modfather

He has been pottering away, I've listened to some of his ramblings...

Knowing the shunter on the pres line his PPE is as specified by the gcr. He is an industry professional and a member on here, not a part time amateur.

Between 'Prototype' and 'Production' power cars, a couple of wires got crossed over. BR Research found out the hard way when using two production cars for the first time with Promethus. When power was applied, nothing seemed to happen in forward or reverse apart from a bit of shuffling. It was then noticed that both power cars were in forward or reverse instead of one in forward and the other in reverse. Joe Muggins was sat at track side waiting for it to show

They rewired it this way in preservation too. Two hst electricians found them a test box to try a few months ago and offered a bit of help in the right direction.

The hst's have been in a bad shape for a while now. Belly panels and the supporting structure are dis-similar metals, subjected to a lot of damage from sewage and debris. They have had little planned maintenance since the last working project in the early 90's I believe. First are addressing this with an ongoing programme of reskinning and framing the belly panels.

FGW sent a 142 vice HST on a Painton-Paddington service, it got capped at Swindon to swap onto a HST.

I also seem to remember wales and borders sending a 143 to Paddington when Great Western trains withdrew a late night HST service to South Wales. 

No problem - just wanted to mention it and try and sort some pictures before someone whines about missing detail. maybe an add on kit? It's similar to the 153 set up...

Just a quick one, are you including the sanders fitted to number 1 axle? They've been fitted for three years now, and follow a similar form to the 150/153 units. The sand hopper is fitted on the under frame, under the second mans side of the cab along with the test switch and a box for the sanding ep solenoid valve, with one flexible pipe bolting straight to the lifeguard by no1 wheel and the other going across the skid plate under the fire bottles, to emerge at roughly the same position on no4 wheel. It's visible on 611, second page of the brochure and fitted to all west fleet 14x after an incident of low adhesion at Exeter.

http://www.porterbrook.co.uk/downloads/brochures/14x%20Brochure.pdf

mow - turn right after you pass through the gateline and keep walking towards the motor rail/fish dock where the driving school is, its one of the small buildings forming the island after the bike racks.

Try jz on this forum... if not I can't guarantee having a 143 to hand in Bristol, but I can try and find either someone who can or maybe get you a contact to visit.

The blinds changed colour during the relay mod package, where mors smitt relays have been fitted instead of shrack or stpi/ped types. The original blinds fitted at refresh had many missing destinations - great malvern and bristol parkway spring to mind as common favourites. The new type are mean tot be easier to read (no, I can't remember which way round the colours changed, I believe the new ones are the white on black...

The auto announcer files will be the same as the west fleet 15x. They haven't been changed since alpine/wales and borders/wales and west and still feature announcements for all of these. The generic doors/safety announcement sounds regularly still. Train crew have been briefed with the correct way to deliver the safety announcement if they bother. 

143 603 has recently been reliveried at SPM during planned level five maintenance. The window frame is as supplied by unipart - we don't often have time to paint stuff like that, according to ravers it had a window and frame recently.

I'd still like to see the non multi label modelled by someone soon. I changed the electrical box on the BSI and removed it...

Matt

SPM, the home of the west fleet.

I understand the internals aren't as built, there's bits of home made electronics, a 57 avr... but I'm reliably informed it should be ok to run with a hst, I know the gentleman with a 42 way tester borrowed to find out.

Well if the group insist on idling it all the time when it's not being run, what do they expect... cold engines leave part combusted hydrocarbons in the exhaust which will cause exhaust fires if they don't act sensibly. Starting it every hour from cold at the Swanage gala will have done it no good. Best leave it until they can start and run it on train supply for a few hours to get it warmed up and burning cleanly. 

I'm in absolutely no rush, I've got track and baseboards to build, just keeping momentum going while my back sorts its self out! 

I have the two powered wheel sets, and need six unpowered, but I'll happily take the set if that suits you better... I'm sure I can find something else to put them in

Looks like a trip to the turning service then...

Guys, bit of an odd question but bear with me - With no unpowered drop in wheel sets for my 108 in stock in stores, and no reorder date advised, am I best send my current wheels off for turning or can I utilise an alternative assoc wheel set instead?

Cheers.

how do you like me now - the heavy

thanks very much - I'm using a newer macbook pro, guess I'll have to suck it and see

Out of interest, what spec mac? I'm toying with turbo cad for mine but don't know if it'll cope.

It's a friends page - might be restricted. I'll ask if it's ok to share when I'm next on shift (12 days off... fgw rocks!)

Nice thread - i'm suprised the captain hasn't spotted me wandering round BRI, tool bag in hand...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.121532291227159.9883.100001111660838&type=3

From SPM/Bath Rd.

One more thing for the fgw p/c's - the van window is a one piece panel, with aluminium edging, to the same spec as the cab door windows, not a two piece sliding window. I believe they have run with this for some time but I'm sure people can manage to sort that.

The slot to allow the cooler groups to be topped was I belive only on the non western region sets, which also had tanks in the van for coolant?

As built powercars had three fuel tanks, where the compressor is, the third being removed to allow them to hit 125mph (this is from one of the first engineers at st phillips marsh, so I suspect it's true). The coacjes also having had retention tanks fitted, but again removed for weight reasons ( I belive we still use one or two for oil storage).

Oddball from kellys heroes...

"definitely an anti social type"

"woof woof woof"

"20 foot of bridge I can get anywhere...SHMUCK!"

"oh drinking wine, eating cheese, catching the rays" < whilst battle rages in the streets near him

"always with the negative waves"/"can't you dig how beautiful it is"

Worryingly I use at least three of these on a regular basis.

Roman Holiday

[On whether to do an exploitation article about Princess Ann]

Irving Radovich: She's fair game, Joe. It's always open season on princesses

Most black and white films have a couple of good lines in to be fair...

Let's see...

Cooked fried brekky for c shift

Swapped a hst reverser on power car 160 - the damned thing failed to change over on our turn round en route to stroud naming ceremony friday, then A examed it

Renewed a 153 engine over temp sensor (an absolute pig of a job, its right at the top to the accesory drive end

Swapped boiler suit for normal gear and went out to the St Pauls carnival after party p sound systems and live music everywhere!

Happy days!

how about looking in a model ship catalogue for a porthole, cut back the rim and fix a printed (phoot?) of the gauge behind?

The real trouble I can see is the amount of modifications made to the power cars from Production, to working 253/254 to modern mtu mile munchers...

relay and control gear has changed spec from the valentas, twps/aws/otmr/atp have all been retro added between leaving the factory and entering service... thats before the three wsp systems, 36 way jumpers, sdl/cdl, buffet refits, lighting physical and electrical changes, inergen fire bottles, mtu engine and M-dec ( a HUGE computer box), shut down timers, guards windows blanked off in the van, exhaust baffle, oh, and then the cab console is all changed on fgw, if not other tocs. The mk3's are wired/orientated differently to conventional mk3's (modified ones have caused problems when incorrectly shunted), air pipes are being exchanged for neoprene hoses due to reliability issues, aside from buffers/couplers/power supplies.

Problems I can forsee? the mtu's have a 110v starter motor and a weedy starter gear ring, the motors cost a small fortune to aquire, the rest of the world using mtu engines use cheap bosch 24v motors, the mtu engines are sensitive to poor maintainance, hence the turbo issues in the past and present fuelling issues caused by a lack of filters in the country...oh and the traction motors are starting to show thier age, god knows how much new motors, or at least comms, brushes, boxes and springs would cost - once all the motors have flashed over or shorted it's two days work to recommission and test a powercar - or if you catch it early you can lock out power notches and save the windings.

Ultimately it would be best to preserve two mtu power cars and keep a set that fits with them. This at least means you could operate with trained drivers, within normal scheduling and on routes that timing can accurately be kept. Oh, and we would have a fighting chance of keeping the things running.

Excue me for the brief details, I'm back off to clean up a set of traction motors... on a power car.