roythebus1

There's also been the "scandal" on several railways I'm aware of of those males who prefer the attention of younger members. That sort of thing also happens in the preserved bus world. Some of those who have been caught weren't subject to DBS checks as they weren't invented back in the day, everything was hashed up. I know when I ran a bus company in south London I unknowingly employed at least five such individuals over the years. As I said, there were n DBS checks then, and the surprising one was someone who was a fellow director. He was only sussed when he took his computer for repair. He'd never been caught until then. But I digress.

Having been a committee member of a bus museum in the south many years ago, I've witnessed various "splinter groups" there keeping funding under the Group's name in pots on the shelf as it were. The management committee knew nothing of these funds which i understand were considerable, as were the vehicle parts stocks of which ownership was never really identified. The founder members got a freehold property for a good price back in the day. All that was put at risk by the splinter groups, the activities of one of the subsidiary companies and its "manager" trousering funds for his own benefit, you get the picture. Fortunately a more serious group took over the reins and negotiated a deal with a couple of very well-known local museums to move the bus organisation to a modern site. The sale of the old premises up the road increased considerably over the years as it was sold for "very desirable" expensive housing. But I understand here's still friction between various factions! I'm glad in a lot of ways I walked away from that organisation many years ago. Back on to railways, I was a member of an off-shore railway when it was set up and am still a member. Never had any problems there, they own everything. It's well managed. My local railway, founded slightly before that has its own way of doing things. I volunteered there for a few years. A lot of groups own rolling stock, locos, assets and they seem to have more favour than ordinary members. I didn't do a lot there due to other commitments and some comments were made in my general direction as to the ability of certain volunteers to do things. Considering I'd been a BR driver for 15 years and an LT guard for nearly 4 years I was a bit put out. i'm used to railway banter, the black humour, but this was different. I've not been back.

By chance I came across an interesting item regarding GWR "Met" brake vans, used for the fish traffic from Acton to Farringdon/Smithfield. There was a batch of short GW brake vans built for this traffic because of limited siding space in Smithfield. I forget where I saw the link, I was searching for Siphon G buffers and that led to a GW site and it was on there somewhere! Link here: http://www.gwr.org.uk/aa7-brake.html I'm not saying these were used on LT services per se, but would make an interesting addition to a Widened Lines layout.

The problem I can see ith the sea horizon is that with seceral sheets together, the sea could appear to go up and down like a roller caster between the scenes!

Rummaging through my drawers, as one does, I've found some Lima Siphon G's which I'd started detailing many years ago with cast metal bogies, but what lets them down are the very tiny buffers. does anyone produce replacement buffers for these and the Siphon H which I've also got a few of, and the LMS shortie body parcels van?

Must be an optical illusion, it's MTK and finished!!

re the comment about battery drill motors, in my bus workshop is a set of 4 column lifts, can lift 4 tons per lift. Last year we had a 1062 Leyland PD2 bus up in the air for inspection. when we came to lower the bus, one of the lift motors failed. they ar 2hp, 3-phase machines, quite beefy. It's possible to wind the motor by hand using finger power but it was. getting a bit of a strain. So I hammered a socket onto the end of the motor shaft, and used a 1/2" square socket drive in my little yellow deWalt battery drill. Presto, the drill quite happily drove the motor all the way down! We had to do it in stages to let the other 3 catch up... Amazingly the battery drill also managed to lift the bus as well. There's enough toque in these battery drills to quite happily snap a 1/2" drill if one gets stuck and, conversely, to break a wrist if you're not careful! Beware.

I'll have to look out my official LT photos of these. One shows it with MET on the side, the other is in full LT livery with air brake.

I've drivn 508s that went from 0-60 in 2 seconds, and back to 0 in 5 seconds as the WSP cuts in. An 87 from 15 to 110 in Watford tunnel with 1200 tons of freightliner on a very damp day.

I've got a part-built Kitmaster Beyer-Garrett which may be going on the internet auction site soon. all parts there, luckily the builder didn't make very much of it.

My LOTI has the XT60 motor. :)

I did eventually get the Black Beetle bogies for the 1962 stock, motor bogie in each end and away it went. A lovely runner, but due to the design of the EFE bogies it's almost impossible to easily fit pin-point axles to make for easier running. It looked nice running on the Folkestone Club's modern layout.

Very good, well done!

It should be possible to fit the Triang X500 ""Rocket" motor inside a Pug, after all it fitted inside the "Rocket" boiler.

That's what my pal said when i sent him the link to the video. The lads used standard railway dets for the "explosives" and removed a section of rail. I found the whole thing rather underwhelming to be honest. I expect the crash speed was about 20-25mph. with no driver on board to adjust the cut-off.

That's what I'd have though, buy my pal is now just over 80. :)

There was mention on here recently of WD 2-10-0 "Kitchener" being blown up at Longmoor, but I can't seem to find the original post. I have a friend now living in Thailand who was a 2nd lieutenant at Longmoor in the 1960s, the military equivalent of an operating superintendent in the proper railway. From his recollection he says: "Not so; there was Exercise Wizard Prang when SR King Arthur 'Merlin' which had a cracked frame was derailed near Woolmer, tipped on its side and recovered, to be cut up. A good wheeze, but before my time. It was all filmed for BBC TV. Whilst I was under training I signaled out a freight from Longmoor Downs to Liss Jcn containing the cut up remains of Kitchener, a 2-10-0 and Sir Guy Williams, a 2-8-0. The buyer was furious and accused us of stealing the copper firebox and had to be told that all the WD wartime locomotives had cast iron ones. He had based his bid on the incorrect assumption that they were copper!" He says in a later message that Sir Guy was also cut up on site.

Yes, Adrian was one of the design engineers for Concorde, so it had to be properly made. The best we had at the time was cast whitemetal. Adrian was maybe one of the best in that field.

It sounds a bit better than the "hotel" we had to use in Newcastle in the 1970s days of Lodging1 "Handa's Palace" or West Parade hotel. One of the beds had a pile of books under one corner as the leg was missing!

It depends what area you are modelling and whether the whole area was ballasted at the same time.

I'm sure I've got a copy of that book somewhere, I've just been clearing out m railway room...

The fleetname was in gold lined black o the steam locos. the real thing used the same transfer as the buses..I may have some F class transfer sheets from the days I produced kits. But they won't have all the numbers, just those appertaining to the class, along with lining. I also have about 20 F class body kits available.

Turnouts are left hand or right hand. I've recently replaced a hand-built double slip with a Finetrax kit 00sf, the spacing depends on your track centres. Wayne allows a lot of extra rail so you can cut them to length and add or remove sleepers as required. I've had no trouble with the double slip at all, even continental stock runs through it as well as locos with Gibson and Ultrascale wheels. Remember if you're doing a curved crossover you need 2 point kits of the same hand. simply bend the kits on the Templot template. the effect ooks far better than the Peco idea of using a left hand and right hand point. Because the model is based on the prototype, the radius is unlikely to go below a set parameter on the Templot template. On Template set your main radius, make double track with your set centres, insert turnout in curve, roll to desired position, then make crossover. Easy once you know how.

Class 92? :)

The ABS bogies were designed to take the Peco/Hornby Dublo coupling. Kadees weren't widely used here in the early 1970s when these bogies were produced. It's lucky that Kadee and Peco/HD use the same height from rail level! Adrian also produced a tension lock bracket to fit on this coupling mounting.