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The ones I seek have a red circle on a white background with a yellow crossbar, London Buses written through the crossbar in red. They were known as "1987" or "LBL" and were applied from 1987 until each lump was sold off in about 1995.

Help! I've looked in the usual places such as London Bus Replica Transfers (LRBT) and Model Master Jackson Evans (despite their search facility not being entirely unfit for purpose) and I cannot find anyone that does the London Buses Roundel for 1987 LBL style as per this style... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/London-Buses-Vinyl-Logo-Roundel-Bus-Stop-Sign/324047461147 I've found (in both places above) the area names but these are useless without the roundel, and the latter is not something I can easily print at home as its white with round edges. Suggestions please!!

Help! I've looked in the usual places such as London Bus Replica Transfers (LRBT) and Model Master Jackson Evans (despite their search facility not being entirely unfit for purpose) and I cannot find anyone that does the London Buses Roundel for 1987 LBL style as per this style... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/London-Buses-Vinyl-Logo-Roundel-Bus-Stop-Sign/324047461147 I've found (in both places above) the area names but these are useless without the roundel, and the latter is not something I can easily print at home as its white with round edges. Suggestions please!!

If in LNER livery I'd assume they are scale length Hornby so are opened as above EXCEPT the TGS/Coach B which will be Limby. To open that one is more complex; 1) take the ends off, they should just unclip if you put a flat screwdriver behind them from underneath 2) Carefully insert a blunt craft knife along the top of the coach from one end, this goes just above the cantrail stripe 3) Use the blade to prise the bodyside away from the combined roof/glazing unit and insert a little bit of cardboard to stop the glazing going back into the bodyshell 4) Work your way along with the blunt blade or small flat screwdriver opening up the bodyside away from the glazing and insert another bit of card every 3 or 4 cm until you reach the other end. You should then have about 6-8 bits of card roughly evenly spaced between the glazing and the bodyshell 5) Repeat on the other side 6) Push the whole roof/glazing section up away from the bodyshell with a thumb on either end where the little bit of glazing covers the gangway end windows, it should slide up if you've used enough little bits of cardboard to prevent any of the glazing from "engaging" with the bodyshell. Good luck! This was OK and a two minute job once you got the knack on a proper Lima one and then Hornby made it hard with their flusher glazing so it's a bit of a task now.

Hornby scale length (but not necessarily newer super details); gently insert a small flat screwdriver or blunted craft knife between the chassis and body from underneath, there are clips which hold the chassis/seating unit onto lugs located in the glazing but below the visible window line. Once you've got it started the others should follow, you may split one or more of the bits on the bottom of the glazing during this process but it doesn't matter if you do as they are not visible and the chassis stays in place perfectly well without all clips intact. If it's a "Limby" (eg HST TGS, Sleeper or any of the buffet cars with FOUR large saloon windows down each side) then it's the old Lima method but with a bit more determination, I can talk you through that but it needs some bravery on Limby stuff as the glazing is more flush than original Lima versions.

If its in reverse formation how does a bike get on/off?!

No, I think after May '94 there would never have been a 47 west of Newport on a scheduled passenger service. Making the Cross-Country an "out and back" HST would have made it impossible for that to be a Class 47 vice and still gone through to Swansea, and all the GW services were certainly solidly HST by then. Go back to "We buy any Brush dot com" and trade the 47 in for a 60!

The workings stayed pretty much the same after the switch from loco-hauled in 1994 until May '98 so initially it stayed as a "marginal" working which resulted in an XC set finishing/starting at Swansea on weekdays; 1V60 1338 Newcastle-Swansea spent the night there and came back the next day on 1E30 0715 Swansea-York and indeed both trains ran via Bristol Temple Meads under the HST era. After May '98 the working changed to become and "out and back" 1V46 0743 York-Swansea > 1E39 1527 Swansea-Newcastle and remained like that bar small timing tweaks until September 2002 when it went over, briefly, to Voyager operation before being cut back to Cardiff . On Saturdays a set ran ECS from Bristol to Swansea in the morning to form 1E30 0725 Swansea-Newcastle and a different set worked 1V60 Newcastle-Swansea and spent the night there before doing a 1000-ish Sunday northbound (latterly 1S42 1000 Swansea-Edinburgh) with a balancing Sundays Newcastle to Swansea (latterly 1V72 0832 Edinburgh-Swansea) running empty back to Bristol afterwards.

I did that with a previous pot, it just formed a crusty layer on top and the stuff underneath was thinner than ever. I ended up having to go for three coats, not something i normally expect to do when brushing- won't get Railmatch again.

My Limby Virgin TRSB is ready to enter traffic now! The roof is from a Lima standard coach which has been modified with the vent at the buffet end removed and the correct roof 'pods' placed in position making the biggest visual departure from the Limby RFM with whatever is going on with the roof on that! Bodyside, filled the windows on the kitchen side and remade the smaller white window and used a cut down bit of the recovered glazing. Cheat alert- I wasn't going to cut out and remake the long thin non-windows as they have not been windows since dinosaurs roamed the earth so I drew them on with the silver pen used for the window surrounds. Was considering a part-paint but ended up using Phoenix to redo all the red on the kitchen side and then replaced the white stripes using Fox, which incidentally have gone off in the 20 years since they were made and break up more than you'd like over that length. If you look closely you will see where the grey doesn't exactly 100% perfectly match, its only apparent with very good light (ie a photo flash!) and I'm going to live with that- needed to obscure the "1" and yellow first class stripe and where wrong CDL was put on the buffet end of the coach. Renewed the seating area with 2+2 standard class seat layout (hard to see through Limby heavy tint) but its in there and grey/green seat colours. Cantrail stripe replaced with orange transfer as Hornby used pretty much the same red as the body which looked wrong. Step boards, bogie springs (come on Hornby, these were NEVER red!) and other fettling before gloss spray over upto the first ridge of the roofline to match the rest of my rake. Now to find a cheap RFM as source for the INTERCITY rake, this is far superior to the Hurst etch overlay effort I knocked together 20 years ago.

The East Coast sets went through a coach re-lettering under GNER which standardised across both IC125 and IC225 fleets for seat reservation purposes meaning the coach with the disabled toilet and the buffet coach was the same letter across both fleets, I presume the TGS became coach B during that change.

It depends what year you are modelling The traditional formation for a Padd-West of England set from 1985 onwards would have been; TGS, TS, TS, TS, TS, TRFB, TF, TF and they were lettered A-H in that order until at least 2009. The TS next to the buffet was converted to a TSD around 2000/2001 and remained in the coach E position, then around 2008 it was relocated swapping places with coach E, so after that the formations went TGS, TS, TSD, TS, TS, TRFB, TF, TF. I don't know when the first class coaches started getting higher letters or why! In around 2014/15 one of the TF coaches was converted to a TS changing the formation to TGS, TS, TSD, TS, TS, TS, TRFB, TF. The creation of some TFD coaches was also a late development.

Anybody any ideas on how to thicken enamel paint? I have a newly purchased Railmatch jar and its like water, even after very thorough stirring. It was thin enough to run through the airbrush without ANY thinners added and is far too thin for brushing use. Help!

Penzance was never (intentionally!!) reached by NSE and although some Waterloo to Exeters actually ran to/from Plymouth this was purely to save the 52 mile ECS move from the less than perfectly located Laira depot. HSTs were prime IC assets under sectorisation and would never have gone to anyone else back then, bear in mind many routes were still dominated by Mk2 stock in 1988, Liv St-Norwich, more than half the WCML fleet, well over half the Cross Country fleet was comprised of Mk2.

You've answered your own question there- if the 800 left Bath on diesel there is a reason it left on diesel and they will always leave on diesel, at least for the foreseeable future as the wires end around Thingley, in adjoining Wiltshire...

I think heavy exam dates are the key behind XC's desire for two more power cars, as all the power cars went through Brush for the repower in a limited timeframe they have all become due heavy exams at about the same time, even given their very low mileage they cannot spread that out much better. Add into the mix the fact that nobody turns an E, F or G exam on a power car around in a sensible timeframe anymore everyone suddenly needs bigger fleets- GWR have taken four more vs original plan for example, a huge cost to run zero extra trains. It was only the looming PRM compliance that drove the sliding door conversions on the HST trailers, if they had crystal balls and the ability to gain derogations the better plan would have been to have held out until the WCML Class 221's were released but then rumour has it that they are spoken for anyway. They needn't wait for refranchising for fleet renewal, DfT imposed IEPs on GWR and what we now know as LNER despite them not having control over their own destinies at the time- it's just that DfT don't care about the problems that the lack of capacity causes across much of XC. Agree, infrastructure work is needed- I don't believe that the Edinburgh extensions on the TPE runs are down to lack of space at Newcastle Central; Heaton is a lot closer than Edinburgh and spinning them around the bridges during the turn arounds is even closer, also TPE has "form" for running silly extra trains and trying to squeeze more and more through already crowded areas, the Castlefield saga is a case in point. I must take issue with the 170's, I agree they are slightly less rubbish than the Voyager family for axle loadings but apart from that I'm not seeing any advantage to them, the door layout is only suitable for local stopping trains, the seat pitch must be the worst anywhere in the industry, the acceleration is only at Sprinter levels, the reliability isn't much to write home about. Sooner they get displaced the better in all honestly...

Hence why I said "take on and convert additional trailers", I presume you refer to the logic box for the passenger information system that requires a TGS to be in the rake as the physical disabled facilities are elsewhere in the train- the TCC is another extra vehicle you'd certainly need to create a sixth rake. The power cars do need more attention than the trailers but I don't think the anticipation was ever to regularly swap rakes over mid-diagram so unless there happens to be a failure at a convenient moment (ie well before the set reaches Plymouth and whilst a spare set is formed up, prepped and ready to roll) I think those 5E63/5V50 ECS paths will remain unused- they are pretty pointless anyway as short notice moves were easier just arranged with Plymouth panel anyway! They have managed not noticeably more badly with 100% trailer rake utilisation since the start of the sliding door conversion program, so have been living with 10 power cars for 4 trailer rakes for the last three years now anyway. We are many years overdue refranchising, the existing short-sighted sticking plaster arrangement was due to expire four years ago this month. The lack of action exposes the fact that politically nobody gives a toss about the regions, as XC doesn't go into London the DfT have been happy to let things get worse and worse with no meaningful capacity enhancements in a decade and none on the horizon- in all that time total standard class passenger accommodation has increased by one single extra Voyager coach (and that was a shorter driving car at that!) and total planned future increase amounts to a handful of extra centre coaches for the 170's which won't make them all three car and, as discussed above, will actually reduce capacity on some of the busiest trains. If refranchising is to be that long down the road then something radical needs to be done to cover over the cracks in the meantime, be that 222's from EMR, more HSTs, a new build of IEPs- something really must be done!

I don't think it uses capacity on the approaches per se as the signalling isn't significantly slower if going into a part loaded platform. And I wasn't suggesting that the Exeter/Bristol to Manchester or Reading to Newcastle should be more than 5 cars, I was saying that the Edinburgh-Plymouth and Manchester-Bournemouth routes ought to be 8 or 9 car bi-mode trains to free up the 5 car Voyagers to work the shorter runs.

So on that basis they may as well reduce all the units to 2 cars and off lease the HSTs to save money!

But how often do they do that? I'd say its extremely rare, the southbound Manchester to Bournemouth generally dwells for 6 mins in platform 2 and the chances of anything coming from Monument Lane and wanting to reverse to go back towards Wolvs in that time is non existent. The Bournemouth to Manchester gets 8 mins but again, because hardly anything reverses in New Street these days the "A" end platform behind it is little use, possibly a Rugeley if the timetable change lands one there about the right time. Over on the other side they dare not plan permissive use of 11 for southbound or 9 for northbound Edinburgh-Plymouth and vv as some are HST and others are double Voyagers. To tell XC passengers they must endure another generation of horrific overcrowding just because you may wish to retain some permissive flexibility at BHM for 6/8 mins an hour is a bitter pill to swallow! I'd say the bigger issue is at Manchester Piccadilly anyway...

and there are probably plenty of times when a 3 car would struggle and a 4th car avoids pax having to stand for a long journey. When those convert from 4 to 3 car they may have forgotten about the promise of "more carriages" which XC have made...

why do they go to the effort of putting 4 cars on the Stansted route on a Sunday now then?

The trains that reverse/could reverse at BHM are the ones that occupy a part platform and those don't get anywhere near as busy as the ones I listed (MAN-BMH, EDB-PLY) which have to take full platforms at Birmingham as they are passing through from one end to the other ergo cannot share. There really ought to be enough space for an XC to take a full platform at Reading, the station went through a pretty major capacity uplift and using a higher numbered platform saves a conflicting move anyway.

Three sets of 4 isn't enough to support the Sunday Birmingham-Stansted so some will have to be 3 car instead of the current 4, it's only possible to strengthen that line on Sundays as there is only an hourly Nottingham-Birmingham-Cardiff reducing the number of units needed for that bit. The XC HSTs cannot be re-diagrammed as they are tied to certain trains which have higher seat capacity demands dictated by the DfT, and they arrive in Birmingham from Yorkshire/Derbyshire in the morning and depart Birmingham headed back that way in the afternoon. They have yet to swap a set or vehicle mid diagram at Plymouth, last week when 43303 failed the back working was a 4 car Voyager so XC would have picked up a fine for the short form northbound working.

The bay platform which XC use and are compelled to use because diesels trigger fire alarms under the main roof at Stansted are only supposed to take three, putting stuff into other platforms is possible but only after a re-write of the train plan as they dwell too long to go in permissive onto one of the main platforms which can take a huge number, more than 12. That was the point though- trains currently formed of 4 cars cannot be formed of 4 cars if everything is a three car; if you are expecting 4 car workings to become six cars you are in for a disappointment. It's all theoretical anyway as the replacements to release the 170's from WMR are not exactly what you would call ready to roll- with two months to go! HST utilisation was always a political hot potato anyway, the way they procure and pay for maintenance on them incentivised XC to leave as many idle as possible hence some ropey levels of midweek deployment over the years. The idea was to create a sixth set by converting a small number of additional vehicles and taking one coach out of each existing set allowing five per day deployment, they cannot plan for more than four per day at the moment as that would take power car and set allocation to 100%. The answer of course is something longer term which may come at refranchising, by then hopefully someone will bid based on the core XC routes being the second worst long distance for capacity in the country, possibly the western world (TPE scores worse but actions are in hand!) - even a six car bi-mode replacing everything on the Edinburgh-Plymouth and Manchester-Bournemouth runs would scarcely deal with latent demand- hopefully someone thinks big and goes straight to eight or nine car for those and by cascade kills off the 170's that way.