MidlandRed

I thought the main reason that ASLEF (and all the other Trades Unions in dispute currently) was largely because they are fighting for their members to have a cost of living based renumeration increase. This is also exacerbated by the fact that for much of the public sector, wages and salaries have been suppressed for periods over the last 15 years or so in the name of austerity. You could argue that the current administration has created the problem itself and doesn’t really have a leg to stand on - as it could have afforded sensible pay increases years ago over a period of time and would not be saddled with junior doctors and other workers whose pay is said to be up to 30% behind inflation in real terms. Moaning about reds, socialists and tarring them all as layabouts is neither correct and is so 1976. It’s divorced from reality these days. Re HSTs, the ASLEF demands following the crash reports in Scotland are surely there simply as a means of pressurising the industry to improve crash worthiness. Their wishes are likely to be met in part anyway as HM Government forges on with a gradual dismantling of timetables, thus allowing more ‘legacy stock’ to be dispensed with. As others have observed, the ballot box is the place to dispense with less than competent political administrations.

C591 (Ardwick) pictures a class 100 (not 104) - note the LWs also on the blue square multiple working symbols. J3241 (Skillington Junction) shows another one of the handful of Brush Type 2s with tablet catcher equipment (visible protruding from the driver’s door) used on the High Dyke branch - it’s also in the original version of the corporate blue/full yellow end livery, with BR symbols on each cab side and loco numbers behind each door (centralised between the ‘lines’ of the arrow symbols. Oh for an Accurascale variant of their class 31 in this format!! 5673 in J2996, similarly fitted, is in a different (later?) variant of the blue livery (numbers on cab sides, symbol central to the body side).

Hastings had them within the last 10 years - I haven’t been there recently - not sure if they’re still there.

Having also dealt with politicians on transport matters over many decades (but not in rail) I would tend to agree - however the standard is often variable and I can think of some (including quite recent) who have/do get it, but also some that simply don’t. However what changes is the overall political climate and one party has a totally different set of emphases than the other. We appear to have entered a period of budget cutting after the dire need, following the debacle last autumn, to set public spending and capital budgets to calm the markets, resulting in many difficult ‘ceilings’ - so the desperation-like alterations to the plans for HS2, unrealistic capping of increases for public sector workers are all part of the malaise - along with booting expenditure on promised (but not budget allocated) hospitals even further down the road….. I would agree that in such a period any political party’s outlook and dealing with civil servants and others in likely to be similar. The area I still fail to understand is the employment of ‘political advisors’, funded as part of the civil service as I understand, but from observation these people, of whom there are quite a number around Government, may claim to be subject area specialists but totally politicised. From my observation, it’s entirely possible for these people to talk even more nonsense than some of the politicians who employ them!!! 🙄 they are also liable to get in the way of proper advice from professionals.

Interesting. Dieselised as part of the WR’s West of England scheme (Area No 1 and Pilot scheme type 4 Authorisation), which included all of the Warships and Bristol (Area No 2) (included all of the Westerns). I’m not sure when steam was finally replaced from W of E to Bristol but the Westerns weren’t approved for building until 1961, so probably 63/4? Prior to the change to a Peak at Bristol you’d likely have had a Jubilee or some other ex LMS type from Barrow Rd etc.

Another one from the ‘Olden’ days on the WR - Paddington to Birkenhead via B’ham Snow Hill - swapped locos at Chester (sometimes Shrewsbury instead - sometimes Wolverhampton Low Level). I’m thinking diesel days and especially during the short period Westerns were used, prior to the northern end from Banbury changing to the LMR. Prior to that, in steam days, locos would be changed similarly. As previously mentioned, NE to SW and vice versa trains changed from a Peak to a diesel hydraulic at Bristol TM for the trip to the south west and vice versa - it had always been this way since pre grouping so why let little inconveniences like nationalisation and dieselisation interfere!!! After all, the regions needed some work for their diesels (eg WR - 150 hydraulics; 150 Brush type 4s, and in the earlier 60s, a batch of early Peaks - although the very first seem to have been based on Barrow Road prior to Bath Rd becoming the Bristol diesel loco depot, so no doubt they were justified as part of an LMR scheme)!! The Peaks certainly didn’t change locos at B’ham New St in the mid 60s, when I was spotting there.

Yes it’s good - not exact but the appearance of both are strongly affected by lighting but in any case, the Bachmann 03 finish has slightly more sheen to it. Certainly fine in a rake of mixed NPCCS stock with other rail blue items. As stated in previous posts discussing the blue, different cameras represent differently but mine seems to give a good representation of how it looks (to me) in natural (reasonably bright) light. I’m very pleased with it. Runs nicely as well. Another request for those magnetic couplings to be made available for purchase. My Siphon G is likely to appear with a DMU, parcels unit or in a loco hauled parcels train so fitting a limited amount of other stock would be feasible.

I did receive the initial Accurascale email notification but to be fair did not press the tracking button or log into my account. The former may sound daft, but my experience with other firms is some of these link you to another 3rd party intermediary, which then require you to create an account with them or the shipping company, which I don’t want to do as there are multiple firms which organisations I order from use. Thanks for the advice though, useful to know for the other Accurascale products I have on order.

Mine turned up yesterday - to echo other comments, it’s a great model with stunning detail, and my rail blue W2768W looks great. Delivery was very quick after I received the notification it was on its way. On receiving the DHL notification, it didn’t say what it was, simply it was my order from Tradesupply, Birmingham - as with others, I have had lots of spam phishing delivery notices in the past so I was somewhat wary of clicking on these - however I realised what it was as soon as the delivery driver appeared on the doorstep!! (I had two other sets of unrelated items in transit at the same time so hadn’t a clue which one the Accurascale was and there was no mention of Accurascale on the DHL emails!!!).

Transportation data collection comes from a multitude of sources in the increasingly technological age, including (not identifiable by person) mobile phone data, direct info from sales, usage counting (usually done by contractor), in the case of road traffic data, automatic traffic counters (both permanent and temporary), and even on train sensors (those who travel on Thameslink will know the PIS displays within the train show usage level in each carriage. Bus ticket machines give operators and then Authorities direct usage info (obviously not if the user doesn’t pay and is not registered by the driver - my understanding is the driver, certainly on TfL has the ability to register a non-paying passenger). Im interested to hear the reference to DfT staff (referred to as DafT by some). We should be clear those staff are there to ensure the rules are followed by those seeking to use public funds and they have a duty to ensure national Policy is followed. They, ultimately (or at least the very senior ones) report direct to politicians, who generally set their aims out, which are then interpreted into Policy. It appears a Policy came about to, for instance ensure Thameslink trains were the appropriate length - when the operators had the option, operationally, to short form trains down to four or eight cars, this was done so regularly that one of the metrics published and shown on posters for relative performance of operators included contracted train length and cancellation - Thameslink were always at the bottom - ok they had older rolling stock but nontheless consistently awful performance. The new trains are in fixed 12 and 8 car lengths - Thameslink now perform very well. It is likely politicians had a hand in that and DfT developed the Policy leading to those specs. A case where the public service won over operational convenience? I’m sure those people who’ve had a hand (large or small in such things) would have comments on that and please correct me if my interpretation is incorrect. Of course there’s no helping some politicians and judging by the ludicrous utterings of a recent Secretary of State (said the Government doesn’t own the railways - in respect of Network Rail and disputes) I pity the poor DfT having to deal with them - and their current fad of cost cutting (whilst continuing to provide significant cheap fare support to the bus industry)!! I guess the ballot box is the place to deal with them!!

I wouldn’t say the Fell is a bad model - it has detail errors (particularly on one side) and a potential issue with coupling rods (people on here had pointed out the side issues and have got annoyed because they didn’t get corrected in the production version) but given there’s no opportunity to laser scan a non existent prototype, the shape pretty much looks like a Fell to me. And the same for GT3. In contrast the opportunity to get the details right on the class 40 is there as modern techniques such as 3D laser scanning of the whole or parts can be used. One area which has caused problem for even the most recent class 37 examples is the cab windscreens and the same exists for KR with the 40. Whilst there will always be compromises, thicknesses of windscreen pillars have been the downfall of many modejj looks in the past (eg class 31 - the latest is pretty good although I suspect they’re still a little on the thick side). I do worry we’re in danger of talking KR out of so many sales by all the negative comments here - surely we should wait and see their proposals?? Some manufacturers do use certain hyperbole in their advertisements - I can think of another which engages in certain levels of humour, some of which doesn’t suit my taste, but hey ho, I just skip over it as the info I want is actually there as well. I would observe that it seems anyone commenting negatively in any way on certain other manufacturer’s products (good as they are - and some are exceptional) is greeted with absolute disdain, whereas for others moaning and criticism (including KR) is the norm (though it’s very refreshing to observe the terminal Hornby bashing seems to have relented of late 🤣

It was a joke tbh - that’s why my message had a smiley at the end….. it was based on someone saying they’d be happy to receive W2980 in the colour represented in your photo (which for whatever reason was different from that shown subsequently on the Accurascale web site). For the sake of clarity I’ve already responded to @McC helpful post showing the Accurascale photos, stating I’m very happy with the colours they’re showing. No dog and no bone here 🙂

Sorry @The Stationmaster, I guess the 50 yrs (making 1973) was a way of saying a very long time ago - if I’d have picked 40 from the random ‘long time ago’ number generator it would have been more accurate!! Interesting info re the cleaning routine - you must have had a better budget than other regions (although it clearly didn’t extend to the filthy one in use behind a DMU on the N Warks line in the early 60s which I have a photo of!!) For anyone wanting W2980 if you want the colour represented in @AY Mod photo you’re out of luck - it’s definitely in rail blue on the Accurascale site 😃

The Scottish class 37s were D6838-59 and D6903-5, transferred from the WR from September 1966. These were allocated variously to Haymarket, Polmadie and Eastfield. D6819-37 and many others were transferred WR to NER (Incl York and Healey Mills).

Haha!! However it could appear to be another colour entirely under the fluorescent lighting at Paddington 😬 Lovely model - one of the best of the liveries.

@Covkid and @ClikC, I couldn’t agree more - my intention is to use mine either in a parcels rake or behind a DMU. I have a reference photo of a class 116 pulling one on the N Warks line, but the livery is indeterminate (it’s basically filthy). I can only think that @The Stationmaster and his colleagues arranged for their NPCCS newspaper sets to go through the WR washer to avoid disturbing the ambience at Paddington - although the scabby external state of some of the Hydraulics subjected to such washing makes one wonder whether whatever dirt emulsifier was in use didn’t rot the timbers of the wooden bodies Siphon Gs!! Trains like the Red Bank parcels always seemed to have stock in various shades of filthy (you could see the grey of the blue and grey usually though).

That’s a great idea - however in the meantime, these are back to back extracts from @AY Mod and @McC posts. In spite of @The Stationmaster 50 yr old (😁) memories of the exact shade of blue of these things (his reminiscences are always very welcome), I’d say If those are the same blue then either the cameras and lighting used to take them are lying (very likely), they’re a different colour in reality (unlikely), or I’m a (insert cricketing term based on a 1960s, and now politically incorrect stereotyping description of a gentleman from a very large country in the far East 😆). @AY Mod version have a sort of purplish hue to them! I don’t view these on a ‘puter (haven’t had one for years) but a smart phone - I agree with poster’s comments about blue and how it’s seen by various cameras v the naked eye - I have recently purchased an old guitar in a shade of blue which is notoriously difficult to photograph - and the shade changes in real life dependent on lighting - the phone camera’s attempt to reproduce this gets the lighting admirably but varies the shade of blue even more 😄

Thanks @McC - W2768W looks great and definitely rail blue (to my eyes), thus dispelling some of the theories given by others, and most importantly, my concerns. There is a lack of the green tinge to W2980 in the extracts from the article posted above (the same as suffered by Heljan/TMC’s D15 and commented on by umpteen people in the appropriate thread - I don’t recall people being advised they might not be seeing it correctly!!!). It might sound picky given the standard of this model, but to me incorrect rail blue is as bad as incorrect BR standard loco green - of which there have been many instances and a multitude of comments. To me it’s far worse than a couple of missed rivets or other detail!! To be honest, and based on my memories and reference photos, a weathered versionp of these would show virtually no painted surfaces anyway, being covered in a thorough layer of filth, in accordance with most (not ex works) NPCCS! Somehow these seemed even dirtier than, for instance GUVs.

I thought they were meant to be pristine as opposed to weathered. Let’s hope it’s a quirk of the photos anyway, as that blue looks an unusual shade.

The level of detail in these models is outstanding. However, is it me, or a quirk of the colour of these photos, but that rail blue looks a little weird to me (for instance it’s not the same as the recently posted pics of rail blue locos in the Accurascale class 37 thread). It looks closer in these pics to that achieved on the TMC Heljan Peak, D15, about which a number of comments have been made. I have an M34 (W2768W) on order and am hopeful, when received shortly, the rail blue might match to a reasonable extent my BGs and CCTs!! I just checked the order - made and paid December 2021 😄

The first time I heard them called Bug Units amongst other things was in the very early sixties. I was told (by older boys who were allowed to go to places like Tyseley or Saltley sheds and were real steam buffs) it was because of their rather odd green colour resembling bugs (particularly the Tyseley ones, which were originally in a light green colour without lining - I think it’s referred to as ‘almost malachite’ in the class 116 history thread in Prototype questions) - the ones used from New Street were a much more stately looking dark green with lining (and particularly the Met Camm ones with a set of lining mid window height which curved up from below windscreen level at the front and with snazzy looking aluminium window pans) as would befit residents of the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield, through which they travelled. The poor (but equally wealthy) residents of Solihull, Knowle and Dorridge had to put up with the WR spec almost malachite, suburban, gangway-less and toilet-less one day to be class 116, bug units. Needless to say these older boys always recommended against paying any attention to such mundane and hated things - however I found them very interesting and particularly the single car units - I found an old combined volume recently and as well as admitting to actually collecting the numbers I appear to have cabbed several single cars and parcels units, such was their reverence in my eyes. I suspect the disdain shown by some in terms of names for them (bug unit morphed into bog cart - although the WR sets (other than Cross Country) were bereft of them) lay in their replacing a lot of steam locos used on local services and lots of reasonably ancient coaching stock - and anything that did that was anathema to many. I must admit I loved the then new stuff as well as steam!!! And despite Tyseley having a massive allocation of diesel units, it was still possible in 1965/6 to see large Prarie tanks hauling occasional (probably peak period) local trains on the lines from Snow Hill - the WR was quite an esoteric region really, and in sharp contrast in Birmingham to the adjacent LM lines - blimey even their Brush Type 4s had funny lamp brackets 😀🤔

Ah yes you’re correct - I overlooked the Bakerloo line. London Bridge is also available via Jubilee Line - not sure whether it’s quicker to walk to the tube or Waterloo East from the main line station.

Re Thameslink, on regular journeys to/from Bedford, I only caught Thameslink once before realising that it would be overtaken by three or more faster EMR trains before London. In fact it was quicker to catch the EMR and then change to Thameslink at St Pancras International - you would normally get one which was a couple in front of the one you would have caught at Bedford. Prior to the 360s, the train would be significantly more comfortable with trolley service. On one interesting journey north on Thameslink (on a 387), we were overtaken by a tank train hauled by a class 70 at one of the stops - we overtook it between stops only to be overtaken at the next stop - and this cat and mouse duel occurred all the way to Bedford!! On the Great Northern, it was never quicker to catch a fast LNER etc to Peterborough and return one stop to Huntingdon, rather than catching Thameslink in the first place - I’m guessing these outer locations are on a par with the outer GW suburban locations prior to Reading. Regarding inter London termini connections, Waterloo to Victoria requires Underground change at Westminster - the alternative is the 507 Red Arrow bus to Victoria which is quite convenient, particularly off peak. Waterloo seems to require at least two tubes to get to other termini (except London Bridge). Stratford to London Bridge via Jubilee Line is quite quick at around 20 mins although this rules out the fastest Liverpool St to Norwich trains, many of which don’t stop at Stratford. Great link if you’re going to places like Chelmsford though, and of course the Thameslink service at London Bridge is excellent.

The impact of the early 80s national economic Policies (moving away from manufacturing (resulting in massive manufacturing closures) and into a service economy) and in particular the effect on the coal industry, the S Yorkshire, Notts and Derbyshire being affected significantly and also the miner’s strike - which started in the first place because it was feared the Government planned to close the home produced industry and move to cheaper imports.

I didn’t realise that, thanks for correcting. However I guess dropping the local passenger service (Beeching) facilitated the opportunity for closure of the Matlock to Great Rocks section. The Midland Pullman and presumably some other through passenger services ceased as a result of the WCML scheme, which as already mentioned, permitted a range of rationalisation of duplicated services, and from the WCML scheme a huge cascade of stock and motive power (DMUs and diesel locos). The other thing is no doubt the freight originating in the Great Rocks area could be operated far more effectively and no doubt with increased capacity resulting from the lack of through and local traffic with which it would have to be mixed and operated. I would think the closure of that section of route would yield significant maintenance cost given the civil engineering features through the Peak District, along with ongoing S and T savings and routine track and formation maintenance. The distinction between revenue and capital expenditure is often overlooked but generally the former is expenditure to keep existing assets functioning and fit for purpose (including staff costs, including management) and is funded from grants and income, whereas the latter is for expenditure on completely new equipment or facilities and is funded from borrowing. Occasionally the Government might intervene with one off funds, usually to pick up a backlog when it’s got to a catastrophic level (eg pot holes; Rail after the Railtrack debacle). Closure of significant lengths of rail route can yield large savings.