dave75

Fabulous modeling, capturing the scene brilliantly. I'm pretty sure 76034 had a visit to Crewe works for the MU gear fitting but it didn't get the job finished in one visit and it ran for sometime with the bend in the handrails but no MU jumpers , so maybe that's what happened to your 76016 ;-)

Here you go. Has another plank with a run round loop. The permanent way team need to realign in places but it's a start.

Is it 78 rpm ?

I've had a go , I wanted to test DCC in the garden. I use this product Metsa Gravel Board Green Wood Fence Board 2.4m (22 x 150 x 2400mm. They cost about £12 each. I've built two sections as run round loops, cut one of the boards at 45 degrees to give me curves. My construction skills are not great so I use fishplates on the joints to keep the track in line and my idea was each section could be fastened to each other but it's not turned out like that. I will put some photos up next time it comes out of the garage. I choose the boards as they do have some protection against moisture so could be left outside for longer periods, they are rather splintery. I'm working on what connectors I will use to feed power from one end to the other. I've built a DCC setup to control it from an Arduino and a laptop computer.

I found these the other day and really rate them as a brew, you don't need a biscuit if the tea already tastes of it.

Where did you read that? There's a lot of photos in the various Woodhead books.

No, they were not connected. The MSJA was on what we would today call platforms 13&14 . Woodhead was platforms 1-4 . I suspect the only time stock for one worked on the other system was when the prototype Woodhead loco 6701 ran some trials on the MSJA in 1941 and again in 1946.

Sorry , should have said Vacuum only loco on the front.

Thank you very much. So the information says air braked and through vacuum piped, does that mean there's a brake van on the back off the train and it's essentially unfitted? Any OO kits of this wagon?

Does any one recognise this wagon type, look like a PCA but the location and haulage pre date it. Grateful for any help on id.

There's a great picture by Arnie Furniss on Flickr of 76003 arriving at Godley with a rake of Cartic-4 wagons , colour photo but it's not clear. Vacuum braked loco with air braked wagons so a brake van on the end too. Cartic-4 also were common on the Harwich -Trafford park speedlink that was the last train over Woodhead My question is which version and livery of the Cartic-4 is correct for these services? I would like to place an order with Revolution. Thanks.

If you look at pictures of Darlington station , its very like Knapford, it has a siding like your picture shows, as well as a turntable. In some of the old black and white photographs it looks like Gordon, Spencer and Daisy are at Darlington, but I've never seen Thomas!

Given the Scottish locos received attention at Cowlairs, did the ones based in the North West receive attention at Gorton?

The British transport police history group has a nice description of the Southampton operation, look for The Bullion Run on their website

There was a similar working over Woodhead in the 1960s , my dad was a signalman and stopped it with a suspected hot axlebox, control had been informed and he put it in the up loop. Before it arrived the box had an inspector and armed policeman, with more around the line and on the footbridge. I suspect this was became standard practice after the events on the WCML The contents of the train we're heading for Sheffield smelting company , now known as thessco.

Does anyone else on here have their time on this planet stolen by Train Station 2? I was wondering if anyone would want to join an RMWeb union on there?

You've almost answered a question I have , how did they get to Gorton for overhaul? Did they haul a train to Woodford and then take a Leicester or Nottingham job from there? I'm also guessing once they got as far a Darnall they would join a group of locos heading for Gorton , one of the Woodhead books has a mention of the the working , Tuesdays from Darnall , Thursdays from Mexboro.

Did a Hymek ever make it as far a Leicester with a train from the WR?

It did start to happen Darnall 37s on the cross country trains,including Swindon-York mail,and York-Poole/Bournemouth with 47s in the last months. Class 24s stood in for failed steam engines on the southern section in the final years. Some great images of these workings in robothams On Great Central Lines.

I have no knowledge of your control system but one thing strikes me might be worth considering. On my Arduino dcc setup I have two outputs ie two pairs of wires , the first pair go to the program track is only used for programing is a seperate track isolated from the rest. Once it's been programmed, I put it on the track "Main" connected to the other output and check it responds to controls which inevitably it does.

68595 and 68598 based at Trafford Park shed in 1954 according to shedbash

Alas not a publication available to me, will wait for you guys to deliver the model with the back story

Oh my poor wallet, just spotted there were a couple of these "little cockney engines" :-) at Trafford park and Wrexham in the 1950s . It's such a great model that's all the excuse I need , hopefully batch 2 will have a northern engine. Would love to know how they ended up in the north west of anyone knows, had a quick look on the tinternet and not found much!

With the arrival of BR MK1 stock in the 1950s was Thompson stock cascaded down onto other parts of the former LNER system? Would it be found on cross country trains of the time or on the GC mainline?

Mark I think derby-manchester is outside my knowledge but I get the impression it was closed to consolidate London -Manchester on the WCML, and justify electrification. I disagree with your traffic analysis, IMO BR couldn't do without Woodhead until the steel strikes of 1979 removed 8 daily paths, it was still a very busy railway up to that point a lot of it after dark and away from the photographers eyes too, there's a good number of articles in the railway press at the time if you are interested. If you look at Woodheads traditional MGR traffic it continued for a long time after the closure, the Yorkshire stuff via Healey Mills, and the Nottinghamshire via the Derby -Crewe line, obviously the Yorkshire coalfield was contracting but Fiddlers Ferry didn't stop using UK coal for quite some time after 1981. The Eastern Region Sales team were still talking to Hepworths about using rail transportation for their pipe products from hazlehead bridge as late as 1985 and that's another reason the infrastructure was retained on that section for so long.