Ruston

Mention of an 88DS in Hull caused me to look again and to add to the above list is: 338424 ex-works 3/2/55 to North Eastern Region E&ME Dept. Hull, Yorks.

That is 224347, ex-works 6/3/45. I last saw that one at W.H. Davis wagon works at Langwith Junction but it was ordered new by the Ministry of Supply for the War Dept. at Kinnerley, Salop. I've no idea how it ended up on a street corner in Bootle! Not my pic - http://farm4.static...._960c7b60c2.jpg

The part in the first two pictures looks to be a different colour to the other pictures. Is this because it has been heated/annealed before bending, or is it simply a trick of the light?

No. It wasn't designed specifically as a shunting puzzle. I added the cards just to make it all a bit more interesting to operate.

Excellent work, Mike. I look forward to the 7mm version. . I can't help with the running numbers on the BR departmental locos but Ruston & Hornsby class 88DS locomotives sold to British Railways, by works number, are as follows: 408493 ex-works 19/1/57 to Western Region, Reading Signal Works 425485 ex -works 4/12/58 to North Eastern Region, CE Dept. Dinsdale rail depot, Co. Durham 432477 ex-works 5/1/59 to North Eastern Region, CE Dept. Etherley tip, Wilton, Co. Durham 432478 ex-works 14/1/59 to North Eastern Region CE Dept. Leeman Rd. PW stockyard, York 435498 ex-works 23/7/59 to North Eastern Region CE Dept. Crofton PW depot, Yorks (WR) 463151 ex-works 26/4/61 to North Eastern Region CE Dept. Cleveland Rd. sleeper depot, Hartlepool Co. Durham 463152 ex-works 31/5/61 to North Easten Region CE Dept. Croft Jct. Darlington, Co. Durham Of course BR owned only a tiny proportion of the 254 locos that were built and sold worldwide, in gauges from metre to 5'6", although the majority were standard gauge.

I must admit that it was inspired by that on Enigma Engineering.

For the first time since I started this layout I have played with it run it properly. A bit of fettling on some dodgy connections and a going over of the track with a graphite stick on the railheads seems to have allowed much better running for one thing. I've also given some purpose to shuffling the wagons around... I printed off a sheet with each item of rolling stock and each location that wagons can be shunted to, and then glued them onto a coco pops box. Once dry the sheet was cut up to make cards. The hidden sidings can only take a locomotive and up to four wagons each so that is the maximum train length and therefore the amount of cards that are picked. If a tank wagon is picked it can only go to the tank loading/discharge siding so no location card is picked for it. If an open wagon or van is picked then a location card is also picked with it. The locations are Building A, Building B, Gate 3 siding and Loading Dock. The wagons are placed in the train in the order their cards are picked and the loco is despatched from the shed to the exchange sidings to collect whatever the BR trip engine has left there... Each wagon is then shunted to it's destination. Any wagons already in the locations are assumed to be finished with (i.e. if they brought goods in they are now empty and if they came in to take a load they are now loaded) and have to be moved and assembled into a train to depart. It makes operating the layout that bit more interesting as one has to think about how to split the rake and get each wagon to where it has to go. All couplings have a steel link a the end and are coupled using a pen torch that has a length of brass wire, with a tiny magnet on the end, soldered onto it.

A couple spotted in Kirton, Notts.

Thank you for that explanation, Neil and when put like that it does seem to be of some practical use to someone and if so I withdraw my comments. But the OP said this: Who cares if it's seen as grown men playing with toy trains or not? I couldn't care less and so I don't see any point in reseach into the hobby to try and prove otherwise. Either the OP has drastically over simplified the point of this research or it really is a waste of time - IMHO, of course.

Perhaps you're correct. Not a waste of time but a waste of money. I, and many others here, have a collection of railway books. We read them in the pursuit of knowledge for no real benefit to anyone, except for the pursuit of knowledge for our own reasons. But... We don't dress it up as anything more - we don't attempt to use it to get letters after our names and, more importantly, we don't use other people's money in pursuit of that knowledge.

Hmm...

It's not that good, Giles. With my Series Land Rover rivet counting head on the sills are too shallow and the door hinges are wrong for a 2. The model was obviously based on a series 3 but we'll gloss over that. A couple of pictures showing some more of the end of the layout and featuring my latest loco - a Manning Wardle class H. More details about the loco in my blog thing - link in signature.

Back on page 4, and almost two years ago, I dismantled a Land Rover. Well here it is rebuilt. The three quarter tilt is made from newspaper with a plasticard frame inside. The rolled up flap is made from brown paper. The Lincoln arc welder is made from bits of plasticard/strip/tube with copper wire wound and painted for cables. It's taken longer to rebuild this than it did my real series 2! A shot of the Peckett in the works area after more work has been done and the ballasting completed.

I'm glad that it's appreciated. I don't think I've seen it modelled before. I've been working away on this area of the layout and will soon have some more photos to post but here's a crappy one I took on my phone to show progress. After scribing them I went over the setts again to knock off the square edges but I don't think that I rounded them off enough now they're painted. I used different shades of beige/khaki/brown/grey acrylics to pick them out and then sloshed a load of thined black enamel on to get into the mortar and to tone down the whole lot. They could probably use a coat of matt varnish before they're finished.

I've now got a scanner that can do prints so here are some of the few I took on prints. This batch were taken during an IRS visit to BSC Shelton in April 1997. Thomas Hill "Steelman" 6wDH w/n V316 Yorkshire "Janus" 0-6-0DE w/n 2772 Yorkshire 2868 in action. Thomas Hill V317 with driver Mr. P. Cleverley. This loco was started up to be moved about and posed for photos and I got to drive it around the works whilst everyone else trudged around in the rain and took photos of it.

I don't know where this particular wagon came from but there were some that looked like it at Kellingley colliery. There is one example preserved at the Derwent Valley Railway, which is said to have been a tank wagon when built but the tippler body was built by, or for, the NCB. Unfortunately, as is often the case, they've painted over the crimson livery and NCB lettering and painted grey, numbered as if it as some kind of fake British Railways wagon. Why do so-called preservationists do this with industrial equipment? Is the true history not good enough for them so they have to pretend that everything belonged to BR or the "big four"? It's the same with many Austerity tanks - they paint them black and put fake BR J94 numbers on them. It annoys me to see industrial locos and stock lose their true identity and their history be glossed over like this. And count to ten.... I have found and scanned a few more pics. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel now though... YE 2867 at Marcroft's wagon works in Stoke, July 1996. A line of, mostly redundant, Yorkshire Janus class locos at Appleby Frodingham, March 1988. GEC traction diesel-electrics 5429 and 5462 at British Steel Teeside works, March 1995. Thomas Hill 297v tackling the gradient from the BR sidings to Bardon Hill quarry - date unrecorded.

It's been almost 3 months since I posted anything about this but then there's not been anything to report until this week. Having had a relatively quiet week work-wise I've cracked on with the scenics at the end of the railway that is, as yet, unballasted. I've put down some hardstanding in the form of stone setts (scribed DAS clay). I've never used this stuff before and all I can say is that scribing the setts is tedious! Other things have been making a ladder for and handrail around the storage tank, a hut/yard office, a low-relief building to go at the far end, and a perimeter wall and gates. The Hut: Built from plasticard and English bond embossed plasticard, cornflakes packet roof tiles, umbrella spoke gutter and plastic rod downpipe. The door and window frame are resin parts and the spout is a whitemetal casting. The wall: English bond embossed plasticard sandwiching foamboard. When it came to finishing off the top I gave it a lot of thought - something like this wouldn't have had anything fancy as capping, such as stone, and would probably have had brick stretchers across the top but, as far as I know, there's no such thing in the Slaters range. Individually cutting out bricks from the sheet would take forever and would look rough as there's no way of cutting the mortar course accurately enough. So it looked like I would have to put capping stones on it but then, whilst delivering a load to a company in some back street or other in Sheffield, I spied a wall that was finished with a layer of mortar with lots and lots of broken glass stuck in it - a crude attempt at keeping ne'er do wells out. I took a piece of glass and ground it up with a pestle and mortar. I then ran a layer of superglue along the top of the wall and tipped the ground glass onto it. There's rather more glass than on the prototype but it looks OK. I'll just have to be very careful if ever I have to re-rail a wagon in the nearest siding!

Is the chassis sprung or compensated and exactly how pricey was it?

I will post some in the UK industrial section when it's done. What motor/gearbox combination did you use as mine didn't come with one. I've even had to machine the boiler as they don't do that anymore either.

That looks stunning. I'm building one of these at the moment and if mine looks anything near as good I'll be happy.

That looks good now, Adam. When I saw the first pic with the lettering I thought you'd made a big mistake repainting it but the red shading under the name and the weathering really set it off.

Gunpowder van?

Thanks! I missed Ozzy's comment first time around - sorry. So who is right?

I know very little about coaches so could someone possibly identify builder/railway company of the coach in my last post, please? Today at the Tanfield Railway. Gunpowder van?

The following were all spotted in the last week or so. Near Ilkley. Normanton. The Old Coach Road near Keswick. And this coach was seen on a B road near Thirlmere.