roythebus1

There was no such thing as a DMBSO. The guard rode in the leading cab of the last car in the train. I drove them at Waterloo from 1980-1988 so know a bit about them.

Yes, that loco/TC/VEP etc working was rather mixed and has been well discussed on here before. The loco could be at the front, middle or back! Remember too the "prototype" 6TC converted from Nelson stock was used on the Kenny Belle in the early days of 1968. The times I saw it at Olympia it was loco hauled by a 33 as I was told the push-pull stuff didn't work. For the Yeovil service with 33/TC/BG, the BG must have been air braked. Did the Southern have any?

Collective memory fade is a wonderful thing. We used to go to Manchester every Christmas for the exhibition and being youthful and interested in trains at the time I used to notice odd details like this. To answer others, I don't see why the AL6s were out of service in 1967, after all they'd only been in service a year or so. I'm aware of the problems with axle hung traction motors, have you ever tried pouring from a tea can into a cup at 100 mph on one? The old system at Aachen has now I believe reached the end of its life and is DB ac on one side and NMBS/NS electric the other side. Through trains drop the pan and coast into the platform where the loco is uncoupled and taken away by diesel shunter. The departing loco is backed on with pan up and after the brake test and other station duties, leaves on the other voltage. I was told of a through freight that had the Belgian loco back on and the DB diesel would shove the train up the steep bank. The DB driver thought the Belgian wasn't working that had and at the top of the bank he dropped back and the train carried on. The problem being there was no Belgian loco on the front! The train is reportedly being stopped after a couple of seesaw movements and the air in the brake pipe being lost. But I digress...

I'm certain you're right there Keith. I worked int Manchester Piccadilly when I was 2ndman at Rugby in 1974. Only a few times mind, but ISTR seeing the contact wire insulators between the 2 systems. there was also some discussion about this matter at the MRC in the late 1960s when someone (Bill Gardiner I think or maybe Roger Stone) said that if a DC loco went on the AC, the lightning detector on the loco would think "oh, I've been hit by lightning" and a circuit breaker would open. It makes sense to have the double isolating sections in the contact wire as the danger of 25kv and 1500 mixing would be very real, even from induced current. The last thing anyone would want was an extensive dewirement in the area. At least a dead loco could be easily rescued in those heady days.

I got am M7 when they first came out and later converted it to a Met Railway 0-4-4T, late 1960s! It was quite passable for the Met loco, I had to shorten the bogie and build a new bunker.

The grinding noise of the knurled wheels...don't try to turn them in a lathe!

For the of you trying to fit Kadees to the wrong height Baccy boxes, I use the round edge of a hot soldering iron tip to bend a Z shape on the Kadee coupling tail. first upwards, then a second bit downwards. Just make sure you don't twist the tail out of line with the coupler head.

I'd suggest the Kadee NEM couplings have quite a huge demand in Europe. Another of the B word bonuses for the disUnited Kingdom!

I use the 145s for wagons, whisker type springs already fitted, centre shank, suitable for most 4 wheel British wagons, just set them back as required from the buffer beam. I use 10ba screws for fixing the coupling boxes because I have a lot in stock! I'm currently fitting a lot of older bogie stock with the Keen close-coupling kit using Roco or Hornby KKs in rakes of coaches and Kadees on the outer ends. It whiles away many hours and as we don't have a telly gives me something to do.

even the prototype isn't allowed to make any new 3-rail track, but can extend it's current train set for fill-in sections.

You can bulk buy packs of 50 couplings at a much better rate than the 4-per-packet price from the larger dealers. But best try a few bits of rolling stock first to see how you get on with them. But if you're fitting Kadees in boxes rather than NEM plug-ins, make sure to get the coupler height gauge. Getting that right and the knuckle distance from the buffer face or corridor connection is critical.

Which all makes me wonder what did the Triang factory in Merton make? they had a factory next to the Merton Abbey line which ran from Tooting Junction to Wimbledon. The Triang factory had a couple of sidings AND Triang containers that appeared in the Triang Trains catalogue. Maybe they used to make tinplate toys there? The whole site has now disappeared under a new trading estate and the Merton relief road. If you get the 93 bus from Wimbledon you can still see the bump in the road where the road used to cross the railway, about 500m before the tramway bridge.

I changed to using Kadees in the early 1980s when the NEM couplings became available and I was into modelling the current DB scene. they worked miraculously well including going up a spiral using Lima 1st radius corners and very long DB coaches! Since then I've acquired a lot of BR stock and built a British layout. So far no problems with Kadees or buffer locking For cranked couplings, it's possible to crank the Kadee coupler arm using a the side of a soldering iron bit to slightly melt the arm and make a Z bend in it. the tightest radius on my layout is probably 30" and the main line is minimum 3', so no problems there. But my test track is a number of set track corners making double S bends. If the stock goes round there' it'll go anywhere.

I meant the take-over of the tooling dnd HD stock by Wrenn, however it was arranged. It's how it seemed at the time.

Yes, you're right, I've subsequently looked it up. Thanks. Memory fade...

I remember just after the take-/over of Hornby Dublo by Wrenn they had far too many breakdown vans in red livery and offloaded them very cheaply. I bought "quite a few" and simply painted them brown. I've still got some on Airfix meat van chassis. they also offloaded the remaining HD stuff quite cheaply. I persuaded Mr.Patrick to stock up, but he limited the amount he'd let me order as I was inly 14 or 15 at the time! At my grammar school we had an annual open day and a couple of us got together to make a big model railway in the science lab. One lad had a lot of HD stuff, another had Trix Twin and my pal and I had Triang. I got the Triang rep to get me a couple of pre-production converter tracks and a couple of adaptor wagons. The chap with the Trix Twin couldn't join us at all! The Trix rep showed me a catalogue that showed a proposed Brush type 4 (class 47) as well as the A3 and A4 as well as the freight liner wagon mentioned in a post up the page. They also produced quite a good BR standard 4-6-0 and a Britannia in metal. I had one of each, the 4-6-0 was a good looking loco and a good runner, also running on the MRC's old layout with fin scale wheels. there was aplastic bodied E1 (I think) which I got from a local newsagent, and in Patricks stockrooms I found an EM1 and a Warship. They were sold in the shop. I also discovered some Triang/Lines Bros tinplate buses and cars which Mr.Patrick gave me. I was saving up to buy my prototype GS bus by than and the money they raised helped me on my way. I still have the GS bus, having bought it in 1969 at the age of 17!

I think you'll find VAT was introduced pre our membership of the EU/Common Market. It came with the end of Retail Price Maintenance and was originally set at 10% of selling price if I remember correctly. Wholesale price was as you say usually 50% of the retail price, giving the retailer a mark-up of 33.3% of the selling price.

As I may have mentioned earlier, the Trip AL1 was made to 4mm scale. The late Adrian Swain of aBS Models made the patterns for the bogie sidefames. I saw a brass master of one in his car in abut 1974 when I met him somewhere to collect a batch of bus kit castings from him. He told me the bogies were overcall length to "do a Triang" and use the existing motor bogie from the Western diesel. Remember too Trix "done a Triang" with their range of loco and carriage kits. They were of course dearer than tiring CKD kits but made their locos affordable. Over the few years I worked a tPatricks toys I must have acquired 5 of the AL1s in kit form. I still have a couple today, one being converted to an 85. All ran on the MRC's New Annington layout in th 1980s with no problems. I also got a Britannia kit, a Western kit and several coach kits in blue/grey and a Pullman.

As I worked in Patricks toys in Fulham at that time (1965-1968) full time and part-time after school, I was privy to bargains and other information. I saved up for the Hornby Dublo AL1 when they became available. I don't recall having any running problems with it as it had a Ring Field motor bogie as fitted to the "SR" EMU. Just the side frames were different from what I remember. Unfortunately the loco was converted to a class 73 following a Model Railway Constructor article on the conversion with the coming of the Bournemouth Line electrification. Pity I didn't know in those days what it would be worth these days! Whether this was a Chris Leigh or GM Kichenside article I can't remember! But as an AL1 it ran well on the MRC's test track and on the Longridge Brampton Sands and Calshot layout, though th GWR bracket signal didn't like the pantograph! I remember showing the loco to a driver who was on an electric loco at Harrow & Wealdstone, stabled in the Stanmore branch bay in connection with promoting "Britain's New Electric Railway.

I may have some of the Kings Cross drawings, I used a lot of them when I built track for the MRC's New Annington layout in 1980. They were very good for their time.

Seen today on the Real Trainspotting FB group, a class 47 failed on the S&C with a heavy ballast train. A class 25 was summoned to assist. that couldn't move the load. It so happened an A4 was going light engine the other way and was summoned/hijacked to help and the entourage eventually got going, triple headed by a tender-first A4, 25 and dead 47! 1980-ish.

Ignoramuses or ignorami? Pacific 231G.

Remember the Snow hill line had a very frequent passenger service since its inception up to W2 when services were suspended. The line was of critical importance to freight as one of the new north-south links. Camden Road was one of the places where 4 rail dc and 25kv ran alongside each other for quite a distance. Indeed special trains were run from Camden Road to Coventry and Birmingham in 1966 or 67 with AM10s to celebrate the opening of "Britain's new electric Railway". I still have my ticket somewhere. Camden provided an alternative change over from electric to diesel for freight liners to to East Anglia for many years. I wouldn't see any benefit running trains from the south east into Broad Street instead of Liverpool Street, the 2 stations were next door to each other and had a mean height difference of about 50'! Otherwise any cross-London stuff was WLL or the Acton Wells-Kew Junction line.

Which reminds me of the tale told by a senior Eurostar manager a few years ago. there had been some rather heavy drinking on the train from Waterloo to Brussels, mostly Belgians. The chef du train made the announcement, "We are sorry we have run out of beer. But for our Dutch passengers there's still some tins of Amstel." There was also a local lad (I live near Eurotunnel) went for a job with E* as chef du train, and the local job centre was a bit surprised when he turned down the job as his job qualification as a chef didn't include knowing anything about trains, but plenty about bacon and eggs.

Do you go to a fire station to catch fire?