57xx

A 5 plank door on a 5 1/2 plank wagon.

That's usually a tick box and extra fee on the policy.

Was it the battery that ignited? Or a fuel leak on to hot exhaust? Fingers crossed for a favourable outcome from the insurance. Edit: Seen now on the old bike thread about it probably being the tank seam splitting. That was a lucky escape there.

Damn Rob, that's not a nice sight. Glad you are ok. I'm also a leathers not matter how hot person, just because the sun is out, doesn't mean the road won't rip your skin off.

Grey by any other name. 😂

Like pretty much every other F1 driver. Much as I don't like Max on the track and his general demeanour, it is absolutely a rant from a hater. He even has to extrapolate to 2028 to get his clickbait $215m.

Liking the look of the strokers there in pic 1. My favourite and the most mental flat tracker ever:

I use the ready fried onions for pilau rice too. They also good for thickening sauces if they are a bit runny. Onion powder itself, is just that, a white power made of onions. If you check ready mix spice blends, you often find it as an ingredient in there. I have that and garlic powder for making my own Cajun and Mexican spice rubs.

Ironically, that's the book that convinced me that loco coal wagons were not "always black" as claimed on p43. then followed by multiple photos of wagons that to my eyes were not black but grey.

Do you get a tour of the factory if you get the gold one?

I don't think anyone does, if there are any paint schedules that clearly states the colour, they are remaining exceedingly well hidden. Preservationists have been known to get things wrong, especially if there is no official documentation to go on. As the Graham says, dark grey is probably the safest bet, you could argue it is either colour then.

It depends which camp you're in. Whilst departmental stock was black in BR days AFAIK, a lot of photo evidence shows non-revenue wagons in what looks more like the usual dark grey than black during GWR times. Black aficionados will quote Russell's books, but there are plenty of mistakes in his books that could cast doubt on the words stated vs what is seen in pictures. Personally, I stick with dark grey.

You could have a little cameo of it painted in G4S livery and a load of convicts running away from it.

Should the wire on the brake lever hangers be a bit longer so you can fit the brake lever itself?

That's a nice recovery from the first paint job. The black finish is now looking very good.

I could have done with her 30 odd years ago. Back then, me and the g/f of the time had moved into a 1st floor flat. The landlord had told us there was no garden and we were fine with that as there hadn't been one in the last place we were in either. We'd looked out the back window and seen a small courtyard type garden which belonged to the flat below, a load of tall bushes behind it which presumed belonged to the back of the house on the next street long and thought nothing more of it. A few weeks later, the old chap next door asks me if I've had a rummage in the shed yet. "What shed? We've got no garden." "Yes, you have, there's a blooming big shed at the end" "Rubbish, we were told there's no garden here" I say, contradicting the guy who'd live there 40+ years. "Trust me, it's there" he says. So I went indoors to tell the g/f and we went to our back window again. Sure enough about 30ft down from the "bushes" we could just make out a shed. There was a path down the side of the house that we'd never ventured down as we presumed it only gave access to the downstairs flat's garden, so off we went on an adventure. We felt like David Bellamy, gwappling our gwapenuts, as we made out way through 30ft of garden infested with 10ft high Japanese Knotweed and found the shed! The next few months were spent digging up the whole garden (several feet down to get the roots out), clear the whole lot, sowed some grass seed for a nice lawn made a veg plot and I put in a bit of hardstanding to work on my motorbike. The other neighbour was overjoyed that he didn't have to spend all his time trying to prevent the nasty weed infesting his garden. I got loads of great old tools, a nice jerry can, lawnmower, a big roll of lead flashing (still being used to weight wagon kits!) and a decent bench vice from the shed. Seeing as the landlord had said there was no garden, they were fair game for me to have when we moved on.

A lesser known fact about the tin hats introduced in WW1 - they actually caused an increase in casualties to the field hospitals. Whilst initially sounding counter intuitive, it was because the mortalitly rate of shelling was decreased, so those that may have previously died, now survived but with injuries requiring medical attention.

As the Bishop said to the actress. Nice and simple, does the trick, Graham.

Also look at how much Dapol are knocking out the 43xx and Manors. As long as whoever picks it up doesn't lose the plot doing silly gimmicky bits on it, there's no reason for it to be priced that high.

The ashpan looks good, Graham. That shot has reminded me of another quirk, although period based - the bunker steps and cab roof handrail. I can't remember the date they started to get added but the original builds did not have them.

Azure I've always pronounced it Az-Ure. As part of my job I'm watching lots of videos about Microsoft's cloud services, hence being relentlessly presented with Americans (and a few Brits wholey sucked up into the MS world) pronouncing it Ashoor. I want to keep saying bless you.

I would say Alfonso is sucking up to Stroll Snr, not wanting to jeopardise the good car he has under him.

The ashpan isn't one of the most visible nasties on this loco. The aforementioned sunken number plates always drag the eye, as does the horrible way in which the dome seamlessly flows into the boiler cladding. And then the two mysterious holes in the spectacle plate that serve no purpose at all.

Don't they just do that round the back of the van?

Like those pesky rascals Dean and Churchward with their DC1 brakes?