John M Upton

If they have any sense then this batch will be allowed to be put out of their misery and then they pop over to the scrappy and buy up any significant usable parts off the carcasses (which won't be many) for a future preserved example when better examples become available. The rescue of 58016 seems to me a bit curious however. Almost all the 58's offered were demics, long out of use, missing bogies in two cases (they had to be returned to DBS after arrival at the scrappy) except 58016 which was used abroad, seemed in decent nick and just in need of some bits. I do wonder if DBS threw that one in the first batch specifically to attract the preservationists! Of the other classes on that list, I expect to see several Class 09's find new homes plus I would be very surprised if split box 37042 is allowed to be torched.

Err what layout? Need a link here!!

Those 60's will be the heavily stripped and leg shoved out of bed demics. Only a complete lunatic with more money than sense will go anywhere near these with their wallet. Of course someone will try though... Having said that, if any of them have a sound body shell, chassis and bogies then they could be bought by one of the private European operators, re-engineered with new probably US power plant and put to use overseas.

It is one of these that I am hoping to model either by converting the all blue model to blue/grey and going on from there or waiting until Hornby produce a blue/grey one and then making some sort of custom transfers for it (unless Fox can be persuaded to produce them for us perhaps?) Don't let the Gatwick branding think this will be limited to Gatwick to Vic, these actually wound up all over the South Central division, Bognor being a popular place for them to wind up in going from the number of pics I have seen of them over the years off their proper turf.

Seem to have spent the later morning/early afternoon listening to Bonnie Tyler's greatest hits! A slightly odd end to a rather surreal week...

Ah... Just seen who the seller is, say no more.

"Reasonable Condition" :lol: :lol: The sort of thing I would pick up at a car boot sale for 50p, strip the paint of it and respray. (Did I just hear a 'collector' having a seizure in the background?)

The gears can be forced on to the Bachmann wheel sets (once you have taken off one of the wheels of course!) and need a little care to get them lined up right but it has been worth the effort to exorcise the crudomatics out of the fleet.

...and speaking of oddly coloured BRCW machines, for some reason when I went onto Ebay a few minutes ago, they thought I might be interested in this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lima-Class-33-Diesel-loco-in-a-Green-Cream-Livery_W0QQitemZ260643008258QQcategoryZ69804QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%252BDDSIC%26otn%3D20%26pmod%3D130416207535%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D6566121488773632398 I think I will pass thanks... :lol:

All earlier Heljan OO scale models had the crud magnet wheels from new which not only attracted crud very quickly in service but came with it already liberally applied on when new out of the box!! These were changed to much better wheels on all their releases at about the time the first of the 58's came out. I have had both earlier and more recent Class 33's, the most recent releases I have purchased have had the new type wheel and have as a result not needed any drastic action. Up until now to replace the wheelsets on the earlier crud magnet versions, I used the replacement coach wheel sets made by Bachmann (about three or four quid for a pack of twelve sets) and simply transferred the cog from the Heljan axle to the Bachmann one for much improved running.

The nearest I can think of in recent times was when a 8 car Class 377 formation got derailed on a landslip just north of Redhill and once re-railed was hauled to Selhurst by two four car Class 171's. The identical couplings (about the only thing that marks a 170 from a 171) actually made sense that day! Sixteen car train on the Brighton line though, just as well they were not all electric and taking juice!!

Or indeed any form of punctuation it would seem...

It may be an early test shot but I'm delighted to see that the cab face looks pretty spot on to me. The drivers side window needs to be modelled in the open position which hopefully will be done and it is going to have to have a driver in there as well. Love the fact that luggage racks are planned too, never expected that. About the only thing missing will be a DCC programmable micro LED and smoke generator unit attached to an arm at the cab window for the drivers cigarette which will glow and emit a puff when stopped at a station!!!

I was watching an old VHS(!) of Crompton workings and that featured two TC sets in the formation, both in NSE livery but I had to rewind the tape just to double check I was not seeing things, sure enough there were seven cars in the formation with the 33 at the back, the first TC had only three cars so they weren't unknown to run as a 3-TC presumably when the TCF was out of use for maintenance I presume. Newhaven Marine springs to mind, indeed it still fits into that category. It still had a parliamentary train even now but no one can actually join or alight there anymore due to the dangerous state of the station buildings, a taxi would be provided for any intending passenger to meet the train at Newhaven Town. All thanks to the lunacy that is the rail regulations dreamt up by some 'not on this planet' civil servant in a locked basement in Whitehall I presume!!

He is no longer a registered user by the looks of things, methinks either Ebay saw something fishy was going on

My first instincts are this is some mid teens tea leaf (probably one of those featured as a fuzzy blob in a nicked Vauxhall Corsa with no insurance on Police Interceptors on Channel 5) who is offloading some bent goods. Something is very much not right about this... Pity he didn't think to also steal a digital camera so we could see what he is actually fencing selling!!

Further oddballs in the VEP fleet were one unit that had all its internal partitions stripped out in one DTC/DTS long before the 4-VOP concept came along. Then there was the mixing of open plan DTS's from VOP's and DTC's from VEP's to produce half and half mongrels in the closing days of Connex rule. Another oddball was the VEP that had a 4-TC driving trailer inserted in it and ran as such for many years, indeed I believe the driving trailer still exists somewhere. The CIG with the hopper vents was indeed a Ashford rebuild and used CEP hopper vents and tinted glass, it became 1864 at Brighton in later years and on a hot day a burning smell could still be detected inside the affected DTC. Finally I recall a unit numbered 1800 in the Phase 2 refurbished 4-CIG series running on Brighton turns, the thing is it was three cars of a VEP with a 4-CIG trailer (may have been the undamaged leftovers from the Purley crash?) but because only VEP's with their internal door handles and window bars were allowed on the East Grinstead branch and CIG's were not it had to take a number in the CIG series to avoid it getting sent down there, therefore unique being numbered according to the minority of its formation. There is a lot of modelling potential in the VEP's and I can forsee a LOT of money leaving my wallet when they arrive and that is just for all the paint and transfers I will be needing!!

Looking good so far, indeed the only worry I have is how well applied the NSE livery will be. Hornby's record on NSE livery accuracy has been utterly appalling up until now unfortunately. As it is I already have plans to repaint two of these, one in blue/grey and the other in blue/grey Gatwick service livery.

Chris Rea - The Road To Hell Specifically at this point 'Daytona' which sounds more like a Leyland National on full chat than a Ferrari to me but never mind...

Some Lego is now fetching utterly ridiculous sums on Ebay including well OTT prices for sets still available in the shops. Star Wars Lego in particular seems to attract the over enthusiastic full of wallet.

Ah, look at the seller name. SMCtoys aka the late (and very much NOT missed) Southampton Model Centre who shut up their real shop (if you could call it that, they used to shut on a Saturday including the day when the model show was in town!!) and now concentrate on flogging well overpriced Lima tat on Ebay, this being but one of their examples. The prosecution also offers the following into evidence: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hornby-OO-GAUGE-R6103-Hornby-2000-TANK-WAGON-RARE-/200373499154?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item2ea730f512 They also list a lot of the other annual wagons as well and upwards of thirty notes a piece, avoid these cowboys like the plague!!

And swiftly following 47301 onto the depot is NSE liveried 47579 'James Nighthall G.C.': Pity the supplementary plate supplied is just a plain bit of metal with no detail on it. Next up will be any NSE 47 that does not require etched plates as since I last did NSE 47's back in the Lima/Hornby days of yore it appears that the cost of etched plates has risen horribly. Of course a Large Logo with NSE flashes one does appeal but the current large logo model from Bachmann doesn't fit any of the SF or OC allocated ones from the time due to the smooth both end head code boxes.