plarailfan

This one is local to me and it is right next to a quiet country lane, so is easily accessible for a close-up pic. The owner has cut the corrugated rear end panel in half to make it into doors, as a tree, rather inconsiderately, decide to grow next to the, original, sliding door

There's this one at Dawlish and looking through Flickr, I even found one on a, cross country passenger train, under the wires and apparently heading for Plymouth

Off the top of my head, I remember one of the Lima catalogues, from around 1980/1 having a photo of a "Peak" Diesel locomotive, with a note saying they were planned in OO gauge, but, I guess, they decided not to bother in the end, as the Mainline Palitoy version was considered to be quite a decent model at that time.

In the customer cafe at my workplace, you have to write down your name and 'phone number when ordering food, so if someone subsequently falls ill with the virus, other customers who visited the cafe on that day, can be notified (track and trace method) Perhaps the Christmas market may be considered to be an an essential part of life, as it provides food and drink and being an outdoor event, perhaps they won't need to be involved with the track and trace system ? I should imagine the Christmas market organisers, will ask the visitors, to keep to social distancing guidelines, using markings on the ground and a one way system could / would / should ? be in operation. I bet scientists and the government are having many an interesting conversation these days about what they would like to do and what options they have to keep us all safe in the long term !

I work in a supermarket and through all the frustration, frayed tempers and angry customers, all I can say is, we are now, looking at the possibility of having the festive season during December 2020, being muted, along the lines of Easter and Mother's day, where people, will not be being encouraged to travel around visiting family and relatives. The virus is likely to become more aggressive during the winter months, when people are already suffering from colds and flu, which could escalate into being a huge burden in hospitals and on the NHS. The vaccine has to be tested, which will take some time, so it looks likely that we will be well into 2021 before we can get our lives back on track. Local lockdowns in various areas of the UK, may well be a feature of the coming months ! There are different strains of the virus and no one knows if people who have had it, can get it again, or how long the immunity (from getting it again) might last when they have had it and made a recovery. I've never washed my hands, or had so many showers in my life as I am at present. I don't think life will be back to normal for ages. Certainly we will be lucky if any hobby shows and toy fairs, etc will be up and running before spring next year at the earliest. I Just hope everyone here will be ok and stay safe in the meantime.

The Calder valley book, by Martin Bairstow is an interesting read https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Manchester-and-Leeds-Railway-The-Calder-Valley-Line-by-Martin-Bairstow-Pap/143563018405?epid=88878289&hash=item216d05d0a5:g:5UYAAOSwc15eeOOQ

I work in a supermarket. Until around ten days ago / mid March 2020, deliveries more or less kept pace with customers wants and needs. The first thing to run out was sanitiser, swiftly followed by the dispenser bottles of hand wash and bars of soap. The whole thing leaves me completely bewildered. Yesterday morning there must have been over 500 people at the store door when it opened at 6am. There have been so many customers during the night, that they ended up closing the store so the shelf stackers could get on with their work. One angry customer swore at a colleague for the store being closed. I could only get part way round the store with the floor scrubbing machine, as no customers were willing to let me proceed along aisles, while they were shopping and the poor till cleaning colleague only managed to clean about five of the tills and by lunch time, most of the bread had gone, only a few bits of store baked bread items were on the shelf, no loo rolls, no kitchen rolls, no nappies or dog food. We have four double deck trailers of stock coming in every day, plus bread deliveries, so there's no need for anyone to panic buy. It's been even worse today. It was pensioners hour , with the younger customers saying "well we always come at this time on a Friday so we should be allowed in" along with chavs shouting off at security. The baby milk had all gone by 10am, along with most of the fuit and veg. Finally, the customer cafe has closed indefinitely and cleared of food (it all went to the canteen to provide workers with breakfast and lunch, as a thankyou gesture for all the struggle we've had this week) still everyone panic buying when there's no need, as the deliveries are still coming through at the present time. I just hope the factories can get hold of the raw material and ingredients for everything they produce because the supply chain is not endless somewhere food has to be planted and grown to produce tinned and plastic packed long life items.

I was a shunter in the past, and looking at the above photo, I would say the valve is in quite a vulnerable position for an important piece of kit ! In the past, those kind of things were out of harms way, somewhere under the middle of the carriage

The Huddersfield to Kirkburton branch line did have this "Ferodo" bridge across Leeds Road, not far from, the present day station at Deighton. Sadly the bridge was in a poor condition underneath and went soon after I took the pic around 1979

I've got mixed feelings about all this. It's nice to enjoy steam locomotives, Deltics and vintage buses in preservation and in their limited sphere of operation, the amount of environmental damage is probably / hopefully, negligible. However, in other ways, I think the danger, is that we are not going to realise that we have gone past the "point of no return" until it is, way too far, past any chance of recovery. When I was a child in the 1960's, it was a wonder to be able to look up in the sky and see, just one aeroplane, whereas today, I can casually look up and see as many as three of them, all heading in different directions ! These days, we don't throw out the amount of heavy pollution, that we were putting into the atmosphere back in the 1960's (Just look at all the home coal fires, power stations, steelworks and industry that have disappeared) Rivers were often badly contaminated. I guess what pollution there is, these days, is in finer particles and no-one, will probably, up to now, have been able, to identify potential health problems for birds and insects, caused by the contaminants, that are present in the air and in their food chain. Increasing population will lead to food and water shortages, which will probably end up leading to unrest and I do, very much, fear for the future generations.

Yes, the EMD facility at Longport is doing the work https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/class-56-moves-from-leicester-depot.166150/ Seems like 56 128 had a lucky escape from Booths scrapyard after being in there for a year.

Any number of things might be wrong with secondhand locomotives. I have bought a lot at toyfairs and off ebay. most, but not all of them have been ok. Sometimes they work correctly, but develop a problem later on. I've sold all the dodgy ones on ebay with an accurate description of the faults, mostly split gears on the old models made by "Mainline" and faulty Airfix loco's. These were produced around three decades ago and so, you can expect them to be a bit tired these days. For the price I've paid, I have always been happy buying secondhand, as the savings on new can be phenomenal, especially if the era you are modelling is currently "out of fashion" at the time you buy. Trends come and go with model railways and sometimes prices can be lower and overall, even including the pups I've bought and then sold at a loss, with an accurate description. I have saved a fortune on buying new.

The 4-6-0 steam locomotive, is a vintage black 5, made by Graham Farish. The blue livery 13005 Diesel shunter, has a Triang body, but I'm not sure if the chassis is the original item. It crossed my mind that might be Farish as well.

The class 88's were supposed to replace 68's on the loco hauled TPEx services once the electrification work was completed. The way things are going, I suspect the 68's and Mk5 / Nova 3 stock, will, at some stage, be banished to Scotrail or somewhere and the bi-mode units will take their place, with the trans-Pennine franchise being financially adjusted and restructured to take into account the cuts and NR's change of plans.

I think television has a lot to answer for ! I mean, people look at a £100 item on "Bargain hunt" and then see the seller let it go to the team, for £70 or something and viewers, watching the programme, then suppose, that there's obviously a hefty profit margin and therefore, if they ask, they might be able to get a good discount on their next car, or DCC sound locomotive, etc. The television viewer, doesn't have the opportunity to find out that the seller may have originally paid £80 for the item and then, had it sat on the shelf for two or three years and decided to let it go at a loss, merely to circulate some cash flow and free up the shelf space for something (hopefully) more saleable ! I think these TV shows can sometimes convey a different slant on the facts, leading the viewer away from what really happened, into making, a simple presumption that a good deal was made, leaving the seller and buyer, both happy.