DY444

14 hours ago, Geep7 said:

Ok, so for modelling a 4-Rep. The outer 2 driving coaches were all-but identical to the 4-TC driving coaches above the underframe (Window layout, seating plan, roof layout etc.). Below though, and both driving coaches were mounted on 2 Mk6 motor bogies (very similar to those under a Class 73) with all the associated underframe equipment of an SR Mk1 style EMU. In between were a TBFK (Trailer Brake First Corridor) and TB (Trailer Buffet).

 

You could modify a Kernow/Bachmann 4-TC into a 4-Rep. Motorising could be the issue, but not impossible. I would perhaps suggest putting the motor in the Buffet car. The driving coaches are sorted, not much you really need to do to that, except add the underframe equipment, and change the bogies (MJT cast sides?). The TFK you can probably do easily by swapping the sides from a standard Bachmann Mk1 BFK. The trailer buffet could be problematic, as Bachmann haven't done an RB in their MK1 range yet, however, you could do a Rep from the second batch built in the 1970's, which used standard Mk1 RU's, and i'm pretty sure Bachmann do one of these.

 

Either that, or you can go down the etched brass sides route, MJT do the sides for the 4-TC, but not the Rep, so you'd need to get a pack of these (if they are available) and then Comet brass sides for the TFK and TB.

 

If i'm honest, it sounds like a lot of work, even for someone who hasn't recently returned to the hobby.

 

As regards the rest of the EMU stock, it was rare, but the odd 2/4Epb did venture west of Basingstoke, generally going to Eastleigh works. 2-Hap's definitely did go west of Basingstoke, usually tacked to the front or back of a 4-Vep. I'm sure there were rare occasions, but I don't think the Bournemouth line saw very many 4-Cep's or 4-Bep's, especially in pre-rebuilt condition.

 

Thumpers were definitely used in this area though, although were the more usual 3H/3D variety. Actually into the 1970's there were only 4 2H sets, and by the 1980's these had been made up to 3-car sets by inserting a surplus 2-Epb Driving Trailer from disbanded Tadpole sets.

 

Once you get into the Network SouthEast era, things get a tad more complicated, and units were moved around between divisions, sets reduced in length (i.e most of the DEMU fleet were reduced to 2-car sets by removing the centre car), all in an effort to keep this running.

 

As already mentioned, this, and a lot more besides is on the Blood and Custard website. There is probably a bit too much information for the casual reader who just wants an overview, but it really is an undisputed resource of Southern Region unit information.

Just a pedant point.  The REP motor coaches had a lot more equipment under them than other "SR Mk1 style EMU" motor coaches as they had 2 power circuits and two sets of camshaft equipment.

Concur with the rest. 

HAPs had booked work to Bournemouth over the years, usually on peak hour "93s".   

In my experience CIG/BIGs were quite unusual on the Bournemouth line in the 70s.  They did appear occasionally but not very often.  They became very common later.  Likewise with CEP/BEPs which were even rarer in my experience as I don't recall ever seeing one on the Bournemouth line in the 60s or 70s - but again they became common later.

5 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

The 4EPBs were limited to 75mph by their gearing and shouldn't have run with VEP/BEP/CEP etc...

 

 

There was a period in the late 60s and early 70s when the Guildford via Cobham service was booked VEP + EPB.  Occasionally these turned up on the Bournemouth line and I recall travelling from Eastleigh to Southampton one summer afternoon in 1967 in a VEP/EPB formation - the EPB was 5115 in green.

On 03/01/2023 at 20:15, New Haven Neil said:

Can't remember where this is - its 1976 though!  Birmingum?

 

Yes - just past Grand Jn with the exchange sidings in the foreground.  Taken from a train heading towards St.Andrews Jn perhaps?

On 16/01/2023 at 09:37, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Class 421 4-CIG 1810 at Wandsworth Road on 07/09/01 (my photo)

For some reason I never got used to CIGs on the SED 🥴

21 hours ago, ModRXsouth said:

Robertcwp -

You ask “For me, the question is where the trains will come from.” 
Southern’s stock position is already tight, with shortened Class 377 formations following the Class 455 withdrawal plus the south coast Class 313s are also due to be replaced. As I speculated in my earlier post, could the additional Belmont services be coming from extending the London Overground’s Class 378 West Croydon terminators?

Perhaps LO then also take over Waddon and Carshalton Beeches stations and calling services, with the Southern services becoming fast Epsom - Cheam - Sutton - Wallington - West Croydon - Norwood Junction - London Bridge. 

I'm not sure.  Despite the loss of the 455s and the service reductions, my one man straw poll suggests they still comfortably manage to handle the passenger numbers on most routes most of the time.  AIUI the plan is getting some 377/5s back from SE (eventually!); the two 377/1s have already come back I believe.  In a more sensible world the owners of the 379s would reduce their lease demands and they would go to GN allowing some or all of the GN 387/1s to go to GTR. 

The 5 car 710s were built with the intent of releasing 378s from the NLL to add additional services on the ELL.  Potentially those additional services are no longer required given the reduction in commuting so those released 378s *could* be used instead to allow the W.Croydon service to be extended to Belmont.  Certainly turning them round at W.Croydon is not ideal; they used to block the Dn Wallington for several minutes whilst using P4 and the reversing siding and now they block the Up Wallington crossing into P1.  Extending them would certainly make W.Croydon easier to operate.  The flip side is the 3 aspect signals between W.Croydon and Sutton; the resignalling a couple of years ago just replaced this like for like apart from one extra section between Carshalton Beeches and Sutton.  They should have put 4 aspect in whilst they had the chance but they didn't.  Oh and I don't think the affluent residents of Carshalton Beeches will take very kindly to their semi-fast LB service sailing straight through.  

However knowing how things work wrt to TfL, the London Borough of Sutton and the present day railway in general, the most likely option is that the Belmont scheme will be built and only be used as a bolthole to put a train away when the service goes to hell in a handcart and Sutton station gets clogged up.  

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

Is this really Levelling Up dosh adb? If so that seems weird to me. I know that parts of Surrey are not as one would imagine and I don't know what the demographic of the Belmont area is these days but, hell's teeth this i the amount our whole district  of about  100 thousand folk has just received in an ex Pit area.

Levelling up my ar$£.

P

It's not Surrey unless you are Royal Mail, it's part of the London Borough of Sutton.  The borough which "enjoys" amongst the worst, if not the worst, public transport in London and for all practical intents and purposes doesn't exist as far as TfL is concerned.  The last notable improvement was Thameslink 35 years ago this May.  Everything proposed since has bitten the dust for one reason or another (Tramlink extension,  Overground extension, Crossrail 2 and the increase in Thameslink frequency). 

The council has been, let's say, complacent about transport for donkey's years but has been stung into action by doing the impossible - losing seats to the opposition tories in the prevailing climate at the last local election (and the one before that too).  Hence the very public show of dissent by the council against the ULEZ expansion and the application for levelling up funding for the modest improvements at Belmont.  Political concerns aside, the Marsden is definitely the other key reason behind this.  

May or may not be accurate but I've seen a report, supposedly from a Hornby employee, that the original edit included an individual who passed away very recently and it was decided at the last minute to edit that part out.  As I say might be total nonsense.

On 08/01/2023 at 13:05, Northmoor said:

Also worth noting that the "racing stretch" on the SWML isn't in the New Forest but between Farnborough and Basingstoke, which is almost dead straight.  The highest speeds recorded at the end of Southern steam were all in this area.

The run downhill from Litchfield Tunnel towards Winchester was another where the REPs frequently got quite a shift on with an "enthusiastic" driver.

I agree entirely about the New Forest - that is a right switch back, any attempt at high speed round that lot would have ended up as a pile of scrap metal in the forest.

On 27/12/2022 at 21:21, bécasse said:

Is it, perhaps, worth mentioning that the first six 73s (or JAs as they were) could operate as (powered) converter vehicles between air-braked and vacuum-braked stock, much in the way that the first two MLVs could. I think that the reasoning was that newspaper trains (many of which conveyed limited - eg a BSK - passenger accommodation) could be formed 2-HAP (or 4-CEP) + JA + vans. I am not at all sure that it ever happened in practice but I have seen a train in motion formed 4-CEP + MLV + a string of fitted 16 ton MLVs (with old-style head code 16 on the CEP if anyone wishes to replicate it).

Actually most BR DB locomotives could do this because internally they worked as translators when hauling VB stock.  On most DB locomotives the driver's brake valve controlled the BP pressure and equipment on the locomotive created a vacuum in proportion to that pressure.  That equipment doesn't care how the BP pressure was changed, providing the exhauster is running it just does its thing.  So if the BP pressure is varied by an AB locomotive coupled in front it will still work and you can operate a VB train with an AB locomotive.  It's not ideal as the exhauster needs to run which might require the engine to be running which might require it to be manned, or the batteries might drain, plus the lead driver has no vacuum gauge so doesn't know exactly what the train brakes are doing but preserved lines do it occasionally to allow a visiting AB locomotive to work with their VB stock. 

I am not aware of any concrete evidence this method of working occurred on the main line (apart from the SR tests in the early 60s) but there are (potentially apocryphal) stories that it did happen once or twice on the diversions between New St and Nuneaton when 56s were being used to haul the diversions and an electrically hauled VB train turned up unexpectedly. 

52 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

As modern axle counters don't require physical contact between wheels and the counter head I doubt that would work (apart from possibly damaging the head?) but St Simon will know for definite.  A bit of pressure on a level crossing treadle might work but I suspect would need a lot of weight to do so

I don't know if this applies to modern axle counter heads but I believe some earlier variants were able to be confused by such things as shovel heads and other similar metallic objects being passed close by (usually by accident rather than malicious intent)

9 hours ago, TRAILRAGE said:

your absolutely  correct. I think most if not all the Class 73  still running have had their Vacuum Brake pipework on the Bufferbeam removed.  I think they may have had the Vacuum Exhauster removed as well leaving an empty space under the Body.

In addition to the vacuum pipe, they also had a second air res pipe, two blue star engine air pipes and two blue star cable receptacles.  All those have been removed. 

On 21/12/2022 at 21:47, TRAILRAGE said:

Some extremley helpfulldetail shots here courtesy of Brian Daniels incredible Flickr collection.

 

 

Although some of the pipes have been removed from the buffer beam compared to earlier times

On 17/12/2022 at 14:12, keefer said:

'Miss Marple: Murder, she Said' is on TV at the moment and about 35 mins in, had a scene where Margaret Rutherford is hitting some golf shots in the field next to a railway embankment - one of the trains passing is a D600 Warship on (presumably) choc/cream coaches.

EDIT: just noticed that it is based on '4.50 from Paddington' and was made in 1961, so there will be more (G) WR trains at the beginning of the film 

Yonks ago I did some screen grabs of some of the railway bits of that film for the estimable Rugd1022 and in the process it was revealed the Warship was D603 Conquest

14 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

 

I'm wondering whether the train is actually from a carriage repair shop as the first Siphon look suspiciously shiny as if it has just been repainted.

13 hours ago, 62613 said:

The nearest repair shop was Wolverton.......

Indeed, however iirc there was a weekly Derby C&W to Old Oak Common (& vv) working to move stock to/from works for repairs, overhaul etc.  Again iirc this used to run via Market Harborough and Northampton and was electrically worked on the WCML.  Given the siphons in the train, I would suggest there is a good chance it is this working back to OOC.  Main works did smaller repairs on vehicles without always repainting them so some of the vehicles not being newly painted doesn't preclude it from being that working

On 08/12/2022 at 16:04, brushman47544 said:

 

You need to think about the origins of the orange stripe. As with the OHL warning flashes, they were provided to remind rail staff working on diesel (and before that steam) locomotives to take care climbing onto the roof, for example to refill a steam heating boiler, because the loco could be working under overhead wires and the current could jump and electrocute them.

 

DC third rail you have to touch to be electrocuted and I presume it was expected that rail staff could see where the third rail was and could therefore avoid touching it.

I suppose another factor is that on the Southern for example, train crew had worked in third rail electrified areas for their whole career and were used to it.  One of the major dangers in the early days of the 25kV rollout was that staff in the affected areas had to change long established habits whereas on the DC lines the staff had by and large grown up with it; and on the Southern many of the country depots like Ramsgate and Bournemouth had regular turns into the London area before the Kent Coast and Bournemouth electrification schemes.

On 27/11/2022 at 10:00, Edwin_m said:

These IDs don't have to be unique across the network, just sufficiently separated to avoid confusion.  

And even that wasn't uniformly observed as the WR and SR at various times used to plate auto signals in a generic way independent of the box area in which they were located. 

The WR had its line designation system for auto signals (UM, DM, UR, DR etc) so on a journey down the GWML you would encounter numerous auto signals plated "DM" (for example) in the areas of various boxes. 

The SR had its "WA", "CA" and "A" system for auto signals on the SWD, SCD and SED respectively, again across multiple box areas on the respective divisions.

16 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I want to freelance my layout with the name ‘Elton Bridge’ and with the signal box of the same name, I want to put the identity as EB on the signals.  Does anyone know if that’s already in existence, and if there is, a suitable alternative?

I don't see why it matters if it already exists.  The prototype has had multiple instances of the same prefix being used for different boxes at the same time, sometimes even on the same route.  For instance on the GWML for a period "SN" was Slough IECC and Swindon panel simultaneously and on the WCML for a period "WN" was Willesden PSB, Wolverhampton PSB and Warrington PSB simultaneously.  Today on the WCML "CE" is Crewe PSB and Carlisle PSB. 

There are numerous other examples of duplication so it quite simply doesn't matter.   

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Just read elsewhere that Roger Ford is awarding the Golden Spanner for the most reliable repurposed train this year to the IoW 484s so they can't be all that bad.

From a field of how many?  3 is it?  230s from the same stable and 769s being the others? 

3 hours ago, scumcat said:

I honestly don’t get why modellers wish to pit manufacturers against each other like this. Duplication is a bad thing. Accurascale or cavalex etc vs Hornby can only end badly for the hobby in general.

My view is that it depends.  There is a tacit assumption in "duplication is bad" that all models are created equal. 

I love class 50s.  This is something which dates from a journey as a child from Oxenholme to Carlisle in the late 60s; the noise of the departure from Oxenholme up the grade, experienced from the front coach, made a mark which never left. 

Consequently I have 10 Hornby 50s but it has been far from a flawless ownership experience.  The first 2 or 3 had traction tyres (🤦‍♀️) and faulty circuit boards, all have suffered seized bogie tower worm bearings, all have those totally hopeless coupler cams which stick and cause derailments, the lights don't work reliably, and they have stupid gimmicks like the rubber band rad fan, adjustable side louvres and cab door which is very hard to close if it opens.  They, like all my Hornby diesels, need far more maintenance than those from other manufacturers (just like the real thing then before anyone says that).  The model design is 20 odd years old.  I haven't bought a Hornby diesel for a decade because they all exhibit one or more of the same set of faults and/or design flaws.  Ergo imo the Hornby model won't do (especially at the current asking price) and a new one from somebody else is long overdue.

I see the argument that "we don't need another model of x" is only potentially valid when comparing like with like in terms of design, reliability, features as well as accuracy.  Otherwise you might as well say that the Triang Hornby 31 and 37 from the 60s have those prototypes covered and we never need anything else.  

51 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

What are the revisions? Just a different aluminium spec, or physical size & shape of parts?

No idea tbh.  The problems are at the car ends and affect the yaw damper mounts, roll-bar mounts, lifting plates and bolster.  The shape and size of a component and the material from which it is made are factors in its propensity to crack so revisions to one or more of those characteristics seems to me to be highly probable.

9 hours ago, Davexoc said:

So are any of the more recent sets going to have to go through the same process? or has there been an upgrade in the interim?  Thinking Lumo and soon to come Avanti sets....

AIUI Lumo yes but the Avanti and EMR sets will be delivered with the revisions incorporated.

18 hours ago, great central said:

Wonder who cops the bill?

Given they were specified by the Dft, it wouldn't surprise me if fell to the poor old taxpayers again.

I suspect Hitachi is bearing the cost.  AIUI it was provided with detailed information about the range of operating conditions and track characteristics to be expected and, whilst I don't profess to have any expertise in metallurgy and the science of materials, it appears the grade of aluminium chosen for critical components was not the best all rounder for the anticipated service environment.  So my reading of it is that Hitachi chose materials and manufacturing techniques which didn't suit the application.  There were also reports that the DfT was furious and its lawyers went in with all guns blazing and lurid coloured highlighter all over the contract clauses pertaining to product quality.  I see it clearly as product not fit for purpose so manufacturer pays and I think the DfT does too. 

Having said that there has been no information about who is bearing the cost but there have been multiple reports that Hitachi is both very defensive and extremely conscious of its reputation so it may be there has been a quid pro quo; Hitachi pays if the DfT stays quiet.    

12 hours ago, ess1uk said:

How long per set?

or will it vary on condition?

AIUI they are all getting the same modification because it's a systemic fault which worsens over time and so all are susceptible to it even those that have not shown any cracks to date.  No idea how long each set will take but the first one or two will no doubt take longer whilst they figure out the nitty-gritty of the repair process.  I saw a report that it is expected to take about 5 years to do the whole lot.

On 05/11/2022 at 08:02, rodent279 said:

What's the latest on this? Has any further analysis been done on the cause of the cracking, and what can be done to avoid it?

There's a repair programme being put in place to fix it.  I believe every set delivered so far will be done and there are a couple of GWR sets at Eastleigh as the guinea pigs for the programme.

9 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

And so the great cull of projects begins and just to cement our dependency on fossil fuels when we really need to be striving towards self sufficiency:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63507630

 

So previous Government practice of big infrastructure projects to help us through recessions appears to be on the line.

 

HS2 not mentioned, but you have to think it will be on someone's brief to review what hasn't been committed to....

Other reports suggesting that the BBC has got that wrong.  Neither Sizewell or, relevant to this topic, the already under way parts of HS2 are being reviewed.  Future bits of HS2 and NPR may however be a different story.