HillsideDepot

Me neither, but I have filed this section away in my "plans and ideas" folder: Two sidings, both going into the building, which also provides the back-scene, a run-round and a line continuing under a scenic break. The exit to the mainline could become a headshunt on a layout, or if kept as an exit would need a bit of thought to disguise. Possibilities, possibilities.... thanks Porky.

For those that "do" Facebook a new group, "British Railways. The lost Motorail Services" started today. No connection except as a group member, but it looks like it might produce some interesting posts.

I haven't used them, but I came across Model Transport Graphics on eBay the other day. They have quite a range of blinds available, and a five star rating. Might be worth a look.

Those with easy access to the trains (i.e. train crew and staff at terminal stations) would probably read whatever was left on the train by passengers! Publications left on trains could include regional dailies like the Western Morning News from Plymouth, or the Western Daily Press from the Bristol area etc. Drivers especially would move around to gain promotions, so the opportunity to read the local news from "down 'ome" would be welcome. I know from my bus experience, a higher proportion of drivers than you might think would read the broadsheets, a habit formed in more leisurely times when duties allowed 10 minutes or so at an outer terminus, and there was often also an unofficial pause for a few minutes at an intermediate town, so plenty of reading material was important as was a good crossword. The railway equivalent would perhaps be a Guard with time between his station duties, especially when working a route with ticket barriers at stations.

Thank you for your reply and the photos, which are very helpful. A scratch built body looks like the way to go, I'll have to dig out my Dinky Toys version and use that as my 3-d working drawing.

I like that; relatively simple, but hugely effective. My eye is drawn to the Ford D series road sweeper, and not just because of its colour! I've been pondering on how to make one for a while, even getting a spare Base Toys D series and a Atlas Editions sweeper, but the two don't really seem to marry together well. What is the origin of yours. please?

Building on Harlequin's post, I nearly went down the O gauge route when the Dapol 08 appeared. I would have been restricted to a very small layout, probably an Inglenook type shunting puzzle, but the extra size and presence of O was a real temptation. Something bigger, where each of the few items of rolling stock could be really detailed and weathered was a temptation. When the 08 appeared there were a few things about it I was less than keen on, and I dithered until prices went up (I think there was an initial offer from Dapol) and then the ones I was interested in sold out. Do I regret it? No. When it comes down to it, as much as the bigger size has its attraction, and does allow some extra detail, in essence I could take any one of my fleet of Hornby 08s and super-detail that, and take a small number of my numerous wagons and do likewise. For me a change of scale didn't actually offer anything different and, I suppose, I ultimately built Drew's Siding as my small shunting puzzle, a mini layout with a small rolling stock requirement that I enjoyed building and have fun operating from time to time. Likewise, a few years back there were some excellent deals on SR 2-car EMUs. I did some research, learning much more than I previously knew about HALs, BILs, EPBs and so on, scoured the shop websites for the best prices of the different variations and drew numerous layout plans. But I never actually bought the models, as attractive as they are. Why? Because I eventually realised that a pretty 2-car EMU offers nothing more, to me, than a utilitarian class 150 Sprinter, or rundown class 108 DMU, of which I have had several in stock, unused, for a number of years (and diesels save me modelling a 3rd rail, coward that I am). It is easy to be tempted by something new, and there is nothing wrong with following that route, but going back to basics is important. What do you want? What will satisfy you? Only you can answer that. For some it is having sounds, lights and as perfect as possible detail in each train, but they are quite happy to run a 2020's Hitachi Azuma alongside a pre-Grouping something or other, so long as each train is perfect in itself. Conversely, I've heard it said (long ago now) that some would be happy to use tennis balls as trains, so long as the layout was correctly signalled, fully interlocked and the tennis balls carried the correct lamps front and rear. Neither of those examples suits me, and if what does suit me suits no one but me, so what? It must be your layout, done your way. I wish you well in your deliberations, Gary, and don't forget there is no compulsion to have a working layout. I'm finding great enjoyment in mixing some Wills kits together with a few scratch built buildings to make several dioramas. Nothing to do with railways, although all could potentially be incorporated into a larger layout, but complete in themselves, and fun to build.

The lower edge of the grey stripe was different between hauled and HST Mk3s. On the HST version the white stripe between the blue and the grey is on the door handle line, whereas on the hauled version it is lower. Although only a small difference it makes the HST version look sleeker, whereas the hauled version had to match livery spacing on the Mk1s & 2s.

With another warm day in the offering, it looks like an opportunity to get the Wickham out for a run. Here it sits just outside the shed while fuel and water levels are checked.

Last week the BBC carried an item about a man with a railway in his back garden. OK, it was rather limited as a railway, but it got me thinking; could something similar be a quick weekend project? Motive power would be a Bachmann Wickham trolley and trailer, and everything would come from my left over bits and pieces boxes. Here is the result.

This old BTF film won't answer all of the questions, but will provide heaps of atmosphere as well as a few answers.

Things are happening. Part of my work on Wednesday was connected with providing details of known school movements to one of our two local rail franchises so that they can take account of them as they plan for things to begin to resume. Similarly, I am aware that, having had a couple of weeks relative calm after implementing several iterations of emergency timetable, one of our local bus companies has set its schedules team to work on various "what-if" scenarios to implement a staged return of service levels. They admit some, maybe most, of these schedules may never be operated, but work is under way.

Norman's latest photo is something else! The light and the shadow make it really special, but of course without models being "right" the scene wouldn't exist. Absolutely wonderful.

This is what our local GoAhead Group bus companies have been Tweeting for the last few days. But as anyone who has ever worked with the public knows, you can't please everyone. When some supermarkets started opening early for older people to do their shopping before the panic buyers arrived I suggested to my manager that we ease the 9:30 restriction on our ENCTS (bus passes). The number of passengers generally has dropped significantly so, as a local authority, we won't be spending all our ENCTS budget under the normal formula. We lifted the time restriction yesterday, and now people are saying we're being irresponsible as we are encouraging travel when older people should be staying at home! And that's despite each message, press release etc specifically stating that its to help people get the provisions they need. So, thoughts to all our drivers (bus, rail, taxi), guards, and others on the front line at this time. And a big thank you to all those Schedulers and Planners working tirelessly away to produce workable new timetables. Sadly, whatever schedule runs next week will probably be short lived, and no doubt there will be staff busy working on the next, even more reduced, set of schedules this weekend. Stay safe, if you have to go out there!

Home working is also my way of life in local government. No time to play trains during the day, but having a portable work surface on a nearby table can be quite useful. We get an hourly pop-up reminder to stretch and refocus our eyes so a quick glued joint made one hour can be nicely set by the next hour's break. If I'm prepared and its a small, easy area, I've been known to put a coat of paint on something in these mini-breaks. The lap top cameras one is interesting. We were all told to experiment with using them on Monday. By Wednesday IT were concerned about band width and video calls became "only when necessary".

Matt's cartoon in the Telegraph today, just referenced on Radio 4, seems appropriate. A Downing Street spokesman, in front of the assembled media, advises "...if you show the early signs of becoming an armchair expert, you must self-isolate until 2021..."

Maybe this experimental vehicle from 1980 would have found favour and been developed? photo by "Gillett's Crossing" on Flickr.

9494 was another BSO, and as John Turner's photo of 16/08/2001 on Flickr shows it had a sealed gangway at the brake end.

Whilst researching Mk1 catering cars over the weekend I came across this post from The Johnster Followed by this information from Brian br2975 which got my interest. Further research led me to the EM gauge 70's website which has a page on the Mk1 Pullman cars. However they suggest that 10 out of 15 vehicles in the PSK fleet were used by the Western as a Buffet car for excursion traffic, with a start date of September 1971. Whilst individual cars vary, most are next reported as stored by the following August (1972). EM 70's lists the grey/blue example as E334E, which they don't mention as having worked on the Western. Out of curiosity (and as a possible addition to my passenger stock) did Cardiff have 3 PSKs with the other 7 at other Western depots? Brian's note of one in a Footex, and a September transfer date makes me wonder if they were intended for use in such trains, lasting one season before ending up in store by the following summer. Or if not Footex traffic what was this short lived need for 10 buffets in excursion trains? If the idea was to provide catering in such trans and the PSKs were available for "free", they didn't give the idea much of a trial as it was over in less than a year, and missed the [presumably] busy peak summer season.

It will be interesting to see what direction the Government will take with rail and/or local control. Speaking from a bus point of view (I work in the Passenger Transport Unit at Wiltshire Council) we've got the much trumpeted Bus Services Act 2017 to work with. This was supposed to give us all sorts of additional powers over the local bus network, including over commercially operated services. As an authority we are conservative (small c here, but large C politically) and our councillors probably would be reluctant to be one of the first authorities to try something radical, so we didn't really think that they would want us to franchise our bus operation. However, when I studied the legislation there was little we could do unless we had an elected mayor, or were Cornwall. Even things like Enhanced Partnerships are of little use, and the DfT guidance admits that informal partnerships would probably be more successful in most cases, as partnerships with Stagecoach West have proved by simply working together with a common aim, we can grow the bus market. So when the DfT come round asking why no one is making use the the 2017 Act we had to explain that it isn't designed for us; we simply can't tick the right boxes to enter the starting block, let alone make it work! But then, would we want any of the provisions to work for us, in isolation? Wiltshire is a essentially doughnut, with population around the edge and just soldiers and tanks on the Plain in the middle. So some towns look to Swindon (with its own Borough Council), others look towards Bath & North East Somerset (which in turn is part of the West of England Combined [transport] Authority), and whilst parts of the south look to Salisbury, Salisbury also looks to Southampton. So should we join with our neighbours? And if we do with what sort of degree of influence? And so it is on the railway. Bristol "local" services run out to Taunton, Cardiff, Westbury, Gloucester, all of which are outside the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) area. Should trains turn back at the boundary? Should the Bristol "metro mayor" decide the stopping pattern and frequency at, say, Avoncliff? Already WECA has decided its "metro" service should run to Westbury when, from a Wiltshire point of view, maybe Swindon would have been better giving us trains which could stop at a new Corsham station, offer an east of Bath Park & Ride and at some point possibly a Royal Wootton Bassett station, as well as adding capacity at Chippenham for the 7,000 new houses planned here. Moving north, would Manchester speak to both Liverpool and Leeds? Would Leeds want also to speak to York? And if suddenly there are 4 authorities all demanding control do we end up with a Liverpool - York conglomerate? Would that be "local" management? Or would Liverpool trains leave Manchester a minute before Leeds trains arrive, because "local" management really has to be "local"? It's easy to write a good headline, but much harder to write the legislative structure which will be needed to make it all work!

Thanks. No thread, as yet, but I did take a few photos during the very early stages of the build, and plan to have one. The layout is all of 2 foot long, with just two points. Definitely a small layout, but ideal for a tiny Ruston.

Thanks DeRails & DPD, my two Rustons are here! Just a quick lunch-break snap of the Army version testing out my new (very much still under construction) micro layout.

Excellent news Dan; my two will soon be heading back over the Severn to their new home in Wiltshire. I better get on with putting together various part built buildings to make a layout for one of them, and seriously get my plans sorted for a layout for the other one.

I don't think that Hornby are aiming their Advent Calendar at us, and that reflects on the choice of items promoted. After all we don't buy because its Christmas, or Easter, or August Bank Holiday; we buy because the boat has docked with the latest goodies. But a parent being pestered for a trainset for Christmas may well go to the Hornby website, find the calendar there and find something of interest. Or having already bought a trainset for the "big day" might use the calendar to entice their child into the world of Hornby with daily tempters. These tempters may turn into "I wants" and more sales for Hornby. Ultimately, if we want a superbly detailed [insert item of choice] to be announced in early January we need Hornby to sell all they can at Christmas.

Obviously I'd like to see rail expand and succeed as much as anyone on here, but would-be promoters perhaps should also note that whilst First UK Bus isn't without its own huge problems, and its "Buses of Somerset" operation will never be at the top of the financial performance table, it is under common management with "Kernow" who have made big strides in Cornwall. I can't see them taking any competition from the WSR lying down.