Flood

Dave, The taps are made by Gem, they come in packs of 6 (see the bottom of page 1 of this thread). The hose is made from the wire in computer ribbon (it's the smallest diameter sheathed wire we can find). You not only get it in a multitude of colours (orange needed for drinking water, black for toilets) but the wire inside is very flexible but will still hold its shape. Graham.

We're thinking of having a running session over Easter so I'll try to get some photos taken with the stock on then. Incidently, I've just numbered up 47663 as the last loco we need for the layout (well I might do a large logo 37/0 at some time as well) but the 47 still needs some light weathering on the roof and chassis. Thanks again to everyone for the kind comments, here's a photo of the latest piece of detail... We've just got to make some tubs for the hose ends to hang into.

Reading in British Rail Mark 2 Coaches (Harris) it was only the refurbished Mk2Fs (plus the RMBTs and I/C Mk 3s) that got strawberry seats. All the Mk2Ds and Mk2Es kept their blue seat interiors with teak panels to just below the windows until late 1988 when Polmadie, Springburn and Doncaster used grey and apricot moquette and carpetting to 40 coaches for Anglia and 116 coaches for cross country services. All the internal Scottish stock kept their old interiors. Graham

Not wishing to sound too picky Dave but the only TSOT I've found with a light grey stripe on the top of the doors so far is 6605. 6604, 6614 and 6619 all had the red stripe continued around the door (plus 6607 in blue and grey). I've not found photos of 6601 or 6613 so if you've got a photo of either of these I would be interested to see. Gotta say though...love the layout and the stock.

Anyone modelling a terminus station of the same size as this layout would probably have the following schedule for each train: 1) train arrives and loco on front moves forward 2) loco off depot moves onto front of train 3) train departs 4) spare loco goes on shed if the same loco is used to arrive and depart the service the the train will be shunted into another platform to release the train loco. On a coaching stock depot layout: 1) train arrives on fuel road 2) stock shunted via wash road to shed for servicing 3) train loco goes to stabling road 4) stock shunted from shed to carriage cleaning roads 5) train loco moves onto train and train departs In other words the stock makes one or two more moves than it would in a terminus station. This may not seem much but we are running the actual schedule for Aberdeen in winter 1987-1988 which gives 2 HSTs, 1 cross country air-con rake, 2 push-pull rakes, 1 Inverness rake, 1 parcels rake, 1 postal rake, 1 local rake and 2 ten coach sleepers all to be serviced. Another push-pull rake arrives to take the ScotRail sleeper back to Glasgow and we have all the locos diagrammed to their official workings. Of course some of these rakes arrive whilst another is still being serviced and a queue begins to build up, especially in the evening part of the schedule. In addition the sleeper rakes are split (the sleepers go to the controlled emission toilets area) and the cross country rake has to be reversed (the BG at one end and the buffet at the other are swapped). It takes about four hours to complete all the movements for a 24 hour weekday and all I can say is that with three of us running it for two days in October we were far too busy to get bored. Added to that we have the satisfaction of knowing that all the movements made are there for a reason and are those performed day and night by staff never seen by the travelling public.

We've been working on the layout from 10.30 saturday morning until 12 o'clock saturday night (apart from lunch and dinner). I've finished off a fork lift, made some brutes, painted the light diffusers on the gantries, fixed in the last two fuelling points and started to add the stand pipes. Glenn has spent the whole day wiring up the lights in both parts of the shed, the gantries, the fuelling points and the shed office with a little help from me to hold stuff as required. As of 23.30 boards 1 and 2 looked thus: With the dining room lights on: Only one of the cleaning platforms has the stand pipes fitted at this time, by 12.00 last night both cleaning platforms had them. The fuel points (and the depot entry road) are off screen to the left (the view didn't look so good with a large dresser behind it!) By dimming the dining room lights we get a simulation of dusk. We use spot lights on the layout normally so we'll be turning these off (possibly using a dimmer switch) at exhibitions when we get to the equivalent of 5 o'clock in the evening on our schedule and turning them back on at the equivalent of 7.45 in the morning. By turning off the dining room lights the depot looks like this: It obviously won't be this dark in a exhibition hall but we think the effect should still be noticable. It seems to have taken us a long time to get this far and we've still got to add hoses to the stand pipes, portable battery chargers and cables, shore supply points and general stuff like drums, pallets, brutes and a fork lift to these two boards. I am particularly pleased with the loco hauled stock permanent battery chargers which are so prominent in the daylight view. Enjoy.

Many thanks for all the kind comments, it's good to see so many people taking an interest. Dave, the strip lights for the fuel points are from Kytes Lights, Bognor Regis. They're two LEDs in a box unit 3.5 cm long complete with a resistor and at 3 pound 99p each are cheaper than buying white LEDs from Maplin!

I wasn't going to post the following pics yet as I know we're getting very close to finishing boards 1 to 3 apart from a strip of scenery along the front. However the following two, taken by Glenn on Sunday night, I feel are so good that we just had to share them...

Ok number 48 but I'll be blowed if I can think of another at the moment. Got it, 17 of course. One day I'll get round to scanning my slides for you all, culminating in a week in March 1991 and a week in April 1991 based at the Nogg Inn at Feniton. Lovely shot of a filthy number 36 at Andover three weeks before she went.

Not forgetting that 50017 had one of its nameplates in a different place to all the other NSE Class 50s. See here for 50017 and here for 50019 just for comparison.

Slightly off topic (because she was never officially allocated to NSE), 50006 had the handrail above the left hand tail light at No.2 end moved across after collision damage in early 1970. See this photo here in 1975 or still here very close to the end.

I'd never noticed that lack of handrails on 50033 before. After a quick serch on Class50.com she appears to have lost them sometime between August 1984 and July 1986. She did have an intermediate exam at Doncaster in that time emerging on 10 Sept 1985 so that may be of significance. More delving needed.

Like people have said already ebay can produce good results every now and again. I've now decided that rather than wait until the last minute to make sure I get something I now put in my maximum price with about 3 days to go and if it goes for more than that I can wait for the next one (of course this only works if you 1)know what the item is worth to you and 2)the item is reasonably common. Anything rare, like a Scottish Working Timetable, I just bid a stupid price for to make sure I get it but then again not many other people are that bothered in buying one. Last week I bid 60 quid for a Heljan 47591 in large logo and got it for 56.09, I thought that was a pretty good result and the model when it arrived was totally untouched.

Believe it or not we've actually managed to not only 1) finish something on the layout but also 2) take some photos! Below are the three fuel points nearest to the depot exit, two for locos and one for HSTs. Two more fuel points are situated at the battery end (one each for locos and HSTs). All of these are lit by imitation flourescent lights from Kytes. In addition I've finished the battery chargers this last weekend and these will be fixed on the layout, along with the water taps, once the last two lighting gantries have been finished this week. So more photos on the way soon but in the meantime enjoy the following: First off, an overall view of the three fuel points HST fuel point Loco fuel point Loco fuel point in close up View of loco ready for fuelling

The Mk2 brake conversions were probably the same, I'm not sure as I don't think I ever travelled in one. The Mk2Cs were exactly the same as the Mk2Ds. The air-con conversions were only on the Mk2 rakes, the Mk3a stock from Glasgow to Edinburgh (and two return services to Aberdeen) only had a trolley service with no micro-buffet. There were four Inverness Mk2C TSOTs for use on the Glasgow/Edinburgh to Inverness trains (consisting of pressure vent stock). These were 6510, 6514, 6518 and 6519. Craigentinny had four Mk2Cs for cross-country traffic (6506, 6508, 6523 and 6524), seven Mk2D TSOTs for the push-pull sets (6601, 6604, 6605, 6607, 6613, 6614 and 6619) and two Mk2Ds that were officially for ECML traffic (6608 and 6618). As there were five diagrammed TSOTs for the Inverness services there was also Mk2D TSOT 6603 based at Inverness but I have never seen a photo of a pressure vent rake with one air-con coach on these services (see post 11). BTW, glad to be of help.

There are two photos on P.10 of the January 1980 Modern Railways of one of the BSOT conversions. Copyright may well prevent me from photographing them and posting them on here (I haven't got a scanner!). What I have got is a photocopy of the B.R. diagram for the Mk2D TSOT and the buffet section is as below: It was only a counter on its own with 2/3rds to 3/4qtrs of the window behind blanked off from the bottom upwards. Plus, like I said before, there was a glass and metal frame partition between the buffet area and the first seating bay (exactly like the one in the centre of the coach). The trolley was basically shoved into the gap in the counter. In addition, there was the black strip across the window opposite the buffet which had a red line along the top and bottom (when viewed from outside). In the middle was written either Buffet or BUFFET, I've seen both. This strip may well have been made of melamine, about an inch thick, and was probably off white on the inside face. The buffet writing was also present on the blanked window behind the counter (again, visible from only the outside) and the blanking section in front of the window (which I think was all the way from the floor) was again probably off white (this was the interior colour for the Mk2F stock). Come to think of it the bodyside below the window on the opposite side of the buffet and the toilet wall by the buffet may have been off white as well (not too sure about those). Hope all this is of help.

The counter was the length of a seating bay because the entrance was from where the toilet used to be. There was a narrow shelf by the windows on the other side of the coach as far as I remember, perhaps more like a bum rest. Between the counter and the next seating bay was a standard partition, the kind used between the smoking and non-smoking sections. The Mk2c ones were used on Wat-Exe, the Highland line and Trans-Pennine. the Mk2d ones were used on some Paddington trains (including the Night Riveria from about 1988) and the Glasgow/Edinburgh to Aberdeen push-pulls. Both types were also used on selected cross-country trains. I'm assuming you are talking about the TSOT micro-buffets (converted in 1981), not the RFB conversions from the early 1990s.

So he slaps on a reply telling me nothing about it, the cheek!!!! Not sure if we are going to cater for 2+7 HST rakes so it may well be that we have two fuel points for a 2+8 HST and three fuel points for locos, one of the reasons for needing at least two fuel points for locos is we have occasions when two locos need to be fuelled at the same time. Like Glenn has said though we will be making the loco fuel points subtlely different from the 'curtain rail' style HST ones. In the meantime we'll be off to Stafford MREX on Sunday for retail theropy so that's another weekend where we should be working on the layout and we've skived off!

Thanks for taking the time to have a look and the appreciation. Now I could say that a full layout plan and the photos from October are on my blog but that would just be shooting myself in the foot so here goes... First up the plan of the layout. This was originally drawn in XTrkCAD but subsequent revisions have just been made using copy and paste in Paint. You can click on the plan to see it in better detail. The cross-over by the washing plant is new from this November and the crossover at the wheel lathe end originally was right-handed not left-handed. It is these two revisions, plus the placement of numerous electro-magnets, which have slowed the detailing side over the last two months. Now I'll show a selection of photos taken at Mickleover Exhibition in October, or taken a few days before in Glenn's front room. More than ever I'm now noticing the sparseness of the layout at this time. I'm in the process of cladding the depot building this week but working lates is taking its toll. Like I've said before I'm hoping we can take some more photos in about a month showing all the latest details, we'll just have to see how it goes.

Thanks to both of you for the kind comments. I'm a little bit embarassed that we haven't managed to take any photos of the layout since last October's exhibition, hopefully I can cure that in about a months time. In the meantime comments and general interest are always appreciated as I'm sure you both know. I've had a quick look at your layout Leon and you too have chosen a different subject from the norm. Always good to see some variation in railway modelling and your weathering is setting the scene nicely, I'll certainly be following it from now on.

The fuel hoses are electric cable like you say, whether Glenn has used single core or multi core I can't remember. The rails for the hoses are plastic coated wire and the rest of the pipe work is from the Knightwing miscellaneous pipes pack. The one item we were going to be short of was the aviation style fuel connector on the end of the hose, looking at one of the Knightwing packs there were some small circular sprue sections left from the moulding process complete with a dimple in the end which easily solved that problem. The trigger style fuel hose ends, that Knightwing also supply one of, were only used on DMUs and as we don't run any of these we luckily didn't need them. What I haven't pointed out yet is the other change from the norm with the fuel points. Using them primarily for HSTs we need two fuelling points spaced eight coaches apart and to add more interest we have now simulated Craigentinny a little by making five fuelling points - two together at the buffer stops (battery end) and three together at the release end. Hence the need for so many aviation style fuel connectors, ten in all.

I was going to wait until Glenn and I had actually finished painting all the recent items we've been making for the layout but as that is going to take at least another week, day out to Stafford next weekend plus other commitments, I've decided to post a few samples just to show what we have been up to. First up the shore supply points at the end of each road. The yellow control box is for the 800 - 1000v ETH supply (loco hauled coaching stock), next to it is the grey junction box with two ETH cables emerging. The junction box now has a silver painted frame around it, the ETH cables will be painted very faded orange (possible flesh colour). The 3 wires wrapped around the buffer stop are for the HST supply, these have the same style junction boxes but totally different control boxes. Two roads will have both a loco hauled and HST supply, the other two roads will just have the loco hauled style supply. Next up is the first lighting gantry. We've used LEDs instead of grain of wheat bulbs so we need to make reflectors for the bulbs. 6mm diameter (paper hole punch size) should be about correct but the lights are so bright that we feel a 8mm diameter reflector would look better. All we need to find is a 8mm (approx) diameter hole punch from somewhere. Finally there is one of the loco refuelling points. We wanted a complete change from the usual Knightwing style so the canopy is based on Norwich Crown Point and the 'curtain rail' style refuelling rig is as per Craigentinny. Obviously the pipes still need painting but we're pretty pleased with the end result. These refuelling points are also going to be lit, by strip lights. When it's all done it'll look like a Christmas tree but just adding these little details (along with the battery chargers and stand pipes) I feel has added considerably more interest to the layout. Originally if there was not many trains in the layout looked somewhat bare, now there are some little points of interest for the public to view. Perhaps in another month or so I can post so photos of a more complete nature, in the meantime please comment as you feel fit.

Thanks for dropping by and the compliment. I was at Scotland for a week in 1985 being based in Glasgow but trying to get as many 27s on the Dundees as possible so it sounds like both your brother's and your layouts will bring back some fond memories. Glenn and I were saying last week that a layout based on Haymarket station would have lots of interest but would also need a huge fiddle yard for all the stock that was needed. Don't forget to keep an eye on the layout thread for more developments (more photos should be coming soon).

Executive. Swallow wasn't introduced until July 1987. See here.

From May 1987 to May 1988 the rake split at Edinburgh and then only had an Inverness portion going forward, the rest stayed at Edinburgh. From May 1988 the other portion went on to Aberdeen as you've said so you had the strange concept at Haymarket in the morning of two trains arriving from the North to go to Edinburgh only to return about 30 mins later, as one train, to go to Carstairs. Of course the reverse happened in the afternoon: one train arrived from Carstairs to go to Edinburgh and about 30 min later two trains, within 5 mins of each other, being formed from the one train went up to either Aberdeen via Dundee or Inverness via Perth. For 1987 the booked formation was Mk2 air con BSO + 4x Mk2 air con TSO + Mk2d FK + RBR + Mk2d FK + 4x Mk2 air con TSO + Mk2 air con BSO with the RBR going to Inverness but naturally variations did occur. Whether the first class coaches in that 1989 photo are FKs or if they had been replaced by FOs by then I really couldn't say. All in all a very interesting train over the years. Edit (over a year later!). From the summer of 1988 I'd noticed that an RMBT had started to be used instead of the RBR. Looking at the coach allocations, this (and the allocation of BSOs) confirmed that the Clansman went from being a Longsight rake to one from Wembley. This in turn proved that the FKs were replaced by FOs as Wembley had no allocation of FKs at that time.