John M Upton

Inspired by pictures of, and travelling on a bus through Ballachulish on our honeymoon I wound up with Gerichulish (Geri is my wife's name, she was suitably impressed!) and on a sign on the layout, it points to trains via Glendarroch, also fictional, the place in Take The High Road for those of us old enough to remember it. Oddly, I could have sworn Glendarroch actually appeared as a name on a Class 37 once, or did I imagine that?

Indeed in the UK, misselling US outline locos because the knowledge this side of the Atlantic is a bit thin in places, leads to quite a few bargains... ...and a rather large 'To Do' pile...

Freightliner have been running a Class 66 light engine around Sussex the last couple of days, presumably on route learning.

A visitor to Bognor Regis this evening:

It does and indeed there have been at least two supposed simplification schemes launched during my sixteen years working on the railway, each time instead of simplifying tickets, just seemed to make the system even more complicated. Example, Gatwick Airport to London (insert terminal of preferred choice here) where all you need are at most half a dozen tickets, single, return, off peak or peak, period return and a London Travelcard (until that idiot Mayor scraps them that is). Last time I checked there were over fifty different tickets depending on preferred operator (as if a overseas visitor could even tell the difference between Thameslink, Southern and Gatwick Express, to most a train is a train is a train) whether there is an R in the month and which London Terminal (or if you forget to get off, Luton) you hope your train goes somewhere near. Ironically, there are different fares for Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Southern trains yet they are all operated by the same company and on occasion, the GatEx and Southern stock work each others services!!!

A lot of TVM's these days seem to be over engineered and clearly designed by a committee who never actually uses the things in real life. The first NSE ones were better, press button next to station you wanted to go to, press button for single or return, hand over money. If station not listed, go and see one of the nice people in the ticket office or stick ten pence in the Permit to Travel machine (a car park ticket machine painted red basically) and cross your fingers... I swear the running of the country is gradually being taken over by the occupants of the Golgafrincham B Ark...

Hornby did another chrome finish TTA, it was a promo model for Railfreight branded the Think Tank.

The backstory of the fictional CD&LR is that they ran a simple passenger service the full length of the branch from the junction with the main line at Davenport to Coppertown but how to provide that on the plank was presenting a bit of a problem. The Athearn Blue Box Budd RDC which I was using for gauging purposes during construction, was unpowered and so returned to the spares box. A Walthers EMC Doodlebug unit was also trialed but it’s archaic rubber band drive (Seriously? Who still makes these things?!?) meant it was operationally hopeless. Then quite by chance as I was working on finishing the S12, No. 21, I came across this photo: https://railpictures.net/photo/187086/ A Pennsylvania Baldwin S12 running a single coach in push pull operation in a seemingly homemade kind of way, driving controls (presumably) being located in the corridor connection door and clearly fitted with a large headlight. A cheap old Athearn coach was found on eBay for a few pounds and I got to work. The doorway was blocked off and a window set into it, horn, lamp and radio aerial fitted and a coat of the company green and grey applied plus lettering above the windows (Admission, only on one side, the other side in theory will never be seen!!) and paired with the SW7 or S12, it works and fits in the scratch built platform, another wooden lolly stick and tea stirrer production, perfectly. The following two pictures show the platform, some shrubbery now added and the shed roof still not fitted! The next few weeks saw further scenic materials added, a fuel tank has now appeared adjacent to the shed along with some trees and ground cover. Also arriving is a third diesel locomotive, an Atlas undecorated Alco RS3 that has been sitting on my to do shelf for years was finally brought into the workshop and adopted for this project, emerging as No. 29. Further pictures show the work up to date with more scenic material added although the shed roof is still not finished!! Next up will be finishing off the scenic, wiring in all the lights, a small plank added for a fiddle yard off to the left and finish the roof of the shed!

The Coppertown, Davenport & Lancaster Railroad – Coppertown Terminus Another plank project, this came together because I found a useful looking piece of MDF and thought, why not make a small layout on it. A basic rule was established, wherever possible this was to be built using whatever spare parts or bits I already had, recycled materials and rolling stock that was old second hand items that could be easily upgraded and repainted. The Coppertown, Davenport & Lancaster Railroad was duly born, set at the small diminutive terminus of a twenty mile short line branch somewhere in the US. I envisaged a shed, a couple of small ancillary buildings, simple track setup and a small one coach length platform for the local passenger traffic. The shed was the first part tackled, scratch built in wood using lolly sticks and tea stirrers: The first rolling stock for the short line came in the form of a cheap spares/repair Athearn Blue Box SW7: It was completely stripped down, cleaned, primed and sprayed into the chosen livery, dark green with grey sills/chassis as No.24, with the name COPPERTOWN along the hood. As that was coming together, the plank was also worked on. The track was scrounged from a box of old bits, put together and tested, a homemade backscene, printed onto sticky label paper and applied to a foam board surround, enclosed the plank, an unpowered Athearn Budd RDC was acquired mainly for gauging purposes and a Blue Box boxcar body became a grounded ancillary store shed. The second bit of motive power to arrive came from Hattons scrap pile, a very old Mantua 0-4-0ST that someone had modified to 0-4-2ST format at some point, old, cheap and tatty, but suitable for this project: This next shot taken a few weeks later shows an additional building, sourced from a box in the garage since being removed from an old layout twenty years ago, again reusing what I already have and the second diesel to arrive, a Athearn Blue Box Baldwin S12 that was acquired cheaply and received the same comprehensive overhaul treatment as the SW7, becoming No. 21.

My little one, now seven with some autistic traits which makes him a very impressive stickler for detail does like to "run" (note, not play) and will only do so under strict supervision. Actually he is at a stage where I can leave him to it whilst I fiddle on the workbench nearby. I keep breakable by leaning on items away from leading edges but he does insist on his own touches from time to time, hence why my Scottish Highlands early to mud 1980's scenario has acquired TPWS grids and a bit of temporarily applied third rail... I also cobbled together a large logo 37 with unpowered chassis from spare parts for him. At some point it will be discreetly replaced with a more accurate example.

Still hoping for a Southern Class 319 if I am honest, a Connex one would be a happy alternative though.

Interesting to see a second run of GWR 158's, I am pretty sure the first run still haven't arrived yet!

Thanks for that. I can safely assume they were not based on an actual prototype!! I do like them though....

Actually their boxes are rather good, in my experience on the odd occasion I have plucked a wrecked Athearn Blue Box from among the detritus, better than the contents...

The ex London Overground ones that came down south were initially put into service repainted but still with pantographs and original 3x2 low back seating. They were then sent off somewhere (Wolverton?) to have the full interior refurb and lost the pantograph. A couple were used still in Silverlink purple for crew training, one allegedly did get used in passenger service for one trip in purple but no photographic evidence seems to exist. If you are looking at photos of the earliest days of Southern 313 operations, they were initially restricted to the East Coast at first. If they have manual blinds above the drivers windscreen and no Coastway decals on the Southern livery then it is pre refurb and the pantograph was still there. By the time they were spread to the west coast, they were all refurbished. As a result of the former Great Northern 313's coming under the same umbrella group (GTR - although you would be forgiven for thinking that Southern and Thameslink were two entirely separate companies as they have absolutely nothing to do with each other!) any working 25kv system parts on the Brighton 313's were swapped in a deal with Hornsey Depot for dud parts, these being fitted to the Brighton ones to maintain the weight but not needed to be operational, Hornsey getting an easy supply of spare parts in return. This of course means that 313201 has no operational 25KV capability at all and there are no working spares left, so the 'just stick a pantograph on it and we can use it on railtours' brigade of Internet "experts" are in for another disappointment there. Not sure if I have shared this one before, here is 313108 (later 208 of course) just after arrival down south:

Just had another comedian. Selling a job lot of (admittedly pretty worthless) Lledo Days Gone buses and been offered three quid AND they want free postage which considering it is going to cost about four quid to post either demonstrates the prospective buyer is an absolute chancer or the old Lledo stuff has actually managed to descend past worthless into negative equity on the scale of value!!!

It will never run on the national network again, at best it will make 20 mph on the EKR, probably being shoved by a diesel. It was by far and away the worst one of the lot in terms of driving and reliability. It was only the fancy paint job that saved it. Someone enthusiastically said to me just before they were retired, they were really great, my response was, you don't have to drive the festering pile of scrap....

Unfortunately, most multiple units, especially in recent times have crumple zones in each end of each car, in the event of a heavy collision involving an Electrostar for example, the driver is squished and so is anyone unlucky to be sitting on the bog in the small toilet at the time...

Actually a Chinese supplier, seems to specialise in churning out lots of potentially useful bits and bobs. I have had some stuff from them over the years, the N scale tippler type bogie wagons in particular. I think the rolling stock is produced from now disused tooling once used by mainstream manufacturers although thus far I have been unable to identify their origin. All orders I have placed shipped from China but they may now have a place in the UK with stock.

Arty middle of the night shot down Littlehampton:

377313 put to bed for the night in Littlehampton outside shed sidings:

Colas Class 70 through Barnham bound for Earlswood via Horsham this evening:

Well, I wasn't expecting to find this parked in front of my train down Bognor Regis at three this morning!!!

Placeholder listings, not allowed. For a laugh, I have reported it!