Johnson Street IEMD

It's funny I thought that when I saw it but thought it must have been me having a nerd moment 08.08 - Actually, they've copied DB Cargo by putting it to one side, just like DBC putting their larger logos to one side

25th July 2020 I saw this video a few days ago and had wanted to do a quick first observation blog about this but matters of employment have waylaid me :-( . Sooooo, the long awaited victor in the model railway marketplace when it comes to a high spec detailed Class 92, in the form of the Accurascales Class 92. This looks like it is going to be one impressive model. The growth of the electric model market is building a nice head of steam at present, following on from the Bachmann Class 90 and Hornby Class 87, this and also Heljan's forthcoming Class 86. I havent yet placed a pre-order on an Accurascales Class 92, largely, as i havent made up my mind on my first livery, i'm pretty much leaning towards the transitionary was EWS now DB triple grey Three Beasties livery, being a lover of liveries and often talking about this aspect of modelling as I do, i find it amusing that DB havent simply replaced the Beasties with a large DB logo, i would have done so, had i been in charge of liveries at DB, maybe, thats my calling, if it was, i would have the next non Grand Central liveried Class 90 into Malcolm Logistics and swoon with them to get a new contract to see our 90s floating back and forth up the West Coast Mainline as they have done in recent years. Anyway, rambling over, EWS three Beasties livery, now, in the hands of DB Cargo, and reflecting the wide variety, what i have come to call ''United colours of DB'' Now, following the above, I have learnt that GBRf have loaned DB several GBRf Class 92s to cover their workings, mainly on HS1 - added to the fact I was planning to have a contract for GBRf to maintain their Caledonian Sleeper electric fleet at Johnson Street IEMD, which would give greater credence for a GBRf Europorte Class 92 to be seen at Johnson Street, alongside an EWS and/or DB 92. I am definitely envisaging the sound of the Dyson drowning out the sheds and the almost anomyously sounding Class 90s, which are the electric flagship of DB. In addition to this and the above, one of DB's top men has advised Rail magazine that 90024 and 90030 were due to be returned to traffic, before the pandemic, this is brilliant news for the DB Class 90, which follows on nicely from them being used on the Blackpool-Euston Grand Central services due to now be starting in 2021, using 90026, 90029 and 90020 and we should soon be seeing 90039 and 90021 finding themselves on their way over to Toton for their turn into their new colours, what i have come to term ''Bumblebee'' livery. It will be great to see my favourite liveried Class 90, the DB Malcolm lieveried 90024 passing the Grand Central 90s on the West Coast mainline in the not so distant future, and another EWS, possibly ex-EWS liveried Class 90 returning to traffic as well, in the form of 90030, which hasnt been working since 2006. Reading this makes me feel inspired to do something creative with 90030, watch this space!!!

And this may explain why th others 90003-90014 havent gone over to Toton as they arent ready yet?

Do you mean with 90037 ? its supposed to be a tired livery anyway, what with its rather retro branding ?

Do you mean about their recent acquisition of 90003-90015 ? I know 90014 has already started the wave of repaints by being sent to Toton to be repainted into the new Freightliner orange and black.

@cambo74 I dare say you will need to stock up on the new numbers soon Ben what with 90014 already at Toton on its way into the Orange Freightliner livery and with the 86s due to be retired imminently, others from the ex-GA pool will no doubt follow 90014 over to Toton.

Great work @cambo74 :-) . I love 90037, the mix of the gorgeous EWS livery with a dash of DB. I can see this becoming my fourth DB 90 in the not so distant future - and if that wasn't enough, DB creates Grand Central for the 90s, with 90026, 90029, 90020 and understood to be 90039 and 90021 following soon. Kat@johnsonstreetIEMD

I have recently stumbled across the opportunity to get one of my locos, DB 67028 sound fitted, The Class 67 is really just on my layout, to blend in, it's a DB mainstay, like it or not, and okay, so i don't, being a 90 fan and electrics in general and i hate the idea of the 67 getting work ahead of a 90 but there will be jobs outside the electric network that a 90 cant do, that a 67 can when the other 60s and 66s dont get tasked with, so thats why god made 67s. My stable of DB locos are all nicely sound fitted, i just need to get Johnson Street IEMD sorted and ready for maintaining a largely electric fleet. It's my intention to acquire at least one Accurascales Class 92 in a DB livery of one kind or another and whilst i like large logo DB livery, there is only one 92 in this livery, 92015 and it's YIWU branded so I think mine is more likely to be the more popular EWS beastie logo'd example, which will be pretty popular on alot of modern era layouts and is still in use on HS1 today. I do also like the idea of having a little creative expression, that will in all likelyhood come in the form of a yard shunter in the form of an 86 or 90 in DB ? I'd love to see DB acquire a couple from Freightliner when they start introducing their ex-GA 90s to the FL90 pool. They may still have the expertise at Crewe to maintain them and the Freightliner people just around the corner at Basford Hall could assist if need be. This means only one of my locos is still to be sound fitted,

Great work there on this raffle ...its a great way folk can do their but to support a vital cause in the community...

That integrated signal box is almost Dean_Park_Station-ish ... he's on YouTube... his layout is mindblowingly good.

Well, I would love to say roll on Bachmann with the second wave of 90s but j think ig will be Q3 2021 before we see the next one(s) hit UK shores. I just hope we either get an EWS or DB red example in this batch and depending on which era it's from, I can potentially have a totally RTR model which is really unusual for me. Having 90028 if Bachmann do this, I think I would get my own 90028 renumbered to 90019 or 90035. I don't have an EWS example yet so it doesnt really matter which one we see but a faded decals 90037 would be perfect for me but should they opt for an EWS era example I'd just get it renumbered and rebranded into 90030 or 90037. It's all figured out !!!

Tom, you could have got Ben @ bens resprays to sort that for you for about £30 into the current DB form. I had him do me one for the same model for 67028, it was 67013 originally, it's got the DB slogan on for Leading the freight market or something like that. Kat @johnsonstreetIEMD

On the decals issue, you could always approach Railtec or Precision to see if they would do some ...

I am going to be double-heading my 90s out of Johnson Street IEMD in the not so distant future. They're regularly rotated by DB on Malcolm duties

Being a lover of cool liveries, its a shame what I call Tunnel livery has been shelved ... for the box colours now seen on the GBRf 92s ... but there is something in consistency of liveries, ok, there will always be unusual liveries like DB Malcolm livery as opposed to be DB Cargo red, but do they even need to change one from one slight tweak to another, i mean, REALLY ??? GBRf ?

20-04-2020 Update I thought i had missed this off, soooo DB still have one or two RfD 90s in their long term storage pool, if you look at the long term stored examples, pictures of which can be found of 90025 or 90027 both of which are still in RfD...(amongst others) and could be given a serious dulling down, weathering and renumbering from the standard RfD 90037. 90030 which is one of those still left in EWS in the long term storage pool and was expected to be returned to traffic this year, may now be next year would make a good project when Bachmann get round to doing an EWS one.

In light of recent events I think we shouldnt be too expecting of seeing the second wave of 90s for sometime. Certainly not until the back end of 2021 or maybe even 2022. In the mean time there are always experts in the field of reliverying and renumbering, several of whom who can be found on here. There are lots one can do with the first trio of 90s if repainting is too drastic or even expensive for you IC Swallow 90's can be renumbered into various different numbers up to 90015 in the Swallow livery for those modelling Early 90s up to the beginning of Privatisation pre-2003 and anyone really on the ball, could also re-number 90005 into 90001 and 90002 for they are likely to be reliveried into IC-Swallow under its brand new owners as of a week or so ago now owned by Locomotive Services in Crewe. They have also recently acquired 86401 and 87002 following their end of use on the Sleeper contract and both of these are now into Swallow-IC under LSL, so Era-11. The Railfreight Distribution liveried 90 has seen various reincarnations of this exact livery, so, whether its a simple re-number into one of the RfD stabemates to 90037. Then, if you wanted something slightly more different, then have a look at some of the different takes on early Freightliner Grey, some of which were simply grey without the red triangle style which were the face of Freightliner, before Green with yellow cabs, before Powerhaul and long before Orange and black G&W. Should you take this approach, there are other Freightliner locos in these liveries to dovetail your collection, ie Hornby did a grey freightliner Class 47 and there are also the 90s long term electric sibling, the Class 86, also starting life in Grey, then Green and more recently Powerhaul - these can be found in Hornby and Heljan forms. Finally, there are the Powerhaul 90's, now Bachmann have started with 90042, but there are several other numbered 90's in Powerhaul, 043, 045 and 049 and Powerhaul 90s do more than just drag container freight, until fairly recently, they were working on back-up to the Caledonian Sleeper services. 20-04-2020 Update I thought i had missed this off, soooo DB still have one or two RfD 90s in their long term storage pool, if you look at the long term stored examples, pictures of which can be found of 90025 or 90027 both of which are still in RfD...(amongst others) and could be given a serious dulling down, weathering and renumbering from the standard RfD 90037. 90030 which is one of those still left in EWS in the long term storage pool and was expected to be returned to traffic this year, may now be next year would make a good project when Bachmann get round to doing an EWS one. Kat @ johnsonstreetIEMD

Great work there Will with 90024 and great picture ahead of its GNER-ing, 90024 has had a good life in colour, hasnt she? what with the earlier public sector operation, then GNER, First Scotrail and then more recently Malcolm Rail. It's just a bit of shame that she isn't well at the moment at Crewe IEMD, hopefully, they'll get to the bottom of it soon.

Hey, saw your post and wondered if you go ahead with the ebay thing, what you might be looking for, for the sound chip ? Kind Regards, Kat@johnsonstreetIEMD

13th April 2020 I hope all who read this are well and staying safe in doors as much as is possible. So, a while back, Bachmann released the Ex-EWS DB Class 66, 66065, which I thought i'd get, when the right opportunity presented it, for those who read my posts, I love liveries in the here and now, not all liveries, its a very subjective and personal topic. I always loved EWS and never really got up close with the railways as it was being phased out and a result of the change over to DB some examples, mainly Class 66s got the transitional livery, whats been termed Ex-EWS DB. the main examples of this, are 60065, 90037 and a number of 66s, most notably 66065. Having got 66065 a few months later, but not long afterwards, it got the DB treatment at Toton, it's now my intention to get another example of this next year, and have it numbered into one of the remaining ex-EWS 66s, i quite like the number 111, getting back to 66065 and having designated a second DB Cargo Class 66 to add to 66009, currently sound fitted and having had 66136 in YIWU for a while back, but wanting a non fancy version of this, i decided to get my second DB Cargo Class 66 numbered into 66065. Well, after an age to get it sorted it's now in DB red and when the whole thing going on in the world settles down, it has a sound unit waiting for it. I now have several DB large logo locos in my fleet @johnsonstreetIEMD 60100 - Hornby DCC Sound 66009 - Bachmann DCC Sound 66065 - soon to be Bachmann DCC Sound 67028 - Hornby DCC ready (to get Hornby TTS treatment in 2021) 90028 - Bachmann DCC sound

5th March 2020 It was my intention to get to see layout progression with the layout builder and local model shop owner, but with Johnson Street having some running issues, he offered me the chance to have a running session nearby at Stacton Tressell. It was a chance to give my three DB 90s some running opportunity, something they havent had for a while and at the time of writing this several weeks later (22nd March) I'm so glad I did. 90024, 90028 and 90034 all got some running time here. You will have to imagine all the OHLE for the purpose of this I have some short running clips from this session on my fledgling youtube channel, Johnson Street IEMD, weblink - tbc 22nd March 2020 The world is quickly frighteningly changing from what was normal thirty seconds ago to organised shut down on a scale one can only compare to ''I am legend''. We're all getting used to being largely housebound, for me, this means in the short term, I am not going to get to see the layout in its current state but that I am going to get to see it completed hopefully by the end of the year. My 90 pool remains at three in DB and one in Freightliner, at least until i can get reliveried into DB Cargo of one form or another. In the world as we know it, Grand Central are still getting ready for services from Blackpool to London from May and this being delivered with five DB90s dragging six Mark Fours and a DVT. The first DB 90s into Grand Central were initially 90026 and in the last few days, 90029 has been released from Toton and is now at Crewe IEMD. Its exoected that 90020, 90021 and 90039 will follow 026 and 029 into Grand Central colours. Its a gorgeous take that they have done for the Grand Central Class 90, I'm calling it ''Bumblee livery'' and its definitely on my radar to see it at Johnson Street IEMD, athough not immediately, its behind other DB90S on my radar in the form of ex-EWS DB90037 and also DB minus-Schenker90036 and also DB Cargo 90019 Multimodal. I also fancy having one DB90 in a stored state, so, possibly either RfD-EWS or EWS Maroon in total out-of-service appearance, like what 90017 or 90030 look like at the moment, with the cab doors securely shut, possibly de-pantograph'd. I want the 90s I have based at Johnson Street to be reflective of the active pool, yes, there are some different liveried DB90s, but the mainstay of the fleet are now in DB Corporate colours, only 90018 remains Schenkered and 90029 is now the first DB90 to have been reliveried out of DB red. (below - Grand Central DB90026 back at Crewe, from Toton (where DB paint their locos), at the time of writing, 90029 has just become GCDB 90 number two) Of the active 90s in the DB Cargo fleet (including those that are to be Grand Central'd), they look like this: 90018 - DB Schenker red 90019 - DB Cargo red, named ''Multimodal'' 90020 - DB EWS (due to be reliveried into Grand Central - for Blackpool North-London Euston passenger services from May 2020) 90021 - DB EWS First Scotrail (due to be reliveried into Grand Central - for Blackpool North-London Euston passenger services from May 2020) 90024 - DB Malcolm (stored due to technical problems not yet cured) 90026 - DB Grand Central (first of five to be reliveried) 90028 - DB Cargo red, named ''Sir William McAlpine'' 90029 - DB Grand Central (second of five to be reliveried) 90034 - DB ex-DRS blue 90035 - DB cargo red 90036 - DB minus-Schenker, named ''Driver Jack Mills'' 90037 - DB ex-EWS maroon, named ''Spirit of Dagenham'' 90039 - DB EWS (due to be reliveried into Grand Central - for Blackpool North-London Euston passenger services from May 2020) 90040 - DB minus-Schenker (below, DB 90028 in DB Cargo just before it was named at York Museum in January of 2019, the second of three DB90s in this form, joining 90019 and 90035 - 90019 and 90028 are named, 90035 is not.)

Following the recent repaints that we have seen, DB, not to be left behind, have got their skates on ahead of their operations support for Grand Central out of Blackpool North to London Euston with the below... Its expected that 90020, 90021, 90029 and 90039 will follow 90026 into what I'm calling Bumblebee livery. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing them come through Stafford. I wasn't planning to add another DB 90 to my stable so soon, but boy!! its a gorgeous new livery for the 90 and a DB90 at that. I can see these being sent to Johnson Street IEMD in the not distant future for their routine maintenance. (Thank you to British Rail 1980s and 1990s on flickr for letting me link to the below picture)

In a bid to bring the discussion back to the Bachmann Class 90, for which modellers of all things electric have been waiting for this piece of modelling revolution, a few days ago, i took time out to photograph my growing stable of DB 90s, having added 90024 to 90028 and 90034. I still have a fourth Freightliner Powerhaul 90 (042) which will likely become a fourth DB 90, probably 90037 in ex-EWS DB ''Spirit of Dagenham''. 2020 is hopefully going to be the year that my layout gets finished and is back at my place to actually use. My Bachmann 90 fleet has been conceived and given birth to triplets without their cradles so to speak, with Johnson Street IEMD having the finishing touches done to it elsewhere.

15th February2020 Love is in the air @Johnson Street. Okay, so we are twenty four hours back from Valentines day, but the perfect sight for the forthcoming layout is the sight of the Malcolm Rail Bachmann Class 90 fitted with DCC Sound. Below is a link to my fledgling YouTube space and the Malcolm 90 going through a start up with DCC sound.

8th February 2020 Today saw the second Bachmann 90 (90034) sound fitted and also the first run out of DB 90 number three, 90024 on a flying lap of the Topp Trains test track, trust my phone to die in the recording of this it's going to be sooooo much better with DCC sound, which it will have in about two or three weeks time. 90034 had been having some teething issues a few times back whilst on a run out at Rose Heath but I understand these to have been cured and with her now sound fitted also, my man in the know is going to help me to configure a consist set up for operations out of Johnson Street, DB 90's will still work in singular form also, on ECML, GEML and GWML supporting works and will be back and forth from Johnson Street. In addition to the 90s, there will also be operations of 60s, 66s and 67s.