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I've moved my 2 adult tickets to tomorrow given todays poor conditions outside. Oddly the Eventbrite site only lets you move one ticket at a time and with the first one done, you are supposed to go back and do the second one but it doesn't let you. Hmmm. Anyway I've got a new barcode (order total = free) for tomorrow plus the original barcodes (2x adults £20) for today, so hopefully showing all three might gain entry to the show tomorrow. Not able to transfer or refund the advanced car parking though. Looks to be a healthy W type scrum as usual though today.

Cheers, so looking on google maos you turn off Pyms Lane after the recycling centre on left, but before the security barriers, turning right into the main car park. Is that right? I've got a folding trolley thingy to help wheel my stock in on the Saturday morning lol. So that will be easy to do from main car park. Cheers Paul

Thanks. Not long to go now. I've brought my stock with me to Northwich. A few bits to weather and finish off this week no pressure 🙃 Are there any road restrictions on getting to the Legends site from the Middlewich - Nantwich A road do you know? As it looks like they have changed the access road layout now? Probably to do with all those new fancy roads they have built around Leighton Hospital lol. Cheers Paul

A taste of Smethurst Junction 4mm 00 from Hazel Grove & District MRS. We usually operate stock from the early to mid 2000s period on the layout. We look forward to exhibiting at Crewe On behalf of the Smethurst Gang Cheers Paul

Sad to hear that Ken has passed away. I think I first saw Ken's work at the Macclesfield exhibition when it was held in the high school out of town - Ryle's Park was it? I met him again via the late Peter Midwinter when Ken had been approached to write a book that became "Modelling Buildings the Easy Way" published through Cheona Publications. I used to help Peter out with typesetting and book layouts for my own book and others he was publishing at the time, and recall the material that Ken gave us that between Peter, Wendy and me, when I was in North Wales visiting, shaped it into the book that was printed locally and distributed. I do recall an amusing moment after the book had been released that the cover photo we had used had a permanent blemish on it in the form of a black permanent marker pen 'x'. Fortunately, it wasn't in an obvious place but it was only noticed when the original photo was being filed away as the book project was completed, and the x caught the light on the glossy print surface. I think Ken just laughed it off when we told him and told use how the x mark came to be there. I used to act as a courier taking extra copies to Ken as I then lived a lot nearer to him than Peter did and so would often arrange delivery of 5 or 10 books to Ken, when he was demonstrating at a local exhibitions, hand over the books and marvel over his latest buildings he was crafting that day. Farewell Ken Paul

It would certainly involve tooling up a new hopper body along with some new stanchions at each end that help support the body and bear the weight down onto the chassis. From the drawings I have in my collection, the chassis is the same length, 36'-0" over headstocks, with 26'-0" bogie centres. The overall length over buffers for the ICI wagons nos. 3200-3351 is 39'-5", whereas the Summers wagons were 39'-0", the difference according to the drawings being 1'-8 1/2" buffers on ICI and 1'-6" on the Summers. Also the hopper body inside at top differs as well between ICI and Summers too. I've attached a photo of mine showing original and replacement buffers as fitted to ICI hoppers, when seen in store many, many years ago before they all went for scrap. Original buffer shank on left, replacement on right. I'd have to dig out me notes as to which two wagons they were but neither was ex-Summers from what I recall. I could retire my proposed conversions and assimilate them back into the main fleet if Accurascale kindly do some ex-Summers/ICIM versions pretty please. I never did figure out how the hopper body fixed to the chassis on the existing model and tried a few methods to try and weaken whatever the glue bond is they used to no avail. Cheers Paul

There were 13 complete PHO wagons acquired from British Steel at Shotton believed to by BR for I.C.I. Mond as direct replacements for 13 of the original Hoppers written off in accidents/derailments primarily caused by poor trackwork. The 13 overhauled and vacuum-braked wagons became PHVs nos. ICIM 19152 to 19164 and were initially used for Roadstone aggregates traffic from Tunstead. I believe a large quantity of spares especially the plate frame bogies were acquired to by I.C.I. around the same time and the remaining wagon bodies and chassis scrapped on site at Shotton. Two complete PHOs escaped the torch ending up at Llanwern steelworks in South Wales, and at least 4 more ended up at Workington all as internal user wagons. It was only in the mid-1990s as JGV wagons that the 13 ex-JS wagons moved to the Northwich limestone traffic due to a) wagons being withdrawn, b) the Roadstone traffic ending and the c) introduction of the air-braked Tiphook PIA (later KPA) bogie hoppers on the Hindlow traffic, where the 13 wagons were mainly used. As John said, there is a difference on height and some other dimensions/angles due to the 5.6 inch reduction in overall height. If rule 1 applies then I suppose you could relivery some of these models to become Summers or later British Steel branded wagons and removing the vacuum cylinders and pipes to get a passable model. Add some end ladders as appropriate and hey presto Heswall Hills here we come. I am kind of hoping Accurascale will go on to do Summers/British Steel/ICIM models as they got a mention in the original press release back at the end of September too. Cheers Paul

I would guess that the 2nd or 3rd 37 had failed and the 1st EWS liveried 37 added to the front to allow the service to continue onwards to Northwich. But on this occasion it seems not. Must have missed this one probably stuck working in bank lol. Normally 2x37s quite happily hauled 24 loaded hoppers. Not the first time 37s had failed on the hoppers mind you. Cheers Paul

I have managed to find several more images of the Co-Bos on the hoppers in 1963 but the elusive image/photo of the pair has not come to light yet. But then again social media did yield some interesting images from 1930 and 1935 with trials with a Charles Roberts 2-axle hopper, and later with a NE Sulphate bogie open wagon. Amazing what turns up when you least expect it. And the chap that posted told me he rescued the photo prints from being thrown in the bin some years ago!

I've just seen the Knowsley to Wilton loaded bins pass through Stockport behind 66099, and it seemed to mainly FCA and FYAs, with one and a half flats not loaded with any containers at all. I *think* there might have been an FXA pair in the rake as well too? Unless it was a dodgy dirty Y. Only a quick few snaps as the 66 was accelerating, unusually routed through platform 3, and my train was due on platform 1 😉 Cheers Paul

I can see from my lists (now that I've found a saved one on laptop), that 41 of the 139 ICI PHV hoppers were fitted with a single end ladder at one end of the wagon (corners as marked 1 & 4 on the solebars), of which 40 were what I called sloping ladders, and the final 1 a straight vertical mounted ladder. I suspect the 13 accident victims would have all been in the Mond pool for Northwich traffic given that these accidents were on the route between Chinley and Northwich. The highest general repair date I can find for the wagons where the plate was present on the remaining wagons was May 1993. Several visits to Winnington works enabled most of the wagons remaining in 1998 to be recorded plus those at Lostock and Tunstead too. Cheers Paul

Buxton Lime Industries Limited only came in to being when incorporated on 30th September 1991 as part of the divestment process of breaking up the ICI business. Brunner Mond Limited was established in May 1991 to continue running the Winnington and Lostock soda ash and chemicals works. Up until around 1993, I believe Avenue was overhauling 20-22 wagons per annum based on the total fleet of 152 wagons, with a 7 yearly overhaul plan. Unfortunately photos of the hoppers at Avenue are rather rare. I would agree there was more of a blue tinge to the fresh wagons done in the 1970s and 80s. Looking at the material I collected for the book there is more blue in the grey than the later 80s overhauls.

Even I have no idea how or why some of the wagons received orange letters. I do have a photo in my collection that seems to show for sure that the letters on some wagons were painted orange and not white. Was this a local arrangement? A change in policy when ICI Mond became part of the short-lived Chemicals & Polymers division just before the divestment of ICI started in 1990? Orange was one of the ICI house colours as we should all remember from the ICI Dulux tins of paint back then - I recall them being white and orange tins? Right or poor 49 year old memory banks? Cheers Paul

Battleship grey was not coined by me, it was the name given to me by the producer of the original heavy resin cast kits, and someone who worked at Tunstead in the 80s. I have since been given two other names for the shade of grey. Probably the best two images for ex-works grey are these two on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/2a4yJg6 https://flic.kr/p/47zYhP

The 13 ex-British Steel Shotton (BSSH) wagons acquired by BR for ICI Mond became nos. ICIM 19152 to 19164, allocated to the Roadstone pool of wagons as noted and this already used existing ICIM wagons drawn from the then existing 139 retaining PHVs (13 having already been written off in accidents and derailments by 1981/2). Most wagons I would guess 120 or so were in the main Mond pool for the main Northwich traffic serving Lostock via Northwich yard, Winnington via Oakleigh Sidings and Wallerscote via Gorstage Sidings, with the remainder allocated to Roadstone traffic serving Stockport Portwood, Collyhurst Street and Dean Lane aggregates terminals. So you would see standard height ICI wagons mixed with lower height ex-BSSH versions but only in Roadstone traffic. I have never seen a full list of which wagons were allocated to which pool (but I would be very pleased to find one!), so the 13 ex-BSSH wagons all went to the Roadstone pool once they had finished their conversion to vacuum-braking - I believe this was done at the ICI Avenue workshops in Northwich. So in this pool they ran with existing ICIM wagons that had the Road Stone stencil applied and in some cases a ladder was added to the ICI wagons so they matched the ex-BSSH wagons, which already had ladders fitted at each end, some wagons later having one removed. When the Roadstone traffic ceased in the early 1990s the bulk of the wagons were transferred over to the Hindlow traffic, and when in turn the now JGVs were superceded by the air-braked Tiphook KPA bogie hoppers the JGVs were stored at Hindlow for a while. It was only when wagons started to be withdrawn and stored at Lostock and Winnington works, possibly as they were due or overdue their 7 yearly overhaul, that the stored wagons from Hindlow were brought back into use, including the remaining ex-BSSH examples and would be seen mixed in on traffic to and from Northwich until the last service in December 1997. I haven't yet found any photos showing "new" ex-works ex-BSSH PHVs being moved from Avenue to Tunstead to start working in the Roadstone pool. One would imagine that as the wagons were completed they would be taken to Gorstage or Oakleigh and tagged on the front or rear of a rake of empties for Great Rocks Jnc. HTH Paul