Steadfast

Only a couple of weeks left for the CDAs if the rumours going round at work are correct. Get you photos while you can! Jo

Weren't the 47s built with a gold film in the screens that worked as the heated windscreen element, which looked purple in certain lights. This is what the tint is meant to represent I believe. I've not noticed 37s give a similar effect. Also over time, replacement windscreens may have different elements in them. Certainly on 66s there's at least 2 or 3 types of demister, and they look different from outside. Jo

A couple of recent 67s from me. Linked from my Flickr. 67010 has just arrived at Cardiff Central with a set of black Mk4s on 1V39 from Manchester Piccadilly. The set was originally overhauled for Grand Central's services to Blackpool, but these never started running and instead TFW purachsed the overhauled stock. DVT 82201 was on the rear. Right place, right time today. Former Colas, and now once again Colas 67027 is seen on the fuel point at Westbury with dead duck 70808. With the pair of Beacon Rail owned 67s being prepared for lease to GBRf, 027 gained the blue and orange colours in readiness for its redeployment. With GB now deciding not to take the 67s on, reapplication of Colas branding is being undertaken. The small cab side GB Railfreight logos have been replaced by the Colas diamonds, but the large bodyside GBRf logo is painted. Expect this to be covered by a Colas logo within a few days, once the vinyl men return to cover it over. 67027 and 70808 were about to head over to the downside, where they were both due some attention at the Elephant House workshop. Jo

Looks like there's a torch on the far lamp bracket, presumably displaying a red. Jo

I'll sit back, relax and await the inevitable then! Jo

I doubt it, the royal 67s have the yellow spot whatever they are working. Mind you, the Res royal 47s didn't do non Royal duties very often Jo

66040 in 2016 was the first one I came across, and if not the very first, it was one of them. Jo

I quite agree. What is really frustrating is the level of "support" / "investment" / the road industry gets from the Government, rail really is the poor relation. If the government sent a bit our way to help keep electric zero emission locos on the rails, it might make a difference. But no, they'll just fire another £100 million or whatever towards lorries. Jo

I'd best be on good behaviour, I've got one less excuse for crashing than you guys 😁 Looking forward to it! Jo

What do I want to see? Simple day to day improvements. TSRs and ESRs that have the fault corrected in a timely manner. Dead AWS magnets that are fixed in a timely manner. I'm convinced there will be an incident caused by people getting used to cancelling the AWS and not having to take action. Over one 40 - 50 mile run, I can think of at least 4 long term dead magnets, repeatedly reported and nothing is done. At least one has been like it for over 2 years. Long term it'd be nice to see everyone pulling together and not fighting to take freight contracts off each other, but to get more freight from road to rail and, selfishly, since the question is what to I want to see, to thus look after the long term future of my career! It's funny how the government see money to roads as investment, but money to railways as subsidy and additional cost. We need more than the occasional poster here and there claiming one train takes 76 lorries off the road. Let's see some action and not just empty words! Jo

Yes. Linked from Flickr. I simply searched 47798 1995 Jo

L@@k!!! Professionally Weathered!!! is what the eBay listing would look like! Jo

It's Accurascale's attempt at the sandpipe mounting bracket isn't it Jim? There are two styles, the Hattons model represents later style (straight diagonal piece) the Accurascale model shows the earlier style. Not sure when they changed, but we have both styles on our 66s. 66001 was built with earlier type, but has carried the later type too due to bogie swaps. Edit to add, 66145 was the first loco with the later style. A mix of styles in this picture The tripcock bracket bolts onto the bogie and hides the sandpipe bracket from view, seen here. Finally for a bonus point here's one of 001 with Tripcock kit in EWS. From memory I think it did one season in EWS before repaint. Pictures all linked from Flickr. Jo

All may not be lost. Take a look at some photos of the real things on Flickr. Here's a link to one: Most (not all though) of them had the cabside repainted yellow or orange before the new logos went on. On most locos it's a noticeably different shade. Up close you can see the finish is different to the rest of the bodywork too. One or two didn't have the repainted cabs, and you can see the outline of the old logo on those. Jo

So instead of Day and Night, Bachmann now give you a choice of Day or Yard work. Interesting move, and potentially more useful than Night mode. Jo

Thanks for the posts ref the real steel, that pdf is exactly what I was after. Looks like my Google-fu wasn't up to scratch. Seems like pretty much anything goes size wise! I'm intending it to be Tata Margam originated steel, but I'm sure it won't be a million miles off what British Steel turn out. As for the model, I'm probably going down the road of a technique called non metallic metal, using oils. In N scale, the metallic look of the steel slabs isn't noticeable, it's more the colour and patina. Modellers using NMM on figure painting get some incredible effects, including replicating polished steel like on swords or armour. Slab doesn't have the sheen that rolled coil does either. Here's a pic linked from Flickr showing the effect, its quite blue. Jo

Hi all, I'm starting to think about making loads for my BBAs and BAAs. I want to go for the hefty slab you see being tripped through South Wales. (OK that pic is Bristol, but it's come from Llanwern) I'm struggling to find dimensions for this sort of product, which I believe goes for rolling into coil, hence the trips from Margam to Llanwern. Is there a standard industry size, or does each steelworks work to their own standard? Looking at Evergreen, I'm thinking their 1.5mm x 6.3mm or 1.5mm x 7.9mm may be suitable for N? That'd be 9 inch thick slabs, around 3 or 4 foot wide. The stanchions on my BBA are around 8mm apart. Any help greatly appreciated! Jo

It could be a) blown bulb, b) a dull filament bulb, with the lower markers replaced by LED. The lights on the modified 37s are on a rotary switch. Off - Day - Yard - Night. The top marker can only be illuminated at the same time as the lower two. Jo

The three markers are lit in that first video, they're just incredibly dim in those lighting conditions. Photo linked from Flickr on the same day Some locos, like the second video showing 423, had the filament bulbs upgraded to LED. Jo

Both classes 68 and 88 have 20.5 metres painted, well stickered, on the sides as the length over buffers. Class 93 is a little longer. Jo

Ah apologies for any crossed wires, the Dutch and plain grey ones I've seen are both the BR built, originally on plateback bogies but now on the EWS American style. The plain grey ones I've seen would be 1990s paint jobs at the very oldest. The shade was light, so could tie in with same grey as Dutch, and faded over the intervening 20 odd years. It certainly wasn't a common livery, grubby plain yellow I'd say is the common on the modern day Salmon and Ospreys. Jo

Some Salmon carried Dutch too. Perhaps Hornby thought these were just grey as the yellow is very narrow. I have seen the odd plain grey Salmon, but I'd think they were post privatisation "needs must" patch paint between the data panels type jobs. Pic linked from smugmug of a Dutch one. Jo

Nice of Hornby to hide all the development pics behind a fan club paywall. Would have been interesting to see, if the quality is good perhaps they'd have enticed more people to jump in to their product range. Jo

This link seems to explain it OK, from a quick skim read (there, that's my get out if there's errors on it!) http://www.solihullmrc.org/wagon_tops_codes.html Fundamentally the first letter is the category and the last letter is brake type. The middle letter is unique to that variant of wagon. So HAA is a hopper, the first type in its series and air braked. Other hoppers with air brakes are HHA, HTA and HKA, these are all completely different designs, note the middle letter that changes to denote this. Jo

I thought it was more of a EuroTunnel thing, at least initially, and was not used all the time. Class 92 and 68 also have the top light fitted but it doesn't seem to be used much on those locomotives. Certainly it is only on in some of the photos of these classes while the head and marker lights are on. The lighting on the 37s modified by DRS is on a rotary switch, with day / night/ yard settings. Yard is the 3 markers, then day and night adds the relevant headlight as well. So on whatever setting, the top marker is lit, and the driver cannot select it independently. Class 92s that top light is a headlight for working through the Tunnel and can be independently switched, but everything else in the UK that top light is only a marker and isn't dazzling. Class 68 may give the appearance of the top marker not being lit, but the lighting on these are LED so in photographs or video can appear to flash due to the refresh rate of the LED being close to the camera shutter speed. Jo