BrushVeteran

My son, who is a mechanic at our local bus company, was sent out to a breakdown this morning and took this photo which he captioned "A single to town please", ............makes me chuckle each time I look at it. Hopefully it brightens someone else's day as well!

D5825 was the first Brush Type 2 to be outshopped from Brush Traction with a yellow panel

Neil, both D5501 and D5515 received yellow warning panels whilst still sporting white window surrounds. D5517 also lost its white window surrounds at least a year before receiving the yellow warning panels. As far as I can tell only D5513 and D5514 received full yellow ends whilst in green livery, and of course D5518 but that was another story! Rail On-Line has a picture of D5515 on its site and Colour-Rail used to have a slide of D5501. I have quite a few shots of green with syp images on my Brush Veteran Flickr site which may be of use to Windjabbers.

I'm certain one of the earliest repaints into Blue & Grey was M322 and was marshalled in the 'Pines Express' cross country set. I think the white lining on this lacked the rounded corners but remember it was quite regular through Oxford.

My Sooty is out there lapping up the sun.....................................and trying to disguise herself as a brown cat!

The official colour from the Foochow colour chart (Brush Traction's paint supplier) was French Blue and is supposed to be a match for the blue used on the AC electrics. I still have the colour charts that Brush supplied me with many many years ago. The blue did darken up quite rapidly with hand cleaning with paraffin rags. As a matter of interest D5579' s golden ochre is described as Bronze Yellow in the same paint manufacturers catalogue.

Glad you noticed the better quality as I have spent a considerable amount of time rescanning some of my earlier images with a new scanner..................obviously worthwhile! The Midland allocated 27's were mainly used as freight engines in pairs and I expect they saw little of carriage washers which helped to keep some of the Cricklewood allocated examples quite smart.

......................and a few Palbrick's wouldn't go amiss either but hey one at a time, eh!

Over on the farm where we restore our buses we have an 'adopted' cat we call 'Sidney' and he follows us around everywhere. I do give him a few biscuits now ad again which I 'steal' from my own two at home but last week in the hot weather I unfortunately left my car windows open...................................

.....................and I would take another 30!

Historically any OBC bus numbered in the 9XX series was too high for Oxford Station bridge at 4.46m or in old money 14ft 6in. The current station bridge is approx. 14ft 2in and back in 1999 I was responsible for clearance testing the new Park & Ride Tridents 101-120 to ensure they wold go under safely as they were higher by two inches than the Olympians they were superseding. When the ex. London Titans were also replaced finally in 1999 this eliminated 'high-bridge' type buses from the OBC fleet, however due to operational requirements one or two more 9XX type did creep back in the fleet from sister Go-Ahead subsidiaries Go North East and Brighton which started the 9XX series back up to 922 on and off with the acquisition of Thames Travel and Carousel into the Oxford group. Carouse; vehicles don't normally operate into Oxford but Thames Travel does and the '9XX' numbers have crept up into the 940's. Whist the hiatus of 9XX buses was prevalent it was decided to number the service vehicle fleet of vans and staff minibuses into the upper 9XX series so as to enable the existing alpha/numeric service vehicle numbers to be absorbed into the new group engineering computer system at the time and this has recently included the PickMeUp minibuses 971-80. The latest Streetdecks were a part diverted order from within the GAG and 901-909 arrived from Newcastle in a part exchange deal with seven of the X90 Plaxton Interdecks 72-78 which had been cascaded from the withdrawn OBC London service. The need for extra capacity on the Abingdon/Dicot services caused by social distancing regulations gave OBC a problem to which an ideal solution was arrived at. An interesting point is that Wright's who built the Streetdecks, didn't have a low height option until 2012 and 351-369 were some of their earliest low height examples. I worked for COMS/OBC for 41 years up until I retired in 2015 and the Oxford Station bridge has always been a 'thorn in the side' when purchasing suitable new and second-hand buses at quickly to maintain service. We all thought the problem would be solved when the bridge was first raised in 1978 as up until that time we had to purchase ultra low Bristol VR's at 13ft 5in max height and ECW couldn't build a dual door one, only 13ft 8in being their normal height. I could say 'as a tribute to the bridge' I own ex. OBC Leyland Olympian 999 which was the highest number of the 9XX series. Anyway it is good news that the bridge will finally be raised yet again and I hope that I live long enough to see it!

I received my copy of the Clayton book over the weekend and all I can say is that there is far too much information in it to be able to quickly absorb the huge amount of effort that Tony has put into it. Like the two books previously published in similar vein on the NBL Type 2's and Metrovicks it proves that the 1955 Modernisation Plan had too many Chiefs and not enough Indians when advice was being given by manufacturers and then ignored by those who thought they knew best. The book is a compelling read and I'm sure it will take me several months to fully appreciate its content, especially the painstaking charts of location information. I did have a 'lift' on a couple of occasions back from Millerhill to Waverley in a Clayton and the cabs seemed unbearably hot, which was bourn out by both drivers on the occasions with some pretty inflammatory Scottish expletives! I look forward to more titles in Tony's style and must get to grips with the content of this one.

Both of mine, being semi-longhairs, render the 'underframe detail' less conspicuous!

Looking at the work you are doing to this loco just illustrates the input the all gets covered up when the loco is up and running. I have followed what you have achieved with this 'end of life' locomotive right back from when you first acquired it and I was part of a team that came over one very cold freezing day to take some measurements for the Heljan models. There were quite a few holes in it back then but you have had it up and running and at least it has covered accommodation, which is very important in keeping the elements and water out of the places where it can't drain away, but even then condensation can wreak havoc with any metals that aren't adequately protected. In a similar but slightly smaller vein I am currently trying to curtail the similar 'galloping metal gangrene' on a more recently, but still 38 year old, Leyland Olympian bus which I thought was a good idea from being scrapped. Unfortunately not being able to fully inspect it before purchase has led to a lot of unplanned expenditure in the metal department which my dear wife constantly reminds me about!............as they do!! The next job is to replace the front offside chassis perimeter frame which has just fallen apart due to bad initial design and inadequate maintenance in that area over its life. I suppose like D5343 then this bus was only designed to last the same period of time so it is all our fault for trying to save them. Uphill all the way I'm afraid and there are many days where I have felt like walking away...................but after a few beers the 'challenge spirit' takes over and the problem is no longer a problem but just another expense! Well done all of you at Toddington and in the preservation movement as a whole......it keeps us off the streets!

They were no match for a Hymek on the Worcester/Herefords but were probably a tad more reliable. Once the ETH took a bit more HP out of their performance then they became something of a liability as far as timekeeping was concerned. Fortunately the WR were able to diagram a few Worcester turns whereby they could double-head with spare loco's being kept at Oxford, but the staunch WR men never really got on with them so I try not to mention 31's when in conversation with a few of my ex. BR driver acquaintance's as they start speaking a different language! Let's hope a decent model version is in the wings somewhere.................plenty of ER branch lines to model!

..................and I'm more than happy to assist anyone who needs help in getting it right!. I offered Simon the same years ago when there was a danger of an incorrectly numbered version being produced. The older liveries are easier to get right as well Phil! I spent more time taking pictures of Brush 2's than any other type.

It would have been nice, as I was hoping, for D5627 to be finished as originally built without a yellow warning panel. I'm glad I didn't pre-order as Hornby only show side view artwork which doesn't show the front panel. I fully agree that it is now time for this model to be replaced, by Hornby or somebody, with a bit more imagination into the tooling and livery options. Their green skinhead version, having been messed about with is now wrong for the livery it carries. I'll pass on D5627 I think.

The grey grille treatment was a Darlington Works feature John.

That's what I was thinking...........................a connection down from the end of the viaduct and in to the oldest part of the works where the centrepiece could b a heritage centre encompassing some of Loughborough's past industry. Brush used to build trams, bus bodies and then there was Willowbrook which, like Brush, went through all sorts of ownership challenges and finally succumbed in the mid 90's. Another bus builder in the town was Yeates which ended up as a dealership which I believe became part of Volvo Bus, Loughborough. I hope there is no rush to demolish the heritage part of the Meadow Lane site and that some sort of railway/transport based engineering can continue, even if it became a skills centre. We need to revitalise our industry in this country rapidly before we are held to ransom by the rest of the world. There were some quality engineers bred in Loughborough!

Another part of this Country's fine heritage at risk. All that knowledge and experience that has come out of those buildings eh,..... irreplaceable! Another case of asset stripping I think and our government just lets that happen whilst we buy replacements from abroad..........I don't understand the logic. I'm sure the employees will get looked after but what about the historic buildings..................this was Loughborough. Perhaps as an epitaph to the workforce old and new the old buildings could be turned into a heritage centre that was originally planned at Leicester North. Even better a skills centre where perhaps a few ex. employees could impart their knowledge into our up and coming youngsters so that this country can build trains again and perhaps compete in the world for future business. I doubt if anyone will listen so I'll dismount from my four legged friend and carry on dreaming! So sad.

Thanks Phil. I'll give it a try at re-scanning as a colour image at a higher resolution but thanks for enhancing them. They look for better than the couple taken at Rhu that are in the album. My father was about a year out on his date and it looks as though 1939 was the family holiday in Scotland. 1938 was Lowestoft!

Thanks for all the kind comments and further information. I realised today that the 2-6-4T at Euston was a Fowler but the date of the film I will have to look into further as it did have reference to 1938 somewhere on it. Having just looked through the photo album again I think the film started off in the camera in 1938 but was used up by 1939 as the family holiday appeared to be Lowestoft in 1938.

You used to be able to double click on the images to see the captions, I'll see if I can edit the post to include them. They were as follows : LNER A4 4-6-2 4494 Kings Cross August 1938 LMS Faiburn 2-6-4T 2379 Euston August 1938 LMS Patriot 4-6-0 5542 Euston August 1938 LNER K4 2-6-0 ?? Rhu August 1938 LNER PS 'Jeannie Deans' Rhu August 1938 LNER V2 2-6-2 4795 Kings Cross August 1938 Glad people find them interesting, they certainly deserve an airing!

As my 14th birthday treat on 1st July 1964 I was allowed to walk around Oxford Shed 81F and imagine my surprise when I found 'failed' D1733 standing there smelling rather hot with a new paint smell and the vinyl red logo's starting to peel off. After that it was quite a regular performer on the 'Pines' and other inter-regional workings. Like Neil I have a couple of Heljan models, with and without the logos and yes one of mine succumbed to the dreaded rot which wrote the body off as well. Fortunately I was in a position to get the body replaced. Incidentally that 'Pine Express' formation usually included one of the first blue/grey Mk.1 repaints which I think was M322 from memory.

Sorry exceeded my maximum download quota so had to send the last three images separately.