Tim H

The Violet Hour - The Fire Sermon

Got to be one of the original St Blazey 37/6 allocation . If I had to choose just one, it would be 37674 in red stripe livery and snowploughs.

Haze - The Last Battle

(Photo from the Cambridge Rock Festival. None more prog)

Jump - The Beachcomber

Space Elevator - s/t

One of the bands I saw at this year's Cambridge Rock Festival

The Violet Hour - The Fire Sermon

The Pineapple Thief - Your Wilderness

Working through the haul of merch stand purchases from the Cambridge Rock Festival

Doris Brendel - Upside-Down World

Haze - The Last Battle (who else would include a Northern Rail Pacer in a promo video?)

Rebecca Downes, Real Life

Blue Öyster Cult - s/t

Blue Öyster Cult - Tyranny and Mutation

Blue Öyster Cult, Secret Treaties.

In memory of manager, producer and lyricist Sandy Pearlman, who died yesterday.

Don't have photos to prove it, but I can remember Motorail-branded Carflats on the evening Eastleigh-Willesden Speedlink, loaded with Transits. Would probably have been just after the WCML trains had gone over to GUVs?

"Diesels on the Western" by Michael Welch, page 89.  Photo of a maroon Western on a Tavistock Junction to Severn Tunnel Junction freight, composed almost entirely of empty Carflats, with a tube wagon and a Vanfit at the end.

Not strictly the NGsoc model, since they're pre-nationalisation rather than Mk1 underframes. But any idea what the traffic flow might have been?   

Unfortunately the blue/grey FK isn't listed in the current catalogue. It looks as though Farish only did the one batch, while the SK is on its sixth (up to E suffix on the catalogue number), and the TSO is on "C".  May have to search eBay....

Price is pretty good by current standards, albeit that they are able to use quite a lot of existing components.

 

Out of the main holiday season, I think that some of the Motorail trains would have been quite short formations. Maybe someone on here has details and/or photos.

Can't remember where now, but I've seen a WR formation where the coaching stock part was BCK+FK+RU+FK+FK, all coaches in the Farish range. With an equivalent number of Carflats you're still looking at a 10+ car train, though. "Short" is relative here...

Bit of a signature train for 70s Cornwall too.

Opeth - Watershed

One of my desert ilsland disks, I think.

(Warning, the lyrics contain swears)

Haze. That's a name I haven't heard for long time, 

Ghost Community - Cycle of Life

Supergroup led by Matt Cohen, formerly of The Reasoning, and definite echoes of their sound.

Solstice - Prophecy

Tilt - Hinterland

Frost* - Milliontown

Iamthemorning, Lighthouse.

One of those records that's impossible to pigeonhole. A Russian duo comprising a singer and a classical pianist, accompanied by a chamber orchestra and a rock rhythm section, and goes from rock to classical to jazz. Vocals sound a lot like Kate Bush.

Before that, Panic Room before a small but appreciative crowd at Talking Heads in Southampton. Who's going to see them at Islington Assembly this coming Saturday?

Josh & Co, Transylvania Part One, The Count Commands It.

This is an entertainingly silly record about vampires.

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Iamthemorning - Lighthouse

Big Big Train - Folklore

Three of this year's best albums.

Vektor - Terminal Redux. Face-melting metal.

Judas Priest - Nostradamus.  I love this album; completely over the top combination of metal and musical theatre that shouldn't work but somehow does. 

Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Any More, Vol 2 (The Helsinki Concert). Excellent 1974 live album with a jazz-fusion band that included George Duke, Ruth Underwood and Chester Thompson.

Mantra Vega - The Illusion's Reckoning. Fantastic to hear The Heather Findlay Band play the whole album live;last week.

Opeth - Pale Communion. An interesting change of direction when it first came out, but a couple of years on I find myself preferring the older, heavier albums.

Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud. One of the best metal albums to come out last year. What is it about Finland? Is there something in the water?

Jodie Marie - Trouble in Mind.  Blues singer-songwriter who got Boaty McBoatfaced by The Guardian by disqualifying the album from their Reader's Poll on a spurious-looking techncality. The actual album is very good.