'CHARD

Pacers and Sprinters are not strictly nicknames, as these were bestowed officially by BR upon launch. 08s are commonly referred to as Jockos or three-fifties in operating circles. 03/ 04s - at least certain ones were referred to as flower-pots because of their chimney-shaped exhaust. 17 - Clayton 24 - fruit machine (I think) 26 and 27 - McRat (by the infantile bashers of the mid-80s Freedom of Scotland) 28 - Co-Bo or Metro-Vick 35 - Hymek 37 - also Syphon Warship refers to D600s and TOPS Classes 42/ 43 45 - Crompton 56 - grid or gridiron. 57 - bodysnatcher (idiotic nickname IMHO) 73 - ED 76s - Tommies 81 - 85 Roarers 86s - Cans 90 - Skoda 92 - Dyson

I hate to disappoint, but it's a Modelu tie-in, featuring Graham Hubbard dressed as Father Christmas with Sams Trains perched on his knee. In a gimp mask.

Getting back on track after the car-driver tropes, did the Blue Team ever deny that there would be a natural spin-off from the Class 69?

That much is relatively easy. Favourite single: Favourite song:

My point stands; that the Consett wagons were tweaked is not in dispute, but the following contention is risible nonsense: 'the Class 40 itself is an example of KR listening to feedback'

How is it? What feedback? If I read somewhere that people would like another Class Doo-dah bringing to market, and then announced a new Doo-dah, that is about the equivalent of what we have here. Whereas if I showed said folk the first Engineering Prototypes of my Doo-dah, noted their feedback, interpreted it and incorporated the valid parts of it into EP V2 of the Doo-dah, then THAT would be the substantive and relevant example.

Swordsman Upas Trollope Starfish

Another band added to the bill for Download 2023. 😏

I always think it unfortunate that the inescapable Only Fools and Horses was imposed on society when it was, forever tainting this loco name. (You may detect a level of antipathy from this quarter to 'Britain's favourite sitcom')

What a great tennis player he was.

I'm getting in touch with Baroness Gisela Stuart of Edgbaston about obtaining one of her famous ejectors for my maroon example.

Didn't realise she was that age already. Super-talented and gifted lady. R.I.P.

Niche liveries that had a chance of becoming reality, Episode 49. In 1998 50002 and 50050 were back on the main line under the auspices of D9000 Locomotives Ltd (DNLL). Directors of the organisation approached West Coast Traincare (WCTc) with a view to establishing a thunderbird fleet of around 7 Class 50s, starting with their existing pair, that would be overhauled to main line standards and allocated to Willesden (owners of other locos had been approached by this point). WCTc was running a procurement exercise for Thunderbirds at the time - even at one stage speculatively purchasing 47484 and 47802 from EWS at Wigan CRDC. (History records that this eventually resulted in the Class 57/3 conversion programme formulated by Porterbrook for Virgin.) Livery drawings of two alternative Class 50 designs were prepared in the Black, Red, White and Blue house colours of WCTc. Either side of a Lima model were painted in the two schemes; its fate hasn't been established*. Postscript: Possibly the first time this 'what-if' (that had a chance of becoming reality), has been revealed outside the small team that was directly involved at the time. * not strictly true. The loco was sourced from Sleepers Models in Erdington and ended up repainted BR Rail Blue and flogged on Ebay, I think.

'we have also been discussing the liveries we intended to make for the 40, including the Great Train Robbery livery' I don't want to get into the rights and wrongs of producing D326 again, but there's a huge misapprehension inherent in the above phrase. The livery in question is GSYP (green with small yellow panel), and 20 basically identical locos wore it. A number alone does not a livery make. Anyway, I declare myself out, I'll be happy to be proved wrong, and if the new EE Type 4 lives up to the marketing so be it [I've over 38 of the class already, about 80% of which are in Great Train Robbery livery, and I won't be swapping out.]

I had the beast a couple of weeks later, and stupidly thought it was christened after the local broadcaster! What a noob!

I've sorted that for you Terry. Fill your (Doctor marten) boots.

Brilliant resource is Hansard!!!

According to 'On Shed, Vol.9 'BR's Loco Works' (Kelsey, 2020): 'Coming just three weeks before the planned GWR 150 Celebrations was the May 1985 announcement by BR that they were to close the works...' This helps a bit. So exactly what date were the celebrations planned for?

They're headlining one of the stages at Download next year 😏

I guess it would be a tough job for any manufacturer to schedule all the preserved examples when in the case of Class 50s over 130 locos have been saved.

The one on the left in your picture (47572) hasn't got marker lights, it still has the original domino treatment, as this photo shows:

At the end of the day, it's about profit and ethics, and where anyone stands on these two curves is where the lines intersect, and that demarcates your philosophy I guess. I stand on the side of it's bad taste to market something with a ghoulish tag-line, and the GTR tag is being used here; it's not a Robin Hood style fairy story, so personally it's not for me. [And before anyone thinks I am being over-sensitive, I have a Class 24 modelled as D5122 which was destroyed, with total loss of traincrew at Castlecary ScR in September 1968. I don't have it because of this tragedy, but because it was a Waverley route performer in the period May - August of that year. It is in every way innocuous, and you have to know what you're looking for to trace this accident.]

Presumably; I doubt Class 73/9 are in there (although their MTIN figures are probably worse than the 484s) and Class 69s are freight locos. Any others are outliers and prototypes.

TBH, in original livery the split-box 40s only differed in the last two digits of their respective numbers, so a manufacturer may as well pick one at random, unless they perceive one has 'celebrity' status, because ex-works they're otherwise indistinguishable.

@61661 could possibly enlighten us when he sees this!!!