'CHARD

D364 - one of 64B's finest. The prang shot was all I knew until a month or two ago, then I found the Presflo shot (but forgot where - Cheers! - great that Bachmann are bringing these out too). The Scran ones I have never previously seen, so excellent spot there! I can't help wondering if the incident ties in with the shots in the Siviter book, of track relaying north of Shankend. The location looks suspiciously similar, but I've forgotten dates of the photos. Here's a thought to tie us back into the OP - I wonder (knowing smile) where Shankend box train register of the day ended up...?

When you look at the thread attached to the Shankend track diagram there are loads of comments regarding runaways on the legendary ruling Waverley gradients, also the use of redundant sidings as trap/ catch points. It appears (pet subject of mine) that during rationalisation plenty of hybrid/ non-standard infrastructure resulted, signals included. Shankend refuge siding (50 SLU) was infamously used to store, awaiting recovery, an EE Type 4 (<4 SLU) that had struck some runaways in winter 1965, including Presflos. I wonder if anyone on here knows of any more info than the tiny amount I have been able to find out about that accident. It happened north of the viaduct, in cutting. I have searched in vain for the accident report. Perhaps I should have started a new thread for this diversion...

Mate, I can't wait to see it. This morning's research, all thanks to other posters' links really, has unearthed some incredible stuff. Galashiels' track plan prior to its simplification has got me scratching my head; now lots of the NBR features are clearer I need to adjust my plans - good timing as it's my sidings that are still 'floating.' However, far more outrageous is the revelation that in 1966 BR drew up a scheme to strip out the LNER colour signals and replace with standard pattern semaphores. Gala was almost plain line by then, as I now know, so this is a very likely what-if that I will be exploring further: hybrid simplified track layout and BR standard semaphores. The branch is going to be worked on a one engine in steam/ fumes principle. I think that having found and absorbed all this, I'm now down to a single 'box at Teviotbank (Gala 'new' box replaced five in 1937, I have several possible sites for empty spaces vacated by boxes), and for this I'm going to attempt Galashiels box as it's a bit 'signature Waverley' to me in an economic if not aesthetic sense. For Midlem Road I'm thinking a generic platfom-based box such as that at Kershopefoot. I had not intended a level crossing on the layout but after seeing the Heriot pictures it is so tempting. Sorry about the thread hijack 64B-oy, but this has turned into a Waverley Route signalling resource centre, for which I am very grateful. Cheers!

http://www.signalbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1293 You are getting the benefit of my full distraction now. This thread includes an incredible south-facing shot of Shankend from the footbridge. And the 'box, steps end, in the distance. And it's good to know that not everyone waited til a train came into view before pressing the shutter. EDIT: I posted too soon - CHECK OUT THE CLOSE-UP OF THE STEPS-END! EDIT2: This link http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=24013 is incredible, but within the thread on The Signal Box site are links to pictures on the RailBrit site, including Kershopefoot which is a platform box.

OMG HOW evocative are they - the muted colours of the Heriot pic add to the poignancy. That 'STOP' sign is very much of the era, and the rails still embedded in the tarmac epitomise the whole futility of it all for me, always have since I saw them as a lad at numerous locations. Did the photographer capture anything else of the line immediately post-lifting, because - torture as they are - they're a little-recorded essential part of the history of the line. EDIT: just looked at the pics again - how bleak it appears beyond Fountainhall towards Gala. But how 'connected' must it have felt to have stood at the same spot with four shining ribbons of steel taking the eye as far as the horizon in both directions. Senseless criminal waste of a railway.... SECOND EDIT: I can't thank you enough for that link to the track plans on the Signal Box site: one click on the thanks button doesn't do it justice. I had no idea they were there, now I have the perfect blueprint for my stations, and I'm indebted. Awesome.

Righty-ho, 64B-oy. We're not well served by pictures of Shankend box, which runs counter to what you'd expect, given its landmark status visible from the B6399. However, the kinda 'modular' NB designs that characterise the route (excluding the rather unusual Brunthill and Fountainhall boxes, BR Standards both, and Galashiels) are well represented in the usual books on the line. There are web pics but they are not immediately obvious, even to me, which is why the only reference I've been able to give here is to Bruce M's Hawick shot. On www.cairndhu.net you've got Bruce McCartney's classic shot of the tall Hawick South box, also reproduced on p36 of Rowbotham's 'On The Waverley Route,' which book also contains Riddings (Sth) from the steps end (p74). The same author's 'The Postwar Years' has Whitrope box, steps end (p42), the rather different Gala box (p34), Heriot (p30), Hardengreen (a very tall box, p27), and last for now in the definitive Siviter Waverley Route volume, Riddings (Nth) (plate 37), Steele Road (50, steps end but obscured by tree), Riccarton Jct (Nth) (70), Whitrope (89, very clear shot of stairs and WC), and last of all Falahill (154). EDIT: I forgot about 'The District Controller's View,' which shows Niddrie Sth Jct (p51), and Heriot again (p15) -a little squarish cabin, but a nice clear shot of its stairs. I must say, with its focus on signalling/ control I expected more pics in here of 'boxes.

WILL YOUNG, doing a slow, piano-accompanied version of BUZZCOCKS' Ever Fallen In Love? on the Jonathan Ross prog.* * as in programme. Prog of any other sort banned from this house

Mine's a green one, but its colour is academic as she's going straight into ScotRail Saltire livery as ETH push-pull 14 103.

Well she didn't do it - the Major administration did, in the 1993 Act. I would never defend her policies but she did have other things to deal with before contemplating legislation for this. ATOC is a much later confection, and it is an industry body funded by those it represents, not an operator. RoSCos and other private third parties have bought all the new stock, so there is no justification in believeing that any of that old stock would be running now: its average age would be 40+.

New batch, without any question.

Thanks for the thread-bounce chaps, it's taken my mind off the dodgy numerals. Thanks to the thread bounce I now have no alternative but to plan a secondary layout project. Based on the Forest of Dean - I mean how incredible are those pics Robert's posted!!!!!! - it's the 'modern' traction equivalent of Lord of The Rings, absolutely magical. I'm speechless. Good job I can still type then, hey! Glad I got my crafty pre-order in! With a 14, 22 and handful of 16Ts you can immerse yourself in that lot. Think Pixie had a point t'other week when he mentioned the Parkend project. But for me it would be some fantastical winding single-track scene with tunnels and ungated crossings, with a remote esoteric siding. Oh that's just too awesome. Thanks for the earlier link.

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!

Not wishing to split hairs but the picture of two similar-looking chassis demonstrates not a great deal, and simultaneously everything there is to be said about this recall issue. I think if I could re-phrase what I was trying to say: the batches may look the same but, the first was constructed to a different set of standards, be that QA, assembly sequence, tolerances, method statement, staff training, testing - whatever. It is impossible for the layperson to tell the two apart, and equally impossible to know how crap the first batch was until you run a properly nailed-together specimen alongside it. HJ know and have acknowledged there was a problem with the first batch. I'm sure my four look similar to my newer pair under the skin, but quite clearly the Hairy Bikers have made up the recipe rather than Nigella or Worrall-Thompson, becuase they run like a bag of spanners in comparison. That's whay I say they are not of merchantable quality, because they cannot perform as designed, and that must include working in multiple with a correctly set-up one, and similar performance characteristics to a second batch example, within acceptable tolerances.

Don't anyone get too excited, this is 'Chard in web-based research mode (stop sniggering at the back, Viz readers). Found this, which I've never seen before, quite: http://www.trainnet.org/libraries/Thumbnaills/European/Page12.html In the middle, look for a yellow end and the word HAWICK. Don't ask me why it's there rubbing shoulders with all that German steam and V200s, but it is. And it's real Pennine MC territory too. Not literally of course, because Hull finescale modellers aren't in Roxburghshire. No, I mean in the DMU sense. Having got over-excited about my pair of Hornby Train-Packs, and bought my copy of DMU Formations & Allocations (Neolithic Era), I was ready to be an apologist for using Met-Cam triples when all the available photographic evidence pointed to Leith's power-trailer twin sets being used. Well the picture at the end of that link looks to me like a triple comprising Blue DMBS and TCL, and a lined Green DMCL. Christmas, Birthday all coming at once. Happy Days! In other news, I picked up a photo off eBay showing the line in the process of demolition at Hawick. Dated 1975 and taken from a point now in the sky somewhere above Morrisons, but then on the embankment between Lochpark siding and the south end of the Teviot Viaduct, it shows the platforms extant stretching over the viaduct, lamps still in place, but all buildings swept away, ballast excavated presumably for use elsewhere, and a few yellow machines presiding over things in a vulture-like fashion. Spoil is being loaded into a large dump truck, rather than a road-going muckaway wagon, in a hollow that I can only imagine has been created by the deliberate breach of the trackbed and removal of the first underbridge south of the station. Again one assumes the derelict trackbed was in use as a haul road to a bulking site somewhere in the vicinity of the carriage sidings. Bad Times.

On page 7554 of this thread I mentioned Heljan's party line as explained to me at Warley. It was simple: 'we will replace the chassis of your early locos.' In fact, I doubt they have any alternative now under the Sale of Goods Act, as the first batches are physically different and not of merchantable quality. This would not have been possible to quantify without comparison with a correctly manufactured Heljan Clayton, which is obviously now viable. I think this is where the stance taken back in March/ April will fall apart, for those able to take the trouble and effort. WRT Wigan, I must say I had overlooked it! Are there free replacement chassis there????

This Is Not A Song - THE FRANK AND WALTERS

This week I'm taking the bull by the horns (in the shape of four Claytons by the straps of a holdall) and visiting a Mr Rails of Sheffield, to mention one purveyor of model railway T&RS*, to physically present the scale of my 'issues' which I had hoped would be sorted by Xhristmas. I've personally no problem carrying out the work, the problem I have is radio silence. *other shopkeepers are available

I wonder..... Given the somewhat more visionary outlook that Lord Adonis is wont to stress to the industry, maybe he would take a different view if complaint is vociferous enough. Just maybe...

Unless by some wave of a magic wand there's a complaint from would-be purchasers upheld by the OFT, then I expect to see 60s in DRS and other liveries some time after hell has frozen over.

Not sure whether there's anything inherent from the driver's perspective, but I always avoid the leading vehicle in either diection, now the WCML p-way has had some serious hammer since the VHF TT was introduced a year ago, you get some serious lateral hunting at line speed, especially at tilt actuations.

...instantly and in one move justifying my retention of said monastral blue & pearl grey 9135 on my '68-set roundy from the previous '76 effort. Awesome! Although with my 'rolling stock austerity' disclaimer in play, she'll only make eceptional appearances when the East Coast diversions over the Waverley Route rule applies.

Very true. In many ways, there's little more than a family likeness lent by the cab windows, cross sectional body profile (stopping short at the solebar) and the shape of the cab flat face, but not its details. Bogies are completely different. Some individually added components/ etches could probably be shared with the 21 and the D600.

Awesome - the power of RMWeb - between us we definitively nailed-it! (Ahem!) Anyway, as we know from earlier in the thread, mine's gonna be a '68 ScR example, so that means all sorts of deviations from the livery norm

I just looked. You're right, but I'm not sure that I know the full answer... I seem to recall that the typeface I've seen on prototype photos bore more resemblance to - for want of a better comparator - the Westerns' numbers. The D was spaced more than on contemporary serif numbered traction, but what I'm seeing here is almost a sans-serif typeface dimensioned as though it were serif. It's definitely not quite there.

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....