn't made it to their display cases yet. I agree, in some ways the nicest (or maybe 'most interesting') of the range and full of subtle touches like the hand brake wheel in the brake compartment, and the electric lighting controls applied as separate mouldings to span the end windows. I wondered about the colours of the door handles on the double doors; in LNER days it appears such things were painted with 'teak' paint (as per the Guard's door handrails in Mike's pictures above) and on the BR version these handrails are black which seems right from photographs, but I wondered whether the double door handles should be black as well? But after all, that's a VERY slight quibble and much more a query than a moan about what are, when all's said and done, some really lovely models.

Many thanks for the confirmations and good news, everyone - I may cancel my order for D5902 now, it's really just a tad TOO modern! , especially as I hadn't realised it was going to be gloss finish.

Hope this isn't a daft question, but I was wondering whether anybody's found out if they're going to produce the disc headcode version? I was at Warley yesterday, but realised on the way home I'd forgotten to visit the Heljan stand.....

I've got a few of these now and none have shown any signs of derailing their pony trucks, although the wheels do run at a strange angle to the rails sometimes! But a friend bought one recently and said he'd had derailing problems, so I thought I'd revisit the problem and at least aim to make mine look better in running. I looked back up to Wilk's post earlier in this thread, but couldn't find a suitable coil spring in my armoury; also bearing in mind Darwinian's suggestion in the 28xx thread, I hit upon an alternative solution which turned out to be very simple so I thought it might be useful to others: A piece of phospher bronze (or other suitable) spring wire, with a loop in one end, a vertical joggle to pass through the hole in the pony truck swing arm, and tucked between the tails of the tension lock coupling. The leading keeper plate retaining screw passes through the loop in the end of the wire and clamps it tightly to the keeper plate (yes, I did manage to break the end off the brake yolk ). Two locos in similar positions. 67772 (left) is unmodified, 67757 (as she now is) modified. They were both driven forwards and stopped when they reached the equivalent positions on the slip points - you can see how 67772's coupling has swung right over, while 67757's remains resonably central. The pony now seems to 'lead' the loco smoothly into curves, and the wheels no longer give an alarming gymnastic display through the pointwork. Hope this might help!

Interesting picture of the two 'rungenwagen' there Jonathan, which confirms the impression I got when I tried a Liliput one on my layout. Will you be able to make any use of yours as a 'Christmas tree' for fittings for the scratch built version, or do you think the whole thing is just too small?