Covkid

But would enough folk buy full rakes to justify them ? Personally doubt it, but welcome other thoughts.

Oh my Andy and Andy !!! Apart from the Rapido 16", I have the perfect diesels for these in the shape of the Bagnall courtesy of James Hilton, and the Janus from Oxford Rail. Can't wait for my delivery !!

Well I noticed that one of the preproduction models has the large transverse tool box in front of the cab. Is it only Britomart with this feature? As Bachmann already do it in 009, it surely will be in the 7mm range.

Do you think ? I would probably expect to see green algae water sloshing around between the inner and outer skins of the windows

Entirely agree. I first became aware of TOPS from Autumn 1978 when my chargeman got me to ring through the consist of 7G19 to the TOPS guys in Salop. in 1979 I made a visit to Salop TOPS and I was hooked. That was what I wanted to do, and got my job at Bescot in June 1980, right at the end of the punch card era. I pretty soon learnt the basic of TOPS - every single kilo of weight was recorded in freight vehicles - apart from freightliners that is, but that is for another day. So technically, a freight train from say Acton to Severn Tunnel junction could convey all sorts of vehicles which were all recorded in the TOPs computer. When the train list is produced based on the formation of wagons out there on No 4 road, TOPS knows the commodity, product weight, consignee, consignor, destination blah blah blah. The only thing that was needed was for someone / sector to underwrite the cost of each train, on the days it was planned to run. For example, on Tuesday there might be 78 tonnes of Pirelli tyres in 6 vehicles, Wednesday there could be 150 tonnes of chipboard, and on Thursday, 162 tonnes of household coal for Yeovil Junction. Like you I could never understand why TOPS never seemed to be used for this kind of stuff, or was it actually that BR were being forced to abandon domestic freight anyway ?

I was involved in Trainload Coal 1992-1994 and was in TOPS prior to that. I am not doubting the mentions of Discrete Coal Network on here, but I only remember it being titled the Speedlink Coal Network (SCN). Perhaps the Speedlink name was replaced, but it became Trainload Freight West's / Transrail's Enterprise service in the 1990s.

I am struggling with this. When BR operated RMBs they were part of the seating accommodation of the train. Originally RMBs were basically a 64 seat TSO with two seating bays converted to house a very small kitchen, counter and panty. I am not sure if they were subsequently modified but a store room was built into the place of the seating bay adjacent to the counter - meaning three of the eight seating bays of the 64 seat TSO were taken up with the catering area. Therefore, the majority of the coach was second class seating. My strongest memory of RMBs was a journey on the far north line - 26042 to Brora for 26046 back to Inverness. The buffet steward made the same train swap as me, but on the northbound journey he made a fresh boiled egg sandwich. I probably rode in the leading coach for the Sulzer thrash, but the RMB provided a very important complement of seats as one of maybe four passenger vehicles and a couple of BGs on the train. The point I am making is that I cannot imagine WCR restricting it's passengers from the equivalent of 5/8ths of a TSO.

Don't know much about the Tinsley class 13s except to repeat what was mentioned earlier - three locos for two jobs. There would inevitably be a few occasions where there were shortfalls, but it would depends how resourceful the Ops staff were to deal with the problem. Perhaps a single conventional 08 could cover some of the work, particularly empty wagons etc. An SSC fitted diesel could be used but not over "Humpex" humps, which might affect it's usefulness. At Bescot our Target 1 was the down hump shunting loco and it was radio fitted - that was a two way radio to the panel operator in the down tower. The radio was able to be swapped for when the loco needed a major exam but mostly stayed on it's role. At Bescot our down hump was originally "humpex" so we didn't put big engines over it, and used the engine release line to transfer traffic to the north end of the yard.

Hi all I was browsing through the excellent RCTS archive photos and discovered an unusual vehicle which seems to be on Bescot TMD. This is the link to the image in the collection https://archive.rcts.org.uk/shopviewer.php?pg=44441&code=CH06551C The vehicle appears to be a pre nationalisation van with hinged side doors, presumably fomerly a traffic vehicle but then in engineering use. The markings appear to be MOTIVE POWER BUSHBURY xxxxxxxxxxx Unable to discern all the numbers but the last four appear to be 4600. Interested to hear more expert information on the vehicle type and vehicle number but it seems to predate the BR type prefixes of DM xxxxxx or CDM xxxxxx which tended to be used on ex traffic vehicles

I understand your drive here Andy, but I personally think your expectations are a little high. I know model manufacturers place a "potted history" with their product, but the sphere is so huge, you cannot really cover the "life and times" of the 7 plank 1907 in less than the Turton volumes. Surely this is all about the purchaser doing their own research, with a basic provision from Rapido. Also, how many purchasers actually care to your extent ? My modelling period is around 1960 to 1974 so the remaining NCB internal users were in their last decade of use, on a private colliery railway branch. The Rapido product I see is a fantastic canvas for practising my weathering skills, and I suppose it is easy for me t buy half a dozen "St Andrews cross" examples which wont be going far behind my NCB locos.

Interesting to watch "Dean Park's" review of the Heljan 47 based on two models of D1960 (weathered and pristine) sent to him by TMC.I always find Dave's reviews particularly honest and fair, and placing the Heljan examples next to the newly tooled Bachmann 47, oh dear. I am afraid Heljan have taken all the very subtle curves of the class 47 cab away and given a very squared shape where IMHO the cab windows are not where they should be, making the bodyshell too tall. The other problem for me is the lack of taper, which was similar to the lack of taper on the DP2 cabs from Heljan. I have to admit, I may have to cancel my order for the class 104 and "kitbash" the Hornby BRCW Calder Valley class 110, given the recent spate of Heljan shape and design issues.

This has to be a real winning range. Never had great luck running narrow gauge reliably on 9mm gauge track, but did mind the more upmarket locos in HOe to be better runners. Upscaling to 16.5mm gauge will bring dream running with nice larger scale models. Beautiful

J rather thought it might. Thanks Paul

Does anyone know which parcel company is being used please ? I have received a dodgy looking text message from Evri saying my address is incomplete and my parcel is being held at the depot. Can't believe it would be from Rapido

Hell yeah Swindon Cross Country (class 120) and Derby long frame suburban (class 116) Then Met Camm (class 101) for starters

Interesting piccie. Large buffers

No trouble at all with that Michael !! Potentially actually have the best of both worlds. By all means run your railway owned trains, but absolutely no reason not to have a couple of exchange sidings to an industrial facility. This is where one of Rapido's themes is taking us. Who is going to be able to resist a Caledonia fireless shuffling a handful of wagons around a little industry adjacent to the mainline ? More importantly for me though, some Rapido internal user NCBs in the sidings adjacent to the mainline give the NCB locos a change from company mineral wagons. In my case I will have the choice of NCB flats loaded with coal boxes (essentially 1907 underframes), NCB internal users, internal user spoil dump cars and mineral traffic to interchange. I have found an image online of an NCB Janus with a few spoil tippers on the Holly bank system - inspiration for Rapido if needed

As has been said 56006 was an Old Oak Common special, but IIRC 56004 was also a late blue. This is odd because 56004 had new "Doncaster" cabs to replace the Romanian ones it was built with. EDIT Or maybe one Doncaster cab 56004 Doncaster Works 1.4.84 | Following major collision dam… | Flickr

I am always fascinated by the large amount of second hand stuff which Topp Trains acquire to recirculate into the hobby. This week there was quite a collection of 16 tonners and other wagons, for people who are into such things.

Interesting to read the comments in this thread and I really do wish Phil every success with his Sulzers. But... I think Phil needs to come out from his cottage industry frontage and accept that he has a pretty serious retail operation on the go, and needs to respect the customers who are buying from SLW. The BR/Sulzer type 2s is reproduced authentically will undoubtedly sell to discerning modellers and collectors and Phil knows that. Unfortunately, those sales are mostly to people who want to see the products they have invested in produced to a reasonable timescale. So where are the class 25 models ? Are they still in a container on a ship, or are they at a warehouse with the boxes being emptied for packing ? I wonder if Phil and Jamie are actually fully employed in their day jobs, and SLW is a sideshow ? If that is the case and they only have a limited amount of time to dedicate to the SLW business, then maybe take on some additional temporary labour, or seeks some industry help. There is nothing to be gained by claiming their products are the best / most authentic etc, along with all the sold out signs in the display cases, if the customers are having to sit on their hands and wait the call. Phil is a shrewd guy, knows the market. He knows that the Scottish "car headlight" 24s will be popular, but Bachmann are sweeping the class 24 orders up, partly because us modellers with disposable cash / credit cards will find it difficult to resist, and not so many are loyal to a product these days, being happy to buy the first to the market. I personally feel that Phil has missed a trick, and perhaps shouldn't have taken the stand at York - instead using the weekend to get a lot of packing done and models into the back of parcels and delivery vans pronto. Obviously the stands for the York show and others need to book many many months prior, so maybe whatever the issue is didn't manifest itself at that time, but delaying in getting the product out to customers can damage reputation and repeat orders.

Sad news, but good luck and best wishes to his family

The significant point though is - AWC and the DfT are expecting staff to give up their days off to go into work for that six hundred quid day extra. Soe people don't doing extra work, but some do. I haven't worked any overtime or rest days for over seven years - mostly because I don't want to, but neither do i need to. My work life balance is OK at the moment, but i will jobshare in September, so will be doing half of what I do now, and will earn half of what I do now - after 46 years of full time shift work. I am not seeing any mention of this part of the scenario in any comments about the dispute, noting that the extra Hitachi training requirements have been known about by AWC and DfT since before the order was placed

Everyday is a school day !! Thanks "Wombat" I didn't know that. It is all relevant though and once Accurascale had the CADs on file they can be copied and amended as necessary.

Hahaha. I will be revisiting this thread regularly to see if that happens !! As Accurascale now have the 64 foot Mk2 bodyshell in CAD that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand all the doors and windows would need redrawing, as well as the underframe and gangways etc . In a strange kind of way and from a commercial point of view, perhaps Accurascale would market and sell the XP64 coaches more successfully. Were there only two bodyshell variants with two different versions of the doors - original and modified. Perhaps Brian MacDermott could give us an idea how often the XP64 vehicles have appeared in the polls, and maybe what kind of rating ? Also, are there any XP64 vehicles left in 1:1 scale ? From what I can make out there are three. Two at the Wensleydale railway, ex NYMR, and one remaining at the Dean Forest railway at Lydney.

Oh my. Yes please !!!!