Pendle Forest

Busy afternoon on Pendle Forest

The 12t kit has built into a really lovely model.  Just needs a bit if weathering now.  Easy to build with a bit of patience and effort.

Looks like the engineers have decided a cranes needed!

Recently completed (apart from weathering), Make Your Mark Models, Plasser & Theurer 12t Rail Crane

2 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

An excellent composition; do the head and tail lights really appear so brilliant, or is that a function of the photographic exposure?

 

CJI.

Thank you :)

I was playing around with the settings on my phone camera, so i think it's that more than anything else.

Night time at Pendle Forest

On 03/12/2022 at 00:18, newbryford said:

Marks Models kits are superb resin castings and fit together extremely well.

 

No connection, other than as a satisfied customer.

(Pic by AY/BRM of this parish - excuse the wibbly handrail)

I've got the smaller 12t version on the way to me, as he has just done another run of the kits.  As you've built the big brother of it... would the kit, as it builds, lend itself to a light in the cabin and maybe some lights down the side?  Is there room to hide a simple light function decoder, or are each of the parts solid and would need hollowing out?

From the pics it does look like the lip below the front cab windows, looks more like a shelf.  I'm not convinced it captures the front face correctly at all

My earliest 'odd place for a loco' was being taken by my parents to Burnley Central where, in the coal yard, BR in its wisdom had decided to name 86213 Lancashire Witch.  It had been hauled over, dead of course, from Preston by a 25 that was lurking elsewhere in the yard.  It was dark and they had floodlights up and someone had invited along a 'witch' with a big cauldron that was very enthusiastically belching out bright green smoke that made everyone choke. 

Wales and the West Country too where all the semaphores suddenly moved in the not normal way 😅

5 hours ago, big jim said:

that was my first thought too, that and orange 156s in the north end bays! 

 

Being in north wales crewe was normally our go to place for spotting with my dad so from there heading south seeing the first red lamp posts south of rugby meant we were in NSE territory and seeing a then new at the time 321 was quite exciting! 
 

career wise though the first time I saw a class 165 turbo in Birmingham in 2005 while passing over the snow hill lines on a road learning loco seemed very strange as I didn’t know they came up to snow hill with chiltern, cue 5 years down the line and I’d be driving them there myself! 
 

Even today it quite exciting for me at times to be passing GWR or LNER or MML trains on various jobs as I’d have never imagined I’d be driving trains in those regions when I started driving 

 

I'd forgotten about the SPT orange 156s.  You'd also get the occasional escaped Tyneside yellow/blue 143 too.

On 25/02/2024 at 16:19, 92912 said:

"Semblant" and "Tansads" at work

Absolutely love this.  

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Not so - it is a worthy project in its own right but there needs to be a recognition that reinstatements like that to reverse Beaching era cuts are a very different situation to expanding the capacity of an existing line in terms of who and more importantly how many stand to benefit.

 

All HS2 is effectively doing is widening the existing WCML to 6 tracks - and I bet if that’s what they were actually doing (despite it being horrendously expensive / disruptive and affecting significantly more people in a bad way) then a lot of on here folk wouldn’t be nearly as hostile.

We know who would benefit... everyone south of Brum.  The whole area North of Brum would get nothing from HS2. Had the whole thing been built we could have got to London from Manc or Leeds slightly quicker but at greater cost than we can now. Wow!  Weirdly not everyone in the north really wants to do that.  In fact the majority couldn't careless.  

Three electrified transpennie routes would benefit the whole of the North Midlands and the North.  How many more people would u like a scheme to benefit?  

Extra capacity on the southern end of the WCML could be created by better speed profile matching of existing services, removing bottle neck junctions and ensuring the post-covid traffic patterns are better reflected in the working timetables. 

I'd go as far to say that HS2 was only ever wanted by the metro mayor's because it was the only real chance of investment that was on offer ;)

Apologies... I may have made it seem like it was dissociated from the budget re-allocation.  I was trying to compare both the cost of the runt of HS2 that will be built and the overall cost of the whole thing (had it been built) against the relatively modest costs, of a scheme that could have been completed very quickly, that has huge backing, and would unlock very real benefits withing 2 years if Network Rail and the procurement process got on with things. It could fundamentally transform East West travel between Lancashire, Merseyside and Gtr Manc on one side and the Ridings of Yorkshire and Tynside. 

If we had a truly joined up system you could then carry the electrification from Bradford through to Burnley and achieve two fully electrified routes from North and West Yorkshire over in to Lancs.  Further infill from Rochdale through to Todmorden and the curve, and the additionally Blackburn to Bolton, would allow a circular route to be created linking - Manc Vic, Tod thru Rochdale - Burnley (linking in with the Yorkshire services) - Blackburn - Bolton - Manc.  With Blackburn or Burnley acting as interchanges for Blackpool, Liverpool and Crewe (swinging South at Lostock Junction).   13 miles of tracks and a wiring project most European countries would call laughingly simple as its not high speed.

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

What part of ‘most congested’ is hard to understand?

 

As desirable as reinstatement of Skipton to Colne is, that has got nothing to do with the business case for HS2 - which despite politicians trying to spin it in other ways to carry favour with various audiences is routed in the very real congestion issues on the EXISTING network, congestion which is most accuse on the WCML, MML, etc as they close in on London.

 

HS2 would, if done properly have bought benefits to huge swathes of the country either in terms of releasing capacity for increased services on the current network or providing more seats between our major cities, not just faster journey times for some city pairings.

 

Reinstatement of Skipton to Colne is fundamentally different thing - the benefits are far more localised (which is not to say they aren’t worthy), but in simple terms the proportion of the country which would benefit is tiny. 
 

In fact if you want to compare Skipton - Colne to anything than the EWR scheme between Oxford & Cambridge is a much better place to start….

 

 

 

 

Actually it would allow intermodal traffic to reach Trafford Park and the New Salford Port without using Castlefield corridor.  With freight removed there is no need for the extra through platforms at Piccadilly.  Drax has also made it very clear that routing it's biomass trains over the route would significantly cut costs and reduce traffic as the flow would be around rather than through Manchester.  So for that link you can unlock the Castlefield Corridor... that would provide enormous benefit across the northwest.   

I'm fairly certain that it removes one of the most congested routes in the UK. 

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Which still wouldn’t have addressed they key issues!

 

Look how many times do I have to point out that, like it or not they areas of the rail network that are the most contested and would unlock the greatest benifits to the network as a whole the bits between the Midlands and London.

 

Furthermore there would have been no chance of starting both the Leeds and the Manchester legs at the same time and what’s more given the political makeup of those areas the Government would have found it far easier to simply abandon the works half finished rather than complete them!

There are 13 miles between Skipton and Colne that could go back in for around 200m.  That's double track and includes electrification from Skipton through to Preston.  This would give a fully electrified, relatively gradient flat, none-congested Northern Pennine link.  The track bed for the missing section is wholly owned by the local authorities and Network Rail.  Major earthworks are still in place and apart from rerouting the ring road at Colne onto a bridge over the tracks the route is unbroken. Thr route would give direct access from the North East to East and West Lancs, Inc Liverpool, without going through Manchester.  Connections at Burnley and Blackburn would make accessing both Manchester Stations a doddle. Yet.... nothing.  Despite the scheme being shovel ready, everyone agreeing it's a stupid not to do it, and hoardes of government ministers promising it would progress on the pipeline. 

On 22/02/2024 at 15:28, Artless Bodger said:

Not really given to going spotting, except a couple of trips to London to do the main termini with a school friend, so Deltics at Kings Cross, Westerns at Paddington. Living in Maidstone it was otherwise a diet of emus in green or blue.

 

Early sightings that stick with me were:

 

A family wedding reception in Ilford, the venue overlooked the railway, strange to see trains like at home but powered by overhead wires.

 

First trip to Margate by train (we'd used the M&D coach before - cheaper, until I got travel sick) and seeing Maunsell and Wainwright at Ashford (check the Observers book when we got back home).

 

A holiday at Bracklesham Bay holiday camp, we went to Portsmouth one day for the Victory, waiting for the train back to Chichester at Portsmouth and Southsea HL a dark green dmu came through on a service, I recall the racket the exhausts up the end of the carriages made compared to our quiet emus. Next birthday I got the Triang Met Cam dmu (rather than the Triang emu - looked too old fashioned). (Some years later, a holiday in Hastings introduced me to the much nicer sound of a Hastings unit, or two).

 

A holiday in Weymouth area, 1968 I think, seeing a maroon warship in the sidings at Waterloo, in my ignorance I thought it must be a Midland region loco. Later on the return from holiday, saw a blue one at Basingstoke (Greyhound iirc but I wouldn't put money on it). 

 

Later in life, returning from work in Maidenhead one misty evening, walking from platform 6 at Reading, saw ahead along 8 a class 58, which departed westwards as I approached, so only really saw the end, they were new at the time and I only knew about them from magazines. Didn't see any more 58s until the Fertis (?) ones parked at OOC.

 

Seeing the APT at Carlisle on my first trip to Scotland.

 

Discovering thumpers still lived (just) in NI when my wife got a job over there. We could hear them across Belfast Loch sometimes on services to Larne.

We saw an APT slide into Preston platform 6 on what would have been, probably, one of the last set of test runs.  It was a full double set.  By that stage the remaining active sets would appear randomely between service trains so it was a complete fluke.

There was a special APT ticket booth on platform 3 at the foot of the main access ramp and special 'APT Coach x' marking had been painted the length of at least platform 3 where the doors would line up.  I don't remember seeing them on 4 though. 

It looked awesome snaking it's way round the curves into the platform and compared to a class 108 belching diesel in the adjacent platform, it was truly 'the future'

Preston was our hub spotting station in the mid-80s to early 90s.  Standard fair were 20s,25,31s,37s,47s for diesels and 81s,85s,86s,87s for electrics.  A motley array of 101s,104s and 108s were still trundling around... the 104s mostly in plain rail blue.  Then along came the pacers and sprinters. 

However a trip to Carlisle using a Network North West Railrover uncovered these mysterious scottie dog emblazoned 26s which we all thought very exotic.  A 27 was like hens teeth but was guaranteed to be captured on film. 

The rarest of rare events, which would usually involve charging over the footbridge to the platform it was arriving in, was a 47/7 that had somehow escaped the push-pull circuit.  These were almost always removed at Carlise to be replaced by a 47/4 from the north west allocation... it was well known that furious exchanges would take place with the traffic office at Preston if they got that far south with demands they were returned ASAP. 

Going towards the south west everything up to Brum was pretty much the same but hitting Bristol, going on holiday, would see us pinned to the windows ad we passed Bath Road in the hope of at least one 50. 

The third rails emus were always a catch, particularly with there odd set numbers on the front.  I never did quite get used to the 4 digit set numbers. And the 3 letter codes were baffling. 

No issue with a manufacturer wanting u to use a particular decoder. This should be made clear at the point of sale though and that's especially the case if the decoder needs to be formatted in a particular way.  

Your last paragraph is my point entirely :)

20 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

Ready means that there is DCC socket in the model, nothing more.

Then, I'd say,  there needs to be more clarity. When you're presented with two choices 'Ready' or 'Sound', then surely the model manufacturer should state if there is a requirement for the decoder to be formatted in the way they would recommend. Hence my differing 'indicators'

If you buy a Bachmann 37 and you buy the plux22 decoder they recommend, you can plug it in and everything they say works, will work. 

If you buy the recent Cavalex 56 and buy the decoder they recommend and plug it in... not everything works.  It will only do so if you upload to it their file ... it doesn't say this in the instruction book or in the marketing material... so how would you know. 

Both models are labelled as Ready.  Yet one is take the decoder and plug and play, while the other is format then plug and plug. 

'Ready' either means one thing or it means multiple things and becomes meaningless.

3 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

But is that not something that should be covered in Gaugemaster's User Manual?  It would seem very strange to expect say Accurascale, advising how to reprogramme an ESU decoder to overcome an issue with the Gaugemaster command station.

Yep maybe it should indeed be, then when it's purchased there is something that at least alerts you to why, for instance, the tail lights won't stay on on your newly purchased model.

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Most manufacturers do.

Accurascale (maybe a few others) don't, although Accurascale will sell you a pre programmed decoder.

 

The beauty of DCC is that you can change how a loco is configured to your own criteria.

Many prefitted decoders and all those bought separately come with the loco address set to 3.

That has to be changed to whatever you want for your method of identification

 

I find it difficult to comprehend that someone that has a degeee finds the concept of self programming of decoders so

With respect you're missing the point.  I'm talking about how the way the marketing and definitions have not kept up.  Even if the thread got a little side-tracked

I've no issue programming ... I just don't see how that is reflected in the material that advertises the products.  You may see things differently.  We each have our own point of view.

I've two accurascale 31s on order but I'm seriously considering cancelling them and going with Bachmann over the decoder issues. I've two Bachmann 37s and it was a doddle... plux22, straight out the box, in and everything worked just as Bachmann stated it should.