Flood

My Lima Siphons are neither shorter nor less in height.

Length 520mm (approx 1'8.5"), 457mm (18") diameter head, oleo. If modelling in 4mm, and not sprung, they are Lanarkshire Models pack BP06.

I must say I am very happy with the two TUA wagons I have so far and if I can get to DEMU next weekend I will be buying some more. The detailing and printing is excellent. Congratulations to Rainbow Railways and Revolution for making these available, especially as only 27 of this batch were made. Two other batches seem similar but with BSC pedestals. Having looked at a quite a number of photos these last few days I can only find five wagons with revised ladders: 70720, 70721, 70723, 70725 and 70726. As stated by @MRDBRBLUE17 these were a later modification (around 1987). All I need to do now is ask my friend Alex to cover them in some heavy weathering.

Just checked and all the remaining 64xx Mk2f SO stock was still blue and grey in June/July 1989 but the BN allocation was IC by January 1990. They must all have been in swallow then as the Executive branding ceased around mid 1987. Some Mk2d and Mk2e stock were unbranded for about a year from mid 1987 but then started to get INTERCITY branding, like the Mk2f and Mk3a stock, as they were repainted.

The 64xx stock were first converted from Mk2c and Mk2f First Opens in the early to mid '80s. They were mainly used on the WCML but may well have been cascaded to the ECML around 1989. I can check my Platform 5 books for allocations, along with the Railway Observers, for 1989 when I get home. I've also got the Loco Hauled Travel/Diagram Diary books for 1989 so I can check specific services in those. A fair few of the 64xx Mk2f First Opens were converted to the 12xx buffets.

The Bashing Years website has a fair amount of detail, especially Summer Saturdays, but is in no way a complete record of every service that ran on a particular day. I can't get on flickr at the moment, assuming the photo was on there in the first place, is there a clock visible in the photo that would give an idea of the time of departure? Plus, is the stock visible? So is it on NSE stock or I/C?

I definitely feel that you have captured the look and presence of these locos very well. As I have mentioned previously I am waiting for a batch of pre-refurb locos with amended roof details which you have stated will be produced in due course. Suffice to say that I will be buying a fair few, probably at least five, when they become available to pre-order. Plus a dark Network liveried one as well. Many thanks for taking the plunge and making this excellent model available for us.

Right then an apology to Revolution and Rainbow Railways. It's looking like 70720, 70721 and 70725 had the ladders at one end but 70719, 70723 and 70724 (plus probably quite a few more) had them at opposing ends. What a minefield wagons can be.

I wasn't sure but there's also 70721 and 70725.

How's this for a reply? And by the way it's not a moan it's an observation. How I describe you, on the other hand, is a completely different matter.

Nice job. The grey seems a bit light but weathering can sort that out. One slight problem, the ladder is at the left-hand end on each side, it should be at the top hatch end on each side! https://zenfolio.page.link/xex2h https://zenfolio.page.link/24Pyv TRL70720 in both photos, courtesy of Paul Bartlett's excellent site. Edit: this seems to be only on 3 wagons so far, a fair few of the others seem to have opposing ladders.

Thank you for your kind words. We are all getting a little older but hopefully there will be some exhibitions lined up for next year. I'll have a chat with Glenn and pass on your appreciation.

Do you remember when we were all* told to stay indoors due to a virus called Covid 19? Back on 23th March 2020 I bought on ebay the item below: (* some of us had to work through the whole event) A mere 3 years, 2 months and 10 days later, Glenn and I were finally able to do a batch of test running of the tamper on Kirkhill last night. The Tenshodo SPUD isn't great with a Lenz Silver chip, starting and stopping from 0 to 1 is a bit abrupt, so Glenn says he might try a Zimo or change the motor to a Black Beetle. Even so, it trundles around the layout at about a scale 40 to 50 mph which is more than adequet. Plus, I think, it does look rather nice now, after Alex and Glenn improved my poor initial repaint and all the transfers etc have been added. As always, thanks for taking an interest and please feel free to comment.

Until 1979, when buffet cars ran throughout to Penzance ready for the change to HSTs, virtually all* loco hauled passenger trains (and some parcels trains) arriving at Plymouth from the West changed locos. This was for two reasons 1. a buffet and a couple of coaches would be removed from a West bound train from Paddington to work the next service East bound back to Paddington and 2. the loco working from Paddington/Bristol (or further North) in a West bound direction would work straight back from Penzance East bound and then be fuelled at Laira. The Liverpool - Penzance and Leeds- Penzance services also dropped coaches at Plymouth so these were frequently worked by a Western Region loco from Penzance to Plymouth and a London Midland/Eastern Region loco from Plymouth to the North. *I say virtually all as some Summer Saturday trains did not swap locos when arriving at Plymouth from the West.

Just for everyone's general info, TOPS codes weren't added to parcels stock until mid to late 1977. The Newspaper branding was added to the Siphons at the same time. The Newspaper vans started having their slats plated over from around 1975 and gained electric heating from early 1976 so my two Newspaper vans (for October 1976) need to have the branding and TOPS codes removed. As per the photo of W1013 below by Suthen Softy on Flickr: along with W1010 and W1324 from the Transport Treasury site: https://zenfolio.page.link/upDv1 https://zenfolio.page.link/UT95P Another photo of W1324 on the same site has the same date as the photo above but is branded so I believe it is incorrectly dated.

Apologies to @Accurascale Fran, and any other staff at Accurascale, but I do have a question regarding a pre-refurb class 50. After about 1973 two covers were added to the roof of the Class 50s next to the No. 2 end exhaust ports, the photo of 50020 below shows them quite clearly: Copyright Kevin Connolly from Flickr There were inertia filters in this area on the pre-refurb loco so I'm guessing the covers were for access to the filters. As I said above they were only added after about 1973 and were removed once the locos were refurbished. So my question to Accurascale is as they are not shown on the test body of the pre-refurb model (a loco with D numbers probably shouldn't have them anyway) are they something that Accurascale might like to include as additional etched parts? Many thanks for your time.

Just checking which models Accurascale have on their website I see that the pre-refurb does not have the multiple connection boxes. Looks like I'll have to wait for another batch to be announced.

One of my school friends had a chat with Vic Berry's scrapyard back in the day. Initially they offered the complete headcode box complete with the headcode winding gear still inside! He said he couldn't move that so he asked for just the panel. It had sat in his shed since 1998 when he moved house so I offered to keep it in a better location about 2 years ago (and paid him a retainer which he said wasn't necessary). One day I'll look at having a metal coffee table made with the panel as the top. BTW Going back on topic the Accurascale 50 is looking very nice. I was going to rewindow my Hornby pre-refurbs but selling them and ordering Accurascale ones seems a lot easier to do.

Ajax? Ajax? I think you need to look at your railway books again.

Going by 50006's no. 2 end headcode panel which is sitting in one of my cupboards at the moment I've measured the following dimensions: Overall diameter of horn covers including edge: 250mm (actually 10 inches? Probably) Overall diameter of marker lights including rubber edge: 222mm Diameter of opaque area in centre of marker lights: 176mm and just for completeness Overall length of panel covering original headcode box: 1197mm Distance between marker lights, rh edge of left hand rubber to lh edge of right hand rubber: 636mm

Agreed, especially as those on the Bachmann 47 are too large (no. 1 end with the grommets that is, the sealed beams at no. 2 end are fine). I always felt the Heljan ones looked more to scale so a friend of mine measured those on 47643 at Bo'ness and found that is the case - Heljan spot on, Bachmann too large.

Please note that I saw 40314 and 40345 at Derby on 31st August 1985 with yellow stripes and presumably 1st Class branding (I took a note of certain variations when spotting). So although they were still numbered as TRUB coaches they were basically TRFB without the change of number. I may have other examples from that time period noted if you are interested.

Well it's been well over a year since my last post on Kirkhill. We were due to be at Doncaster last year but due to the possible effect of Covid on the personal circumstances for one of us we decided that it was still too early at that time to rejoin the exhibition circuit. We are due an invite from the Bristol show in the next few years, most probably from Doncaster as well and if any other exhibitions are interested in having us please do get in touch. As we are now a few years older we don't plan on exhibiting a large number of times a year, probably two or three times if possible. In addition this will hopefully ensure that we not boring the public by seeming to appear at every large show. Apologies to Andy Keane regarding his questions on automation. Glenn has been on RMweb very rarely this last year and a considerable amount of his time has been spent working away from home giving him less time to spend with family and even less time to spend on his hobbies. He has said that he is now able to spend more time back in the model railway scene. We have made very little changes to Kirkhill in the meantime. The automation process is a resounding success with some fail-safe attributes if things do not go as planned, e.g. a train will only set off if the complete route is set, if a point fails to throw the train will not start to move. Two yard towers were purchased from ebay to replace one tower which had suffered over the years and another as a spare. All the lights in the lighting towers have now been checked and replaced as required so all the individual lights work. I made a video of the overnight automated sequence last night for those of you who are interested. Just to warn you all, it does run to 10 minutes 18 secs long for 5 trains. The link is posted below, you may well wish to scan through it just to get the general idea. As always please ask any questions and we will endeavour to answer what we can. Happy modelling to you all.

Here are the two diagrams: I did get them from the Barrowmore site, the document you want is BRB Vehicle Diagram Book No. 300 - Part 3 http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/Book300Part3Dugdale01.gif

Ditto! Airfix Mk2D with Extreme Etchings window frames and corrected tumblehome.