25kV

For IPA stripping I bought some tall 2 litre glass kitchen jars (for storing spaghetti etc) with an airtight lid. Filled one of these with IPA and it's the perfect length for dunking a couple of loco/coach bodies. (from Amazon)

Ohhh I see what you mean. 👍

Presumably it's pressurised.

Closest I got with a McRat was this 26 - though a pair of 27s top-and-tailing the Glasgow-Edinburgh push-pulls would have been interesting. (sorry - photo, not model)

Executive Dark Grey or possibly Falcon Grey (if I remember the name correctly) which was a very slight (and almost un-noticeable) change of tone for the later IC liveries. Exec was just a little bit green - particularly if it faded!

Oh that suits very well! Shoulda thought of it myself. 😁

Some 37s carried INTERCITY Swallow livery (with the white lower body) and some INTERCITY Mainline with the executive light grey lower body. So providing your base model has the creamy lower body, the LSL relivery is just a case of replacing the red stripe, yes. Original ScotRail livery, as on 47/7s etc also had the grey/cream lower body.

Love it! Excellent name!

First time viewer of this thread - amazing buildings all around! I will have to peruse your other thread in detail. One thing that struck me from your last photo above is the sheer scale of railway structures when seen among "regular" sized city buildings. Seeing the gap waiting to be filled really brings that home. Fantastic stuff. 🙂

Arriving in 1980 at last! Part 2 of 2 Part two of today's update (see previous post for all the dirty stuff), with a few more pics... 48104, 48604, 49001, 48601, 48206 and 48101 in that order... Getting the lights back on... The connectors worked perfectly! Peeking at the C-APT test rack and mess area in 48101. The main equipment racks in 48206. And the pantograph test rack in 48601. Taking it Outside A little bit of focus-stacking, and a couple of broadsides. What's Next? Staying with 1980, there's a little more to finish on "Pilot", but 001 and 004 will be followed by 005 and 006, in their shiny-and-new mid-1980 condition - all 14 vehicles... There's far less to modify, and the sets are going to be more-or-less ex-works, so hopefully it won't be a hugely time consuming job. Famous last words...

Arriving in 1980 at last! Part 1 of 2 And we're back! In October I had a decal disaster with "Pilot" which left me feeling a bit subdued on the whole devaluing one's models with paint and varnish thing. That plus a bunch of other real life stuff getting in the way meant that part one of my 1980 APT-P project got sidelined. However, after helping my dad extend his 009 layout in January, and being inspired to do a Pugbash (see here for details!), the mood returned in earnest. Up On The Roof... Last time I had just detailed the roof of power car 49001, fitting cameras and other test equipment to monitor one of the prototype Brecknell-Willis / BR High Speed pantographs. I used one of the Hornby castings to represent this on the model, painted dark blue as per the prototype. To allow the pantograph to be posed, I decided to do away with the lower control rod, initially disconnecting it and later removing completely. This didn't help a huge amount, so I took the plunge and removed the control rod's upper lug (formerly located at the arrow), which allowed a much greater movement on the upper arm, and having been lucky with how much I cut off, also provided a bit of friction on the join for posing. Well worth doing if you want an accurate pantograph on your APT and don't have knitting (or can set the pan height below it). While up on the roof, a replacement section of bus-bar was glued for the diagonal section seen above, replacing the pantograph isolating switch arrangement on the model (49001 didn't have this feature added until 1981). A section of handrail wire from a Hornby 3F body (used in the Pugbash) perfectly matched the existing roof line wire. Next up was attempting to weather the whole set. Getting Down and Dirty The pairing of 370004 and 370001 for this pantograph work was not in BR's development schedule for the APT fleet - 004 had spent the last several months paired with 003 on driver training runs (as well as appearing at Rainhill 150), while 001 had been paired with 002 for over a year doing initial testing and breaking some speed records. 002 and 003 were off back to Derby for extending to full length rakes, and 001 and 004 were supposed to be doing the same. So it's perhaps because of this extra testing period that this pair were sometimes a little neglected in the cleanliness department. Several photos show the pair - and in particular 004 - coated in track grime, and I wanted to try to capture some of this with the weathering. And there's nothing like a six coach train to test one's previously non-existent weathering abilities on. This highly technical scribble was my rough guide to filth application. Numerous photos of the real formation were studied, and I went for a slightly-exaggerated version of the worst bits of all of them, to give that "workhorse" kind of appearance. (While 004 and 001 got quite filthy at times, it was nothing to some of the exploits of 005 and 006 in later years!) I don't have an airbrush... So instead I tried a variety of tricks to get a mucky finish. I initially tried a spray can of track dirt colour, but it didn't give enough control to get a good / non-spackled cover, so abandoned for this project. I concluded that an airbrush might be a good idea, but in the meantime, a combination of panel-lining paint, dry brushing, wet-brushing-and-sponging, and brushed thin washes was attempted. The undersides were darkened, mostly to avoid having unexpectedly bright reflections going on under the train. The upper bodies tended to stay comparatively clean (except for the roofs) so limited dirtying of those areas was carried out. For an electric train, the APT had a surprising number of diesel engines on board - time for clag-staining. All APT-P driving vehicles had auxiliary generators behind the cabs, the exhausts from which would leave stains down the yellow ends and along the roof. 48104 in the foreground was often fairly grubby up top. 48101 behind tended to have a little less dirt on the yellow, however 001's TBF vehicle also had a generator to power the test equipment in the set - 48601's roof (at the back) was nearly always smudged with smuts. A handful of prototypical scratches were added (mostly by actually scratching the paint off) and an attempt was made to add some of the tiny bolt-holes visible on 004's nose at the time with a dressmaker's pin. Holes were made, but they weren't quite as precise as I'd have liked. With suitable dirt and scratches applied, upper and lower bodies were treated to a variety of varnishes. Initially everything got a coat of semi-gloss from a spray, but following that, the upper body window areas (but not the roof) were sprayed with gloss (these trains were only a year old!), and the lower bodies with matt over the dirt. Subsequent semi-gloss, gloss and matt touches were brushed and dry-brushed over to suit the amount of dirt/paint on show - the gloss isn't perfectly shiny, since it's over a semi-gloss layer, so doesn't result in a "toytown" look. The result is a very non-uniform finish, which seems about right for the state of the set in service. The power car was dirtied up and varnished as a whole, since there was no need to keep the upper and lower sections separated after the roof detailing. The small rooftop windows were covered with that Humbrol Pink Gloop and peeled off after drying. Glazing was re-attached to the trailer cars - though if I have a complaint its that it still isn't sitting flush enough. I may go back in there in due course and attempt a firmer fix. Meanwhile, "Pilot" is getting its second set of decals. While the Glue Dries... While the glazing was setting, thoughts turned to reassembly. During disassembly I snipped the red and black wires connecting the bogies to the light boards (too much of a hassle to solder in place) with the intention of figuring out some way of reattaching later. First choice was to use JST PH connectors (small enough to fit in the body alongside a massive barrel capacitor), however the crimping process was difficult to impossible with the lengths of wire available and smallness of parts. Nevertheess 1984 test car 48204 (left) was successfully JST-ed back together, after some two and half hours of cursing, but an alternative was needed for the full-length rake. (48207 on the right is a fictional APT-U coach, made from spare bits!) I found some truly tiny terminal block connectors on Amazon, which are a bit fiddly but did the job. And just about fit in the tight confines of the corridor connections on articulated vehicles. Another "while the glue/paint/varnish dries" job was to finish the basic interiors for 370004. As far as I can tell, nothing was modified in either vehicle, so the basic colours have been applied (no, I am not doing tartan on all the seats, but kudos to everyone who does!). After being cast aside for quite some time, the interiors were refitted to the underframes of all the trailer cars. 004 in the foreground, and 001 behind. The differences between 001's test equipment interiors and the bog-standard passenger environment are clear! And just for fun - the six cars assembled with no bodies for a 6-inch test run. 😉 Almost There! Both sides of 49001 with its pantograph in place. On the "APT" side, various paint chips have been replicated with spots of "green primer" where the dark grey has fallen off (surprisingly common on the power cars). The two chips on the left were the clue to identifying this power car for this particular rake after cross-referencing various photos! At last! 370001, 49001 and 370004 reassembled and ready to roll. More photos in the next post...

I take full responsibility, but none of the financial implications thereof! :) 006+002 and 007+001 (both 6+PC+2 formations) were both active around 1981-1982. 006+001 (with 49003 and 49006) in the middle operated the first public service, and my suspicion is that 007+001 were the standby set. The latter was kicking around in early 1982 for sure, with a single power car (currently unknown number). 006 and 007 ran together as a full length rake (6+2+6 and 6+1+6) in the summer of 1981. Good luck!! My 004+001 1980 set is almost done - update coming soon on my thread.

Found it on Flickr, by George Woods - I think you can send a message via the photographer's profile page. https://www.flickr.com/photos/52467480@N08/8467376109/

Is there a possibility of slightly nudging your two routes forward/back a couple of inches each, such that you could have two parallel viaducts at different heights, one in front of the other? I can imagine looking through say the steel trestle of the branch to see the stone arches of the mainline behind, or vice versa. I'm not aware of any real examples of this, but it could be visually dramatic (though the aqueduct/viaduct pair at Chirk provides a similar concept). Quick mock up for fun fun (pics from Dartmoor Railway Assoc / National Trails):

In the early years of Barrow Hill Roundhouse operating as a preservation centre, an extender was used for a while - I don't know if they still have one. Peaks and Class 40s, otherwise too long for the table, tended to be turned with their outer wheelsets raised clear somehow, if I recall correctly, as they were too long for it.

It's slightly alarming to realise that the same tooling (ish) has been on the go for at least 65 years... We're at least a few years behind that ourselves, but seem to be catching up alarmingly quickly.

And even longer in the comics! (img: doctorwho.tv)

I had a suspicious feeling I'd not be the first to try it! 😁

It's been a long while since I built an Airfix/Dapol Pug... In fact I think it was around 1980 if this photo is dated accurately. I'd just built the one on the left - the one on the right is the remains of my dad's Kitmaster attempt from a generation earlier. No paint, just decals straight on to plastic. Inspired by this thread a mere 44 years on (with a pause in other projects while waiting for paint), I wondered if it might be time to build another Pug kit or two... and perhaps create a small variation on the original. Not sure whether it truly qualifies for this topic, as it's unpowered and the wheels won't even rotate fully, but here it is anyway! Not sure how this is going to blend in with the APT fleet, but whatever! Presenting the Pugger-Garratt, an insane L&Y design for hauling massively long freights along tightly curved dockside sidings under low bridges on incredibly steep hills. Seen here sitting on a bit of OO gauge track dumped unceremoniously atop my dad's OO9 layout for the scenic backdrop. The boiler is from a Hornby 3F body, I think - it looked "about right" on the Peter's Spares website, albeit a Midland design rather than L&Y. Cab, tanks, running gear, chimney and dome are from the pug kits; the coal bunker (inspired by the design of a NZ Garratt) is carved from an old Dapol 9F kit tender (I pulled it apart to investigate whether the 9F's boiler might suit - it might have suited...), while the mid-section frame is plasticard and H-beams. Some very basic plastic-rod-in-hole pivots provide articulation. A bit of Photoshop AI smoke just for fun. It's still in need of some numbers and a couple of other details. I wanted to keep a certain Puggishness to the look of the loco, hence trying to find a boiler of similar dimensions to the curve of the original saddle tanks, and using the chimney/dome from the kit (probably impractical in reality for a that size of boiler!). Broadside view - it comes in at about a scale 60ft over the buffers. I suspect in reality it'd need a little more in the way of wheels ... I completely failed to install weights in the tanks, so both engine units are ever-so-slightly nose-up with the weight of the boiler on their tails. Catching the rays on the curve, and highlighting my badly-carved plasticard end plates on the tanks... Stabled with my more usual traction preferences. And as for what happened to that 1980 pug kit ... It spent a few decades in the attic, but was rolled out to meet its crazy cousin. 😉

Yep - central window on the nose. I don't know how the loco was manned, but presumably someone acted as observer for the driver, and the driver drove "blind"! 😬 At 129mph, that must have been quite the experience! This image from TrainTesting shows the mounting points for the fibreglass nose, plus some additional protection for the windscreens. http://www.traintesting.com/images/E3173_Bletchley_Cheddington_tests_May_1971.jpg

E3173 became 86204 at renumbering - becoming the first of the 86/2s with the helicoil suspension modification. (The 86/1s were originally numbered 86201-203, but only briefly, and were fitted with Class 87 bogies.) During the high speed testing E3173 stole Mallard's UK speed record, reaching 129 mph, but with the HST in development, BR opted not to make a fuss about it, pending better publicity with anticipated new records for the new train. The pantograph observation pod was fitted to E3173 during this period, but a similar one was fitted to 86103 later - it was removable and bolted in place of the translucent panel in the roof at the No 1 end. The nose cone was, I believe, associated with collecting data for streamlining during the high-speed runs, which were carried out with and without the nose. Careful analysis of photos will show that it was bolted to the corner cab window pillars on both sides - the bolts of which could still be seen on 86204 many years later, well into the InterCity era. Dave Coxon's page on the nose-cone tests has more info and photos: http://www.traintesting.com/high_speed_testing.htm As for the electric HST, this concept was developed in the early 1980s when the APT project began to falter. High speed test trains were run in 1982 with diesel HST power cars connected to pantograph-fitted test cars, with regular HST trailers in between, to test pantograph interference issues with two pans raised on the same train. The E-HST power cars would be able to run with Mk3 rakes and tilting APT-P-style rakes of intermediate coaches, pending the development of tilting cab-fitted APT power cars. One source suggests that four E-HST power cars were actually authorised for construction. HST fans will perhaps enjoy the overdose of TRUKs in these trains! For more on this, see down the page here: http://www.traintesting.com/Highspeed_pan.htm

That's correct - the route continued beyond the building and passed a former tram shed, which is still there today. This was also the spot where Aberdeen's tram fleet was brought and set alight in May 1958 when the service was ended. 😥 Flickr pic by Raiding The Parks:

For anyone interested in the CME loco movements at Preston - 86259 can be seen in this video by West Coast Mainline trains at about 14 min, signalled from Platform 4a bay onto the down fast under a green aspect. There are also techno-accompanied stills at the end of Tangmere hauling the train into Platform 6, 47746 running light northbound into Platform 5, and also at the south end of the train on Platform 6.

I was once asked to film myself creating of various parts for a song backing, so that a short documentary could be made of the process, from the perspectives of those taking part... The song was 3:40 long... my edited footage for the documentary was nearly 2 hours (so much for "short"). And yes - the filming and editing takes way longer than the actual doing! 😉

The Peak on the S&C is here on the B6259, a little south of Ais Gill, as suspected.