BrushVeteran

D5578 was outshopped by Brush Traction in plain Electric Blue livery (the actual paint supplied by Foochow was French Blue). At some stage it received a white roof which gradually got darker and darker as the loco weathered,

Check that your decoder pins are not touching the chassis block when pushed in. I had this problem and now always use a piece of insulating tape on the chassis when the pins push through.

Excellent! Our old now departed cat 'Badger' was a dab hand at derailing trains on my son's and my layout. She seemed to recognise the Birds Eye frozen fish train working where she would implement an immediate occupation stopping everything. I don't allow the cats up in the loft now as derailments can be expensive!

That's OK as long as the cat is doing what it wants to do.....................its all about the cats, you're their entertainment!

Interesting, the two venues in London are connected to a similar business in Sweden! I have been to Taiwan some twenty odd years ago and can't remember seeing anything like that then but good to know they care about their felines! Curiously with the Chinese there was never the year of the Cat on their animal calendar Zodiac!

I got a birthday treat yesterday and got taken to Westfield, Shepherds Bush, London where the is a cat cafe called Java Whiskers. They also have another branch in Marylebone which my wife and I visited in February. This visit yesterday was an hours session observing the kittens which just roam freely doing what they do whilst you can sit and relax with a coffee and scone or similar. You can stroke the cats if you/they wish but you are not allowed to pick them up or feed them. All of the cats and kittens on view are available for adoption and are rescue/feral which are being domesticated by the interaction with human presence and I think that it is a wonderful concept in gaining the respect and acceptance of a feline. I would thoroughly recommend a visit by anyone who likes cats as it is unique in its approach and basically is a sound step in the introduction to cat adoption. Whist not particularly cheap it is London and the two premises I have been to must be expensive to rent as they are both main stream areas, but I have never seen this concept before and I think it very clever.

You are correct Chas, I recon about 1954 because we moved to Oxford in 1955. The location is Rosemont Road London NW3 and it was in the back yard of our maisonette in No.1 Rosemont House. The view is just by Finchley Road Midland signal box looking over towards Finchley Road Bakerloo/Met and GC lines and the train has emerged from Haverstock Hill tunnels heading north on the St.Pancras ex. Midland lines. The picture of 'Peak' 70 is more or less the same location bur the train is heading south. Yes I realise now after all these years that they are probably quite evocative pictures but at least I am able to offer an excuse as to why I got into Railways............blame the parents! Thanks for your interest.......................I rescued these photo's from being thrown away before my mother became a victim of dementia!............I'm so glad I saved them, here are another couple including one of our champion mouser 'Charlie' who always followed me around at the time. Sorry Tony for going off topic on your thread.........but you do like cats!

"I'm of the firm opinion now that it's not a good idea to go back to one's old railway haunts. " Tony, I wholeheartedly agree. Being 'raised' in West Hampstead, north-west London we had three railway stations consisting of traffic from Marylebone, St.Pancras, LT Bakerloo/Met and North London line freights intermingled with the Broad St- Richmond locals. I also had four sets of relatives to visit when I used to return during the sixties and seventies where the railway scene was still interesting with my passion for early diesels being adequately fulfilled on film making it all worthwhile. I still used to visit London regularly right up until the mid nineties as I would often get asked. or rather 'pressganged' into covering a duty on our Oxford-London express coach service.......................which quite honestly I don't think I could manage these days! Not long before my father passed away in 2005 he would often ask if I had been back up to his 'manor' to take any photos and it is something I have tried to do every couple of years or so, but I found the last couple of visits quite depressing, stressful with me wanting to return home after a couple of hours. There is nothing left to see that bears any relationship to what used to interest me now and with no 'family' there plus the pace of life, the fact that no body speaks, or even understands you make me feel like I'm in a 'foreign' City. My visits are now almost at an end, even though I get free travel, because it feels like a chore and I then find the journey home tiring and monotonous and the only good thing achieved being a few pints in some of London's notorious ale houses! It is hard to imagine the 'magnetic' attraction of the London Termini had in the past when you could spend all day getting covered in diesel fumes, go without food in case you missed something..........and could chat like minded folk and be surprised at what tuned up. These days you know what is turning up! Oh dear, time to go down to my local for a pint I think! Thank God I took lots of pictures all those years ago!

What ever next!.............................we'll have a version with flames coming out of the exhausts before we know it! (EE engine of course, never saw a Mirrlees create that spectacle).

7012 and 7027 were withdrawn in Blue LYE Nidge.

Plus a few more including the scabbiest blue syp one, D7052 which had almost worn down to its original livery when I photographed it!

My contribution to this thread. As Hymeks were local to me I too was very sad when they were mostly switched off. At least I managed to capture most of them on film!

On page 5 of this thread I put my image up of a Hymek D7095 passing through Oxford hauling some empty Palbrick's back to Calvert. I can't remember how many were in the train as I was really photographing the loco but the image shows their is at least five in the consist. The date was 1967 so they may just fall in to your date period.

I attach some captioned images showing the three boiler flue outlet roof panels and variations, hope this helps. Please excuse the quality as some of these have been dramatically enhanced! Click on each picture to see the description.

I watched it and have come to the conclusion that the 'spirit' of the railways has been lost as echoed by some of the staff on the film. It happened in the bus industry to some extent and it is sad now that many don't enjoy the job anymore whereas back in the good old days people went to work to enjoy the company of comrades with the usual banter. I certainly miss that since I retired and realise what a wonderful institution the transport industry was! Yes a very good film and well put together,

Nine plus a brake van

My delivery of nine has just arrived this morning, have checked them all and are all OK. A superb little wagon and I couldn't build anything like that for the price and finish. Well done KRM! If another batch is produced I will certainly order some more.

Yes Oxford Bus have full height double decker's which have been transferred in from both Go-Ahead London and Go-North East. No doubt Stagecoach have buses transferred in at times as this seems to be normal within the big groups. I am retired from Oxford Bus and as long as I can remember there have always been a presence of highbridge vehicles in the fleet and always identified by a 9XX fleet number. We still had a few that wondered 'off course' over those years and fortunately with no passengers on board. These days there are additional warning devices fitted including Bridgesafe which in conjunction with GPS gives the driver and audible warning in the cab if approaching a low bridge and on newer vehicles applies the brakes. As the bridge has to be renewed anyway to cater for both Stage 1 & 2 of the stations rebuilding which include the provision of trackwork around the existing platforms on both east and west sides the the road has to be lowered. The existing bridge has about 2 inches clearance for the present 13ft 10inch (4.2m) fleet but it is not only buses that it is being raised for, quite a few HGV's have come into contact with it over the years and I assume the opportunity is now being taken to eliminate as far as possible the risk of future bridge strikes. Lowering the road in this area is also a bit of a gamble as the water table here is very high and new underground pumps and drainage is having to be installed. It is a very major project.

The current maximum height height of double deck buses able to pass under Oxford Station bridge is 13ft 10ins (4.25m), despite what the warning signs say. The last new bridge was installed in 1979 and the height adjustment allowed 13ft 8in (4.2m) NBC standard instead of ultra low-height 13ft 3in (4.03m) buses which City of Oxford had been specifying as new build since 1960, prior to that low bridge buses had a side gangway upstairs with the seating arranged in groups of four on the raised area with a reduced headroom. The warning signs were never altered. When the new bridge is installed later this year or early next, the height will be raised to allow 14ft 6in (4.46m) maximum height double decker's, of which there are a few around Oxford and the local operators.

Probably something to do with HS2! They seem to be getting on very well with the tracklaying etc and apart from signalling there doesn't seem anything else that has arisen apart from the HS2 intersection that is causing delays.

Well if the bridge has to be replaced then it will be the difference in cost between building a two track of a four track structure at todays costs. There is going to have to be major piling work on the south side of the Thames at this point so why not cater for the future which is really essential work on an existing river crossing. I would add that they are also widening Botley Road bridge to cope for future station expansion in phase 2 of the rebuilding of the station so they just have to delay something else for a period if they are stuck for cash at the present. HS2 and Cambridge spring to mind but the excuses will be that they are being funded as different projects so are budgeted accordingly. Existing maintenance has to be carried out with an eye on future requirements surely but thank god the route from Oxford to Bicester and Marylebone is an option otherwise the next few weeks are going to reduce Oxford to an almighty traffic jam..................something that it is starting to achieve already on a regular basis!

The fact that this has come at a time when major work is happening starting next Tuesday with the rebuilding of Oxford station may be a blessing in disguise for some as the total period of disruption can be integrated together. There had already been talk of a long term plan to quadruple the tracks between Oxford and Didcot and Nuneham Viaduct was mentioned to be one of the stumbling blocks of this plan. If now the bridge has to be rebuilt then I would hope that due consideration is given to future plans that may affect this area. I know it is all very well for me to 'think out of the box' but the disruption that any work taking place on the railway these days never seems to go smoothly and the current closure of Botley Road from next week will throw up all sorts of issues as rail replacement vehicles have to negotiate with everyone else the same restricted routes out of the City. It would be good to see some joined up thinking and even plan ahead and authorise the electrification from Didcot to Bletchley. That would be a good move indeed!

There are two running plates in the tooling suite Graeme as this also incorporates the buffer beam which as you know are different for the high and low versions. I haven't actually seen the two differing versions myself yet so I cannot really comment any further. All I know is that when the first versions were produced there was a sample built with a low running plate to ensure all the other parts would fit etc. I'm sure I have a photo somewhere so I'll try a dig it out but we are looking at a difference of 1mm I believe. I know the parts list specifies #17 for the high running plate and #153 for the new low version. Hope this helps

I decided to go at the last minute and caught the coach from Oxford in order to save some cash (I get free travel on Stagecoach & Oxford Bus) and was able to spend a bit more on trade stands. I used the W3 bus service from Finsbury Park after using the underground from Oxford Circus having walked from Marble Arch. My total journey time from my home to Alexander Palace was just three hours all by public transport which I was very impressed by. I was also impressed by the to total organisation with the show and had pleasant conversations with Fran at Accurascale, Mike at KR Models, Charlie at Street Level Models, Robin at Transport Treasury, Trevor Morgan at Cheltenham Models and Dave Allen at Book Law. After a further quick look around I decided to adjourn for some real ale at one of my favourite hostelries near Gospel Oak and then head home via the 'Overground' to Shepherds Bush and caught a returning coach to Oxford, back indoors by 17.45. I purchased a couple of excellent books from Book Law and had a much better day travelling than I expected despite the home match at Arsenal. Well done to all the organisers of the show and it was good to go back after a 5 year hiatus due to Covid etc. I had a very pleasant day out, Ally Pally is one of my favourite shows but it is near my roots!