rodent279

You know, that just shows how there is value in observing even small details. 30 years ago, I would have laughed at someone taking notes of HST formations. Like a lot of people, I was interested in things that moved and made noises. Now, when there are endless photos of Deltics etc on flickr, that sort of information is gold dust! Some time back, someone on here was asking about typical ECML coach formations in the 70's. One of the replies was from someone who, during overnight all-lines at somewhere like Doncaster or York, in the wee small hours when he had nothing better to do, took note of the formation of all the overnight trains that passed through-sleepers, van trains etc. Again, I would have rolled on the floor laughing at that, but it is priceless info now. Likewise, with photos, there are millions of photos out there of the big sexy stuff like Deltics etc, but I find myself more and more looking at the details-the rolling stock, odd liveries, cars, billboards, trackside details, platform details, how stations & surrounding buildings have changed. How many people took photos of billboards? Or BRUTES winding their way along platforms with a load of trolleys behind them? Once the kind of clutter you wanted to avoid in photos, these things are almost forgotten now. cheers N

I wonder whether NSE would suit an HST? Now there's a thought.......

I'm not holding my breath on GWML electrification being complete first either......

What this long drawn out, sorry saga tells me is that, amongst other things, privatisation, rather than unleashing thrusting, dynamic private enterprise to rid the railways of the "dead hand" of BR, we have just tied ourselves up in knots, and made a relatively simple* proposal, ie electrification of the GWML, into an increasingly complex, challenging set of inter-related problems, with solutions that are orders of magnitude more difficult to deliver than previously. (*not downplaying the challenges, but it's hardly in the same realm as landing humans on Mars. Which, to be fair, hasn't been done yet either......)

IEP seen passing through BPW heading east at 1900 Sun 13/8, plus a load of balloons from the balloon fiesta mass ascent! Sorry for the poor quality.

Is it me, or does Chris (Rob Lowe) look like Cliff Richard?

I'll bow to your better knowledge! What shape should they be? Must admit, the real thing would be worth a mint, and if it was mine, it wouldn't be hanging in such a visible & public place.

Oh it is very good, and very believable. Yes, Ron is good. So dry, on some levels really annoying, but also likeable because he sticks up for his team. I've worked for a Ron Swanson type character, he was a good boss, though grumpy as hell and with the people skills of a washing machine! Saw the first last night, haven't yet seen the second.

Well I never. Mrs rodent and I are into an American sitcom called Parks & Recreation. It's a bit like The Office, but based around the Parks & Recreation local government team in the fictional town of Pawnee. We watch it on Amazon, using a Firestick. Season 3 Episode 2, about two min from the end, and the two main characters are in a town hall office. Behind them on the wall is a picture of a steam loco. I only clocked the tender at first, but thought it looked familiar, so I rewound. Lo and behold, there it is- a picture of GWR no 111, The Great Bear. Pretty much the last thing I'd expect to see a photo of hanging on the wall of a local govt office in a fictitious American town! Screenshot attached. Link to the episode here:- https://mythewatchseries.com/parks-and-recreation-season-3-efd-episode-12 I'd reccomend it, you'll be hooked! In a similar vein, some years ago, Mrs rodent & I were in a lively bar in Madrid. Hanging on the wall was a nameplate off GWR no. 4016 "Knight of the Golden Fleece". Whether it's original or not I don't know, but another unlikely plac e to find a UK railway related item. Link to photo here:- https://flic.kr/p/UaAQxZ Anyone else got any similar spots of UK rail related items in unusual places, either in real life or on film/tv?

Titter ye not-I suspect ANPR technology could well make it's impact on the railway.

Thanks. Don't hold your breath, progress will not be rapid, but I'm going to make a start by ordering the grilles & fan. cheers N

Having trawled flickr, I think I'm going to go for 26003. This is mainly because it was one of the first two 26's I had, on a tour, the "Grampian Highlander", from Edinburgh-Inverness, with 26007. I'm choosing 003 because it's a fairly distinctive machine, with two Haymarket depot stickers, one on the body side, one on the cabside. The cabside one is a large one, with the castle coloured red-I know transfers are available for the small b/w stickers, but does anyone know if the larger ones are available too? From what I can see, the main areas needed to turn Lima's erroneously numbered 26027 into 003 are:- re-shape the buffer beams fit oval buffers fit flushglaze, including sliding cab windows fit windscreen wipers fit wire handrails & lamp irons fit slow speed control box to inner axlebox on non-grille end, opposite side to exhaust move inner spring clusters on bogies inwards add square bogie locating frames on bodyside, mid-way above bogies add various pipework detail on bogies fit mw jumpers fit air/vac pipes fit screw link couplings fit Shawplan roof fan/grille & side grilles if I feel bold enough, suitably butcher the underframe tanks, unless a kit is available? respray, renumber & fit HA depot stickers Can anyone add to that list? I know Shawplan & A1 models are two possible sources for the roof fan & side grilles, and wipers. Does anyone do the SSC box, or will that have to be scratchbuilt? Finally, here's a pic of the beast, pared with 007, on the day I had them on the tour:- https://flic.kr/p/qZyPB4 And here's a close up a couple of months earlier:- https://flic.kr/p/bNDz54 cheers N

So, if I understand that correctly, some locos were on TOPS during the trial period, with their pre-TOPS numbers? If that makes sense.... cheers N

Reviving an old thread, am I right in thinking the Lima class 26 only represents a 26/0, even though they numbered it 26027? There are 15 roof level grilles, where the 26/1's seem to have 12. Given that some 26's had cab door windows and some not, which 26/0's in particular are best represented by the Lima model (it has no windows in the cab doors)? I'm looking to keep it in blue, but rather fancy an unusual transition livery, preferably one worn by 003 or 007. cheers N

I shall have a look next time the outlaws are visiting! I think it could be a very good Automatic Mother-in-Law remover!

If it's any consolation, do you know how we manage mobile phone networks? On spreadsheets, some of which have their ancestry 10yrs ago. We do have various databases, but no one trusts the data in them fully, so in the end, most work is managed and tracked using spreadsheets.

It certainly isn't contaminated by beach is it!

Oh none of it matters now, it's all piffling trivia, and largely irrelevant to today's world, but it just stimulates my curiosity. I've always viewed HST's as effectively a double headed fixed rake of coaching stock, but with the locos on each end. Really HST's are two locos working in multiple top & tail. I stand to be corrected, but I thought TOPS had been around since about 1965, when it first started to be used for recording & controlling wagon movements. I assume therefore that wagons were the first vehicles to go on to TOPS? Another anomaly is that class 21's were rebuilt into class 29's, and 30's into 31's, yet were not renumbered out of their respective D61xx & D5xxx ranges. I know that 29's would have ended up being 29xxx had they lasted long enough, but it's intriguing that no one thought it necessary to renumber them into a different range after rebuilding.

Must admit, I've always wondered why 30/31's, being type 2's, were not in the 20-29 range. Another slight anomaly is that 45's and 46's were deemed worthy of their own separate class range, when the difference between them is electrical equipment supplier, one being Brush (45's) the other being GEC (46's). (Edit-or is one of them Crompton Parkinson? Haven't got a P5 book handy). The same is true of HST power cars-there are varients with Brush traction motors & electrical equipment, and with GEC traction motors & electrical equipment. Why then were they not allocated separate classes? Class 42 could have been used for one & 43 for the other.

Tytherington doesn't see a lot of use these days either.

Don't HST's and Mk3 hauled stock have WSP fitted? Wheel slide protection, in which the brake is applied, removed and reapplied continuously, in order to stop the brakes locking. I seem to remember this was one of the problems with the HK brake on the APT- to apply brake force, you have to fill a drum with oil, and you can't fill and empty the HK brake drum quick enough. Perhaps Mr Tilt could enlighten us?

Following on from the recent discussion about why class 86/1's & 86/2's were not the other way round, this leads me to another question, piffling trivia if you will! There were some gaps in the TOPS numbering scheme. There was a full house between class's 20 & 29, then there was class 30, the original designation for the Brush/Mirrlees type 2, and 31, the EE re-engined class 30's. Class 33's I understand were originally going to be class 33 & 34, but this was changed to 33/0 & 33/1. Class 35 & 37 we all know about. Why was there no class 32 or class 36? Why were 33's not class 32's? 35's not 34's or 33's? 37's not 36's or 35's? Similarly, with type 5's, there was class 50, 52, 53 (Falcon), & 55-59. Why were 52's not class 51's, & 55's not class 54's? There was class 70 (the Southern electric trio), 71, 72 (original designation for class 73/0), 73, 74, then 76 & 77. I can understand the gap between 3rd rail DC class 74 & 1500v DC o/h class 76 & 77, so again pretty much a full house. With the AC electrics, there was again a full house between class 80-87. There were plans for a class 88 electric freight loco, which eventually seems to have become class 92, and they then went to class 89 for the solitary example of it's type, and class 90, which were originally going to be class 87/2. Piffling trivia it may be, but there must have been a reason for it. Surely it wasn't BR allowing for future builds by leaving a gap in the number ranges. DMU's, EMU's & coaching stock did not go on TOPS until the early 80's so it can't have been because of a clash with those number ranges. cheers N

Hughes is often overshadowed by GJC, but they were contemporaries, and I believe personal friends. Both were admirers of each other's work, in much the same way as WAS & HNG were a couple of decades later. With it's early experimentation with, and trhen adoption of, electrification, and a diesel-electric loco built on the chassis of a steam loco, if anything the L&Y was more "innovative" than the GW- depending on your definition of that word.

Absolute nonsense. Wires may be functional rather than aesthetic, but I'd rather be travelling on a swift silent electric than a slow dirty outmoded diesel. I don't see how you can say wires intrude on the countryside anymore than the railway itself does. If you can put them up through the fells, through the Arlberg & Gotthard valleys, in the Bernese Oberland, then a bit of west country dairy land is no big loss.

Maybe not depressing, but a shadow of its former self, is Wolverton. I used it every day in the mid 80's, to travel from Leighton Buzzard to Wolverton College. By that time, the LNWR wooden station building, built on a framework adjoining the Stratford Road bridge, was in its last days. In about 1989 it was demolished, and a new entrance & footbridge installed, fronting the car park on the up side. Many a cold evening I spent sheltering under the bridge, waiting for the train home after evening class!