Brinkly

Just now, The Stationmaster said:

I doubt we'll see one from Hornby unless that have a project already well advanced and too far on to cancel.  Others, I'm sure, are far more likely to go for this particular prize.

I agree, Mike. Wouldn't it be lovely if Accurascale produced one to accompany their Siphon G models.

Kind regards,

Nick.

2 minutes ago, meil said:

This is an accurate model of the 6-wheel GWR tanker: https://website.rumneymodels.co.uk/milk-tanks

Greetings,

Justin's etched parts are available, but I don't think David Geen is producing anything these days (which is the base model required to produce the milk tank). Having said that, it might be worth talking to Justin as he might be prepared to produce the missing parts (ends, solebars, buffers etc.) to accompany his detailing and underframes.

All the best,

Nick.

On 30/05/2023 at 18:16, Bulwell Hall said:

Some of the K38s were definitely painted all over brown in the pre WW2 era.  I have in the past consulted the GWR Carriage Registers which give details, dates, etc when vehicles were altered including livery changes and some of the K38s were definitely repainted in brown and in that period would have had the GWR roundel.  I cannot easily access my notes relating to this material but what I found was definitive enough for  me to do one in this livery myself - photo attached. I also have a photo taken at Weymouth in the late 1930s showing the Channel Island Boat Express leaving and the first vehicle in the train is a K38 in brown - again I would have to dig deep to find it.  As an aside to this Carriage Working Programmes show that the Channel Island Boat Express always had such a van in the train and other photographs show that this was often a K38 in full Ocean Mails livery - certainly I have photos of the boat train on the Weymouth Harbour Tramway in 1939 with such a vehicle in the formation.

 

A beautiful model, Gerry. 

May I ask, what paint did you use, please? The weathering is excellent, too - it reflects the Wartime and Post-War Austerity very well. 

All the best,

Nick.

18 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

 

It was indeed most agreeable, Tim. 

 

Talking of new habitat........

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Rod, well done on the book front. It's a great read. 

 

It was quite the privilege to see Laxfield. Having seen it in MRJ 0, I was bowled over to see at first hand just how well John captured the real Laxfield. It is just sublime. 

 

 

And talking of Brinkers........nice to see that he was in good hands. 

 

 

 

 

Rob

 

 

I wondered what the hell you were up to at the time! 😂 Naturally, the heir apparent! 

Lovely to see you,

Nick.

20 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

Love the E95. One of my favourites. There was an unbuilt one for sale, at Brisbane Model Railway Show, over the weekend. $50 (£26.86). I had to buy it. You can never have too many brake compo's.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Very good price! Well done.

Nick.

Good evening Jason,

Thank you for the information in your post: I didn't realise they were as 'new' as they were in relation to my era, modelling-wise. For some reason, I got it in my head that LMS livery post-war was unlined.  I do agree with you; looking at the earlier lined livery, the late 1930s through to nationalisation isn't that elaborate after all!  

Many thanks,

Nick.

Following with interest! 

Cheers,

Nick.

Greetings,

I could do with some assistance as my knowledge of LMS post-war coaching stock livery is a little poor!

I have a Hornby LMS full brake in BR livery. I'm considering rolling my modelling time frame back to pre-nationalisation rather than circa 1956/7. 

This is what I currently have.

Is this manifestation of the livery suitable for 1945-1948? Or is this more appropriate to the 1930s? (My thinking with the livery above is that it would be a tad extravagant for a humble full-brake.) Can anyone point me in the right direction, website, photograph(s), or decent reference book of LMS coaching stock, pre-nationalisation? 

I'm not adverse to re-painting models.

Many thanks in anticipation. 

Nick.

44 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

The problem with Ultrascale wheels is that they have nickel silver tyres and slip like mad on N/S track. The lead time and price is also not great.

Regards Lez.  

I have never found the slipping issue with Ultrascales. My P4 Mitchell 45xx locomotive has them and will happily haul 30 wagons plus on our test track. There is quite a gradient on and the loco wasn’t really working with 22 on as can be seen in this clip. Each wagon is 55-65 grams in weight. 
 

Cheers,

Nick.

7 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

5 sets for 3 diagrams I understand, to cover maintenance backlogs in the other fleets. (Mainly the 16x classes.)

There is that, but also, the IET rollout has been awful. It's embarrassing as there are only 3 diagrams currently (I think maybe 4), and they can barely cover them. God help all of us onboard with the timetable change. The 158-3 sets will go back to 158-2 to then work as four coach formations - that won't happen. It will be short-formed 2-coach trains, I suspect. 

Morning all,

A bit of an unofficial update. It would seem that at least 5, probably more, of GWRs 2+4 fleet will be retained till at least December 2024. Primarily this is due to fleet shortages. It has been agreed with ASLEF fairly recently. 
 

ScotRail are planning on keeping their fleet in service until 2029. So it wouldn’t surprise me if 2024 comes and goes and a fair number down here are still in daily use. IET roll out on Penzance - Cardiff route has not gone at all to plan (CEO’s words not mine)! 
 

It will be interesting to see if XC keep their five. 
 

Passing back from Bristol is always nicer in here! 

All the best,

Nick.

Fab news, Wayne. Well done. I will certainly purchase a few P4 point kits!

All the best,

Nick.

Would you be able to post some videos, John, of traffic on Stoke Courtney? 
 

All the best,

Nick.

5 hours ago, Iain.d said:

I have just completed the rebuild on this pair of long-ago purchased Parkside Dundas box vans.

 

 

The left hand van is a BR 12T Van with corrugated ends, based on a GW diagram. The one on the right is an LNER 12T Fruit Van. The main builds and painting were completed a while ago, I was waiting on the buffer shanks coming from Lanarkshire Model Supplies.  LMS Dave posted them on 11 January, which must have been very early on in the Royal Mail ransom aware attack; they arrived yesterday!

 

 

They were originally built in about 1992 or 1993, not particularly well, and over the passage of time (almost all of that in store) much of the glue had gone brittle and they came apart easily. I’ve taken off all the flash and cleaned up all the burrs and so on and re-assembled them reasonably square and true.  I’ve improved them with the LMS pre-drilled buffer housings, Gibson buffer heads, screw/instanter couplings, brake pipes, better brake detail, vents on the fruit van and transfers by CCT. They weigh about 50g each.  Next up will be a couple of NE region brake vans.

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

Lovely work, Iain.

Do you brush paint, or airbrush your freight stock?

All the best,

Nick.

Little bit of modelling of horses here. Not quite cattle but very interesting stuff:

13 minutes of easy and interesting watching. 
 

All the best,

Nick.

19 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Is there no option to run on one power car ? .......... or is there too much of risk that when that one fails you find the other one's already a dud ?

I suspect you have hit the nail on the head there. The set which are used more frequently certainly seem to perform better than the ones sat about at Laira not doing much.

I worked set 8 or 9 down from Bristol yesterday and it seemed to behave itself very well to Plymouth. However, it did have two coach Ds in the formation as the MK3 coaches are swapped about quite regularly and lesser, more worn, examples are ‘laid up’. 
 

Cheers,

Nick.

19 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Ah, replaced with 5 car IETs so that means the trains will either have to have the timings slacked out or timekeeping will suffer as there's no way they can match ordinary HST performance let alone a lighter train.   I suspect at the moment the reserve in power can readily cope with minor delays such as station overtime and IETs will have difficulty matching that capability.

Morning Mike,

It’s an interesting one that. One of reasons for the massive timetable change in 2017 was due to the improved service timings the IETs could provide. Their braking is vastly superior to the HST sets and they accelerate (in my view as a guard) just as quick too. The internal company punctuality statistics shared with us in weekly and monthly circulars certainly suggest that the IETs with one engine down can keep (reasonably) to time. 😀 
 

One massive issue will be bike space (as 5-car IETs have virtually none) and first class accommodation with no first-class catering, or standard class catering, will cause issues for us staff onboard. I don’t think it’s a very good state of affairs that someone can buy a first class ticket from Penzance to Cardiff and can’t get even a bottle of water on what is nearly a 6hr journey. 
 

Regards,

Nick.
 

The 2+4 GWR sets are being phased out for a couple of reasons. The main one is condition.

The fleet based at Penzance and Laira are very poor structural condition - as in kick the side and watch the crud drop out. The locos are in very poor shape too. 
 

Most of ours are close to 100,000 hours running and once that limit is reached, it’s really game over. Add in the unreliably of some Class 43 power cars (I’ve regularly worked to and from Bristol with one power car out) and that is the basis of withdraw. Not to mention them contributing 70% of the company’s overall emissions (that is the figure we have been told so I can only go on that).

The 2+4 sets were only introduced as a temporary measure in 2017. I must admit, I thought the 10 we owned as a company would soldier on for a bit longer, but as has been mentioned earlier, IETs cascaded down from Paddington - Cardiff Central service has provided the replacement sets, while the tri-units replace these services. 
 

I assume they have the two power cars working to ensure if one does fail, you don’t loose too much time. 
 

The diagramed work for the 2+4 sets is very tight - we have more wiggle room with the units, which can’t always fully reach line speed (a lot of our 158/2 & 3 sets won’t get much higher than 85mph and you can forget that speed if you are fully loaded!).

I think I’ve answered most things from various posts from what I know. Sure I’ve missed something mind! 
 

All the best,

Nick.

Greetings all,

Probably reasonably well know but just in case anyone has missed this else where.
 

Chatting to a couple of Cross Country members of staff today, their HST fleet (I believe five sets) are pencilled to be stood down by October. This is potentially subject to change but as our (GWR’s) remaining HST sets are due to go by the end of the year, I suspect this is will be their Indian summer. 
 

GWR will be down to five 2+4 sets by May - we currently have eight sets in service operating (usually) Penzance to Cardiff Central services. 
 

I will miss these old warriors. As a guard, they can be a right pain to work… dispatching from the TGS, front two doors at various stations between Bristol and Penzance, bikes (shudder), but my goodness I’m glad I’ve had the chance to work them! Full of character and charm. A train from my childhood. 
 

So if you fancy that last trip on a HST, best do it sooner rather than later!

Newton Abbot earlier this month.

Newton again about a year ago.

Catch them while you can!

All the best,

Nick.

26 minutes ago, micklner said:

It looks toally filthy no obvious lettering anywhere.

 

This is the LNER Livery courtesy of Hornby.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364122705857?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338723872&toolid=20006&customid=8z6HHFcVAAAA74fJw_pl0tJsECswAAAAAA

 

 

I think the lettering is on the door nearest the locomotive. It isn't clear but I suspect that is where it is. 

Greetings,

I'm after a bit of help. I have a rather nice photograph of a D.86/87 LNER General Van at Brixham during the summer of 1950 taken from a very interesting article by Steve Banks. 

I've got a D&S kit for this prototype, which was obtained purely because of this photo. 

Looking at the livery, I suspect it is still in pre-nationalised scheme of LNER red oxide. However, I am no expert! Can anyone shed any additional details on the livery and lettering - that I have no idea about! Does anyone sell transfers for this type? 

Any assistance would be most useful! 

Regards,

Nick. 

Thoughts are with you today, Chris. Very much missed. 

56 minutes ago, Bulwell Hall said:

My new Rapido Iron Mink, which arrived six days ago, took its place on the layout today.  All I have done is to re-wheel to EM, add a little extra weight, add three link couplings and weather to taste. The work to add the three link couplings is a little more involved than on previous Rapido wagons - due to the diminutive size of the vehicle - but is not impossible.  I think they are wonderful little models that fully capture the appearance of the real thing.   I also have a Ferrocrete van to do but this is to have rather more work done to it and will need to wait until a more urgent project is out of the way first.

 

 

 

 

 

Very fine work, Gerry. I do like the chalk markings - what did you use? 

All the best,

Nick.

I really enjoyed this issue. I totally agree with @Not Jeremy about Steve Hall's editorial piece - it embodies what we should be encouraging in our lovely hobby. His article about Drighlington and Adwalton was very interesting to read and I have taken a lot away from it.  

During the national lockdowns, Steve produced a couple of videos for online Scaleforum. I've posted them below - thoroughly worth watching. 

More of Steve in the chair, please!

All the best,

Nick.