roythebus1

To answer an earlier query, the Widened Lines were fitted with LT trainstops at all signals controlled by LT. As I said earlier, locos/trains not fitted with trip cocks had to be double-manned. I doubt that the signals on the Finsbury Park-Highgate line were ever transferred to LT control or signalling except at Highgate Wood where the boundary was. Likewise beyond Mill hill to Edgware if indeed there were any signals there.

Marton Junction?

Glad you got it sorted! :)

Not quite, it was one of their better efforts! the trouble now is finding a suitable match for the power bogie, a Black Beetle with MTK sideframes. I was going to use the Lima one as I have loads of them but their plastic is un-glueable!

There's some cupid stunts around.

I'm about to put a working Airfix/GMR prairie on Ebay if that's any help.

You can always make big things smaller, not so easy is making small things fit bigger things! Measure twice cut once. I've just managed to melt an MTK bogie sideframe trying to undo a soldered joint made many years ago. Pah.

Yep, there was a lot of variation, depending who made the stick-on numbers.

a comment on the tram engine soldering, it seems you're not using enough flux and too much solder, also not enough heat. Try with the iron at say 425 degrees, that way you get the base metal nice and hot and a little solder will go a long way. Run the tip of the iron along the joint, don't dwell too long with it. Even with whitemetal, I fund using a specific Carrs low-melt flux is excellent. Iron at about 200 degrees for larger parts and a 150 degrees solder, just don't dwell too long in case you melt the whitemetal. I use the lower 150 setting for small parts and have to be carful not to melt them. For fitting whitemetal to brass etc, tin the brass with normal solder first, then use low-melt flux and low melt solder to join the whitemetal to the base metal. Remember in and out quickly as the actress said to the bishop. :)

The same numbers were used as set numbers on electric stock for an awful long time. 500 series was for engineers and special trains.

One of the best Playcraft kits was their very British semaphore signals. You could make quite a variety of signals and gantries from them and were quite reasonably priced too.

I've got a mixture of Tortoise, Fulgurex and some 1970s machines made by Old Pullman. I'v not had any problems with tortoise motors yet, the Old Pullmans are showing their age as they are a not a slow-acting machine as such, but an earlier version of the Fulgurex. Both those types give problems with the contacts getting dirty or corroded over the years and the worm gears wearing out. I haven't yet bothered to try servo motors, they look quite complicated to me, i need something simple without electronics! I like relays and things I can hit with hammers.

Didn't they have a rehearsal for that in Scotland earlier this week?? :)

I remember going to take a 508 out of Staines sidings back in 1983/84, I had to cancel the train as the floor just inside the cab door had fallen through. It was a shuttering-grade plywood. The unit was about 3 years old. Last one I rode on about 3 years ago on the GN (313) I noted the window rubbers were rotten. It goes brittle after about 30 years.

As I may have mentioned earier in this thread or on another one, at Bilton we had to propel the train across the main road into the cement works. The loco never actually went across the road, the shunter would unhook the class 25 and the train would disappear, presumably with the works shunter. the movement was controlled by a vey modern rotting banner semaphore signal arm mounted on an OHLE isolating post. When the driver couldn't see the signal arm, it was clear to go across the crossing. It was visible above the tree line in the stop position. What do they use as a single line token these days? It used to be an old fishplate or something similar inscribed Rugby-Southam and was kept in the up side shunters' bunk.

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Back in the 1970s a company called Rapitype used to do dry print transfers for Johnston Script. I had permission from LT to use it in connection with my range of cast metal bus kits. Sadly I got rid of the sheets as they became life-expired. The Johnston full stops are square, earlier versions were diamond shape. the Rapitype sheets also had the London Transport underlined fleetnames. I don't know if Rapitype still exists.

I was trying to go with Johnston P22: but cut-and-paste lost the font!! I'll try again tomorrow when I'm not so tired. I've got it on my laptop. the only problem is that it doesn't have the punctuation marks.

As I said earlier, the train running numbers were enamel finish, like the station signs. I happen to have a London Transport vinyl fleetname under my wokbench, that is one I'm certain is the same as the earlier varnish fix transfers made by Tearne. The and T are a bigger font but usually a lighter typface to make the letters appear the same thickness as the ondon transpor bit. The letter R varied in design, the early R (as is RT or RF fleet numbers) had the tail very close to the upright, later transfers had the tail further to the right. Both types are correct and it was possible to see both types of R on the same bus. It depends what the garage had in stock at the time. The bus stop E plates that Becasse mentions were also stove enamel plates. They were changed to plastic sometime in the 1970s.

a bit heavier than the 20odd 10t mineral wagons we used to drag up there in 1974!! Where exactly is this pit? The only double track I can remember was at Marton junction where we ran round to go to Southam, and maybe a bit by the Bilton cement works just outside Rugby. The single line token was something like an old fishplate with Rugby-Southam stamped on it. That gave permission to enter the single lne. It was kept in the shunters' bunk on the up side goods yard.

So much mention of £37bn being "saved", odd as that is the same sort of amount that was spaffed against the wall during the covid crises. If this amount is being "saved" over a construction period of say 20 years, that's only £2bn a year for the next 20 years. At the rate it's taken to get HS2 done or undone, the proposed Ricky-Watford Junction link of a mile of new track and a bridge has taken from 1973 to now to get started then delayed, how much hope is there for any further rail improvements in our lifetimes?

We hear so uch about the overall cost of building the line, but have these figures been adjusted to take into account the differing inflation levels? and the fact that the cost will be spread over another 10-20 years, not all in one year. Maybe if an annual spend were to be published, it would take some wind out of the sails of the "too expensive" brigade. It's now 1200 and no sign of "the announcement" yet. Governments over the last 50 years have sold off the country's assets to fund reckless projects so much so that there's very little left to sell. Every state-owned business sold, surplus railway land sold, you know the story. This week plans to cut another 60,000 civl servants. who is to do the jobs of those people? Probably the likes of Serco, Group 4 etc, so the jobs will actually still be there, just not done by the unionised civil service!

They are the train reporting numbers. Th typeface is London Transport's Johnston Script, it's available to download from the LT museum shop under the typeface of P22 for a small fee. It my vry slightly from the exact typeface used on the actual prototype as the typeface varied slightly, depending on what manufacturer made the enamel number plates.

The Model Railway Club in London has all the MRCs in its library. available for members only though.

Just catching up on this news, having looked at the video the loco appears to be going back a bit too fast, seemingly not stopping the regulation distance from the stationary train then being seen back onto the train by the shunter or person in charge of the move. I'd also have insisted that the people on the balcony end move either inside or onto the station platform. we have an "observation car" on my local heritage line and as a shunter I would politely ask people not to stand on the observation platform when a loco is buffering onto the train.