'CHARD

Well one of the most striking must've been at Hawick, where Mansfield Road left the A7 adjacent to the Station pub, and passed beneath the platforms which spanned both it and the river Teviot on the viaduct of that name. A dozen miles or so away at the rural market town of Newton St Boswells, the A68 burrowed right under the heart of this classic junction station, whose component parts make for a compelling model.

'The Old Drunk' !!!! Rowley Birkin QC, young man!

Cars and their occupants in peril according to the 9.0 radio news.

It took me a second or two to figure out that 'he went on E*' wasn't something that D&A testing was invented for!

The door to the Central Trains staff room, off Birmingham Snow Hill station concourse, sported an improvised, sardonic sign for quite a while in the noughties which read 'Virgin West Coast Training Suite,' for the very reasons you've mentioned.

D59 was a recipient of single piece central headcodes within this time frame as well.

I'm sorry to hear that old chum. But you were too good for her anyway.

Oh dear, Heljan have even printed the headcode back to front. Doh!

Comedy Gold my friend! Glad you're enjoying these lovely locos!

Good job really, because if they'd applied the livery inside the loco you'd be less likely to see it.

Yes these tanks were for depot supplies, possibly the premises themselves were oil heated too. I don't have adequate local knowledge, but certainly loco fuel was tripped in by rail. Out of interest, can anyone confirm my supposition that the tanks were brought in the long way round via Peak Forest, only I can't imagine a trip down the DMU route as late as 1990. I'd love to be proved wrong!

Wow! Three years of dormancy caused me to catch up with a slew of old posts, one including the unfortunately apt Freudian Severn Valley typo Hampton Load (sic).

Can you, or may you?

I am resisting the urge to type Comedy GOLD. Oh, I failed.

Vans of PAL by any chance? I thought I'd heard this, but now it seems like it could have been a wind-up!

My Parkside pair are already poised on Bachmann van chassis (for consistency of operation all my vans are shod thus), but this is a welcome announcement and I look forward to adding a couple to the fleet when they are released.

Heljan hasn't manufactured enough 47555s.

The Waverley effectively ran as a portion of the Thames - Clyde during the winter T/T. In the last year of operation the set was formed BSK - SK - CK - BSK with the latter two coaches running through from St Pancras and the first pair attached at Carlisle. On TWFO a PMV worked through from Burton to Elgin as tail traffic, this was substituted by a GUV on MTHO. In 1968 the service operated until 8th June and from 30th September, as the 17 00 ex-Carlisle. Due to the timings and subsequent encroaching dusk, photos of this working are generally confined to Carlisle, Stainton crossing and Newcastleton. They show a dominance of high numbered Class 46s, Holbeck Class 45s and the occasional Brush Type 4 Footnote: Although I can't prove it at the moment, this probably meant the BSK and SK that shuttled between Carlisle and Edinburgh were SC prefixed vehicles and the other two were M.

Are we talking about the flat wagon, the type of container or the corporate livery?

That's very helpful! Both are viable contenders, thank you!

These days the saloons would be listed in one of the spotters' books, but I wonder if we could establish whether Carlisle had an ex-LMS example back in the late sixties, and its identity....?

LOL - no, I was thinking of the often overlooked summer of '75. I cribbed this detail from a weather page.... 'There were 8 consecutive days over 30C from 2nd-9th August which was preceded by 4 days from 28th-31st July and then followed by another 4 from 11th-14th August. The highest temperature of the month was 34.2C at Heathrow on the 8th. A weak cold front moved east on the 14th; temperatures reached 30C that day in London.' So not as pronounced as '76 but incredible nonetheless!

Somewhere I read recently that this loco had received FYE over its tired early XP64 blue, and before its standard blue repaint. The photo at Oxley in 1967 would have coincided with the mass applications of FYE over green, and to that extent the picture is inconclusive. Personally I very much doubt that D1733 wore XP64 blue, unbranded, with FYE, and in the absence of photographic evidence I will assume it ran in its 1967 condition throughout 1968 too. It went standard blue in December 1969. Unless anyone else has found more pics we've not seen.....

19th August 1975 it's reported as having gone blue, presumably a works release date back to traffic, so it probably lasted in service in green into the hot summer!

Of course they were! How could I forget the MetroVicks?