'CHARD

How's Lindridge Road shaping-up our kid? I'm trying to picture where the name's from and it's just come to me - it's a country lane over by Roughley unless I'm very much mistaken. Would love to see an update on this compact when you get chance, progress on these is what sustains us roundy-masochists

http://www.railphotoprints.co.uk/index/detail/2261/D264-Dundee-1965298.jpg.html

Her modified nose looks fresh...

What did I say about freight, okay it's not the Waverley, but it is 5095 in 1966:

http://www.railphoto...RPC670.jpg.html

This photo is edible.

I always like photos that prove what these locos' final livery was. Here's 8572 withdrawn after the closure of the Waverley and dispatched for scrap, at Bescot. GSYP to the end. What a waste.http://www.railphotoprints.co.uk/index/detail/3319/D8572-Bescot-010969-RP113.jpg.html

I couldn't believe where an innocent/ casual Google landed me. Certainly somewhere I'd never been before.

Looking at it, it was as though the contributors had no conception of quite how outrageous it actually was!

You're spot-on about Begbie mate - well, him and that Rebus fella after meeting a snout

The units are boxed up ATM mate. Platform 4 at Teviotbank was relaid last night amid massive changes WRT the branch to Lessismore - of which more on the layout blog when the camera's feeling up to it.

The reason for this nugget being that P4 at TK is now deliberately designed to take a Met Camm triple off branch railtours (I love the new layout BTW, it's cured all my nagging hang-ups, apart from the one about my grey hairs). It will also host Carlisle - Teviot turnbacks as was possible before, these will be 12A L/Ws, clearly.

The bay was measured out using a trio of GUVs - there's a risk of knocking off the edge of the world inherent in the position of the track, and no way was I risking a shiny DMU. Once the layout moves on a stage, and I get the wagon sundries off the 'bench the DMUs will re-enter the fray.

That should give me time to blog Leith Central's DMU allocation profile in the meantime and decide the i.d of my Mets, and whether I should indulge the lone example of Cravens that 64H had.

I somehow expected input from Class 20 devotees on this particular blog. But so far, nothing!

Maybe the 20 nutters aren't too much into their model railways or don't stray out of the Nottingham - Skeg axis 1987, where the prototype's concerned?

Either way, this is a wake-up call I'd dearly love to get some discourse going on. Just what did these locos get up to? I know some strayed onto the Waverley, but how often, how far and on what?

Oh man oh man, that's a scarce one from the Spavens. Fantastic spot!

Reminds me, I need to give David a shout before I head up to Edinburgh in the next day or two.....

Good man, wondered when you'd bite!

I wondered if it may have been partly a loan for crew/ fitter familiarization before the GTi versions arrived all doughnuts and wheelies, it might explain the timing and duration

If you ain't careful, I'll start on the Holbeck Type 4s before the BRCW story gets told

Mate, you wanna see the XL spreadsheet that tracks the 64B allocation month by month - I swear this is madness....

Now, it's gonna take more than coffee to prepare me for the minefields that are Classes 24, 26 and worst of all - the Claytons. I bet if I look hard enough I'll find some horrors in rogue 25 loans from the west, too.

At least the Deltics should be relatively straightforward

I think early on there was a fair amount of 66A activity with these, Bradford Barton titles seem obsessed with them on shed there. They got some South Walean Type 3s literally a month or two before Haymarket, and 65A was in at the start with a few too.

I just unearthed another, D6937 which has the same history as 6838. Doh! EDIT about to happen...

That's absolutely correct. The square panel as applied to all of 260-266 at rebuild, is markedly similar to that on the rebuilt Class 29 NBLs.

Be sure to take a nice square-on shot of the Western insignia on the black & white SCSxxxM Y type for me

If I could find a way to make the Nokia E71 talk to this Tosh then I could see if I already have one, from the masses I took on May 30th when I stumbled upon the place by complete accident.

Failing that I'll do as you suggest!

EDIT, just checked the phone: FAC4, FRA16, Western C4 DL2497?, FPD225, the list goes on.... YES! Found her, in the Edinburgh shed, but she's obscured by a Lothian 'Basil,' and it's the front end only.

I shall probably start with the Fleetlines, TBH, as they're already in a state. Of stripped or part-repainted.

One of the Panoramas (the madder and cream) will be freelance, and I'll be doing a distressing job on the Bristols, plus sorting out appropriate destinations, fleet numbers and registrations of all but the Y-types. If I go to the invasive stage, then the SBG EFEs may be opened up and stuff done to the interiors, but not convinced of that as time well spent yet.

Whatever happens, the Ys will be left to last. I hope to visit Lathalmond in August to stock up on photos of suitable subjects, and I expect the Ys will follow on from there as an autumn project.

In the spirit of my original Lesismore ethos, there'll probably be about three or four buses posed on the layout at any one time.

LOL! You're bang-on, of course. I mean, a Bachfar 24 for 65A, no-one could ever baulk at that....

I must confess I'm liking the idea of a doing an ETHEL to leave there on indefinite loan, just for the challenge factor. Unpowered, DCC soundchipped. Am I ill?

Which reminds me, there's a split-box 37 here somewhere for work....

No idea why I've not visited your blog before Bob, but I love the lamented Glasgow - Aberdeen main line; I've only scratched the surface of it, and most of this since buying the awesome coffee table book on lost ScR lines late last year. It's a great subject, and if I could afford to spread my leisure time any thinner it would be my second strand for research after the Waverley (and my other favourite branch/ secondary network, the Moray Coast lines).

I'll keep popping in to see what's been going on, great to see more fledgling ScR '60s projects, really great!

'Chard, thanks. That's the clearest illustration I've ever seen of the boiler port variations on a 47. It's a huge help to me, so thanks again. It looks like you're doing a marvellous job here!

 

Dave.

Thanks mate, that's very kind. My intention here was not to do a finescale job of the conversion, no disrespect intended to those that can and will. What I wanted to achieve was an adequate representation of the correct roof type for that particular batch. It was also a matter of breaking a psychological barrier to carve into a new generation model for the first time, in my case!

After all, physical work on the rest of the loco is confined to knife and files on the bogies and around the windcreens. Yes, I capitulated eventually - admittedly nine months after getting the locos, but basically only a matter of days from getting them on the W/B, and minutes from looking at photos of them in the unmodified state.

The biggest surgery was the cooler group's external appearance, and Lima's donor moulding is sufficiently accurate for me in that respect. With that done, the boiler exhaust was a no-brainer. What this doesn't adequately reflect is the length of time spent filing everything to fit.

Massive thanks to the Class47 website because it was reference to their photos alongside the Bachmann and Lima shells that finally gave me the impetus to do the work. It was also while searching here that I found the photo of D1971 at Hawick: result! The other upside was the discovery that 1536 and 1547 are correct with the as made Bachmann boiler-port configuration. That effectively means that the fabric of my blue trio is physically finished.

Thanks Peter, I'm going to look out for that, because tonight I've sorted out how I'm going to finish the headcodes (albeit tomorrow when I ain't so exhausted!). When they're done the bodies go back on for now, and it's roof and underframe tweaks prior to weathering. Peaks on the W/B tonight, along with a 24 and 25, expect a new blog entry tomorrow.

Cheers!

I think you're right. When I look at this in the context of the Corporate Image guidelines I think the intention was to go uber-corporate, in the Swinging Sixties, and everything's a bit - well - weird, really. It totally shouts '1968' though, and therefore that's perfect for me

Imagine the cruel knowledge that this shiny Standard Type 4 at the head of some corporate Blue & Grey MkIs represented the future of everyone else's main line, but not your lifeline...

In other news, Class 40s are doing my head in, I just looked at details of individual cab ends on the 260-266 batch and I need to lie down.

For me Simon, you've gone a very long way in this blog post to defining what a sizeable part of this hobby is about; and when it's done well, as you have - it captures a real essence.

That hard-to-achieve element is the suspension of disbelief, and you've summed it up in the line 'sometimes I will squint at eye level and see my grandfather climbing up the cab of Kestrel.'

That's got this hoary old punk a mite moist-eyed, as it takes me back to Patricroft in June 1968 when my late uncle hoisted me, as a very wee boy, up onto the footplate of a Black 5 courtesy of his neighbour, a 9H driver by name of Fred Hassall, if memory serves.

Great stuff - you're practically single-handedly bringing that nebulous element of rail theatre alive - nice one!

That last B&W shot of the BR/Sulzer with a single MkI is absolutely essence. I love it.

Now to look at i-Tunes having read those comments....

Michael, a little OT if nobody minds, but does that date for 9009 make ALYCIDON the only pre-TOPS loco with a domino? If that's so, I am feeling an awesome alt-reality for a surviving Waverley in 1973....

'CHARD

My hunch regarding ECML dominos was correct, Napier Chronicles' site, for its year 1975 page, has a photo of 55015 with its domino in July of that year. The rationale for yellow buffer shrouds is that the ER painted Kestrel as similar as possible to its Deltics.

'CHARD

Hehehehe, amazing what happens when you pop out forra while, eh! Thanks for the kind comments. In my alt.reality - and bearing in mind she is undecorated on the other side - I fancied making her 54001, after the Falcon logic, although I take the point on power outputs... If I'm not mistaken the ER had their earliest domino Deltic in 1975.... hmmmmm. In this guise she's joined the Deltic pool anyway and when we get really deviant at Teviotbank she appears as a Haymarket kick-out on a fill-in local turn B)

The rationale behind my totally corporate blanding-out Brush's elegant design was to take the early 70s livery dogma to its ultimate - hence while I picked out the kickplates in silver, all the windscreen surrounds have gone drab yellow. I started off with the short wrap-rounds that stop at the cab door, a la Class 50, but she definitely looks better (dare I say it) with the Class 47 style treatment. Staff at Finsbury Park retained the logotype name central bodyside, but I have toyed with a black-backed WR Class 47-style KESTREL plate, that would be lovely.