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I was quite surprised when they did too! Although one of the drivers actually thought a bit and used his staff mobile to call the box internal number, so enabling him to stay sat in the cab! Andy G

A reply was typed, but I've thought better of it, there might be someone reading this...... Andy G

And there in lies part of the problem.... From a Bobbies point of view, we want to be able to call the driver when we need to. Now with CSR I could call any train that was in the system at any time, and speak to the driver. But with GSM-R I can only call trains that are in my area, and that means as soon as the train passes my last signal I can no longer call them. Less than Ideal. The consoles are very clunky to use, with what can only be described as the worlds poorest design of press to talk handset (which has the button on the side, as opposed to the back of the handset (where your thumb naturally falls) and so are really uncomfortable to use. The 'extras' may well be useful for powerboxes, but in proper boxes they are superfluous, and frankly the reliability of the system is poor. I have had a shift where the power supply has failed, and had to hold bits of paper up to drivers with CALL SPT on them as I needed to caution.. I never had that with CSR! Andy G

Interestingly we are not aware that they are used for GSM-R up here. But then again, no-one ever tells the Bobbies anything about the equipment they have to use, just in case we end up knowing something..... Andy G

The blue plates with 8005/6/7/10 on them are NOT signal numbers, they are the short codes for the long defunct Cab Secure Radio system... For some reason NR have not removed any of these plates, even though the system was replaced by (the very much inferior, cheaper and nastier) GSM-R system back in 2012ish... I'm surprised that ASLEF haven't been kicking up a stink about it! Andy G

I vividly remember that the tickets issued for the Steam specials from Ft William to Mallaig when they were first introduced were Green versions of the NCR 51 tickets. What has surprised me is the size of these tickets compared with Edmundson and modern ones. They used to stick out of the top of Dad's wallet, and his took notes without folding them... Andy G

Not at all, I've not got my book handy (I'm in work), but there was a fairly regular swapping about of flanged and flangeless wheels in the Jones Goods class. Indeed the original set of wheels off 103 when she was first restored to Green by the LMS were all flanged, and were later swapped for the present set of flangeless ones, the originals appeared under another class member still in green, but the loco itself was all over black. AFAIAA the Rivers were always fully flanged. Andy G

So you will be able to tell me how these combined semaphore and colourlight worked.... I'm guessing that there was a detector box for the arm, that was adjusted so that when the arm was high enough to obscure the signal lamp (but not necessarily fully off), then the colour light head was turned on? And of course the head was turned off at the same point as the arm returned? Ta Andy G

I can't quite remember, but it was a bit of a home brew. I believe the main post was used for a signal bridge for colour-lights somewhere, and the rest was made at Swithland Sidings. I can certainly remember using a 9" grinder with a wire brush in it to clean the mill scale off parts of the new bit. The GCR was quite lucky in that their S&T lads had a lot of contacts with the local BR/Railtrack S&T lads, and one weekend we did a recovery at Derby, from an old goods platform overlooking the south end of the station. It was a haul of a couple of 30-35 foot semaphore posts, and a lot of fittings. It took a fair few of us to lift the post onto the artic trailer! I quite fancy making something similar to this for the garden. I've got a Metro-vick Hernia distant head (with a curved sighting board, think full sized Berko!) and a semaphore and post that needs erecting, so would be a good idea to combine the two. Just need a standoff bracket for the hernia to sit on. Andy G

Interesting signal, note the tapered blade, and the backing plate behind the green lens. Interestingly the green lens is convex for use with an intensified lamp. The red lens looks like it might be too, but its the wrong shape for an upper quad signal.. All a bit home made and not really looking like anything normal. Anyone happen to have a spare convex green (blue really) 8" lens for a LNE arm at all please? Andy G

And I have a claim to fame with it... I spent a day facing off the concrete foundation around the base of this beast after it was erected, with a 1" chisel and lump hammer. I also helped fit the boarding on the landing and the fittings to the dolls... I was young then though... Andy G

The D600's cannot have been overweight, as the BTC wouldn't have accepted them. The fact that they weren't designed to make advantage of the lightweightness that could be achieved with hydraulic power is a different matter. Interestingly they were probably better placed to work the freight trains of the period, as they had sufficient weight to be able to control unbraked trains (unlike the later Warships). Andy G

To use the block chassis, you would have to open out the gear wheel slot to take a gearbox. Branchlines sell gearboxes that are 8mm wide (from memory), and I've fitted them in the old triang cast chassis before. It'll take a bit of filling to open that slot though... Andy G

Well its a BR version, but I'm guessing that a lot of the main parts are more or less the same, it might just be the panel sizing thats different... Andy G

I have also put drawings on here as well, from measuring the one opposite from where I am presently sat. Go to this thread for the details: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/76786-detail-drawing-of-concrete-provender-store-wanted/ Enjoy! Andy G

There's a good explanation of BR's woes with diesel engines (the larger ones) in 'The diesel Impact on British Railways' by RM Tufnell. It is a good read, and really shows that BR was using diesel locomotives completely differently to a lot of other organisations, and was therefore finding faults that hadn't manifested in other administrations usage. As for warranty claims, BR did successfully get things changed under warranty. For example, Paxmans wanted to supply the engines in the class 17 with Iron heads, but BR insisted on having Ally heads, as supplied on the two car demu test train, so Paxman, wanting the business, agreed, only to find that as the locos were working harder than the demu, that thermal cracking occurred. BR then put a warranty claim in and Paxmans supplied iron heads as part of this, although not as a freebee, there was some money changing hands too. Reading around various books written by shedmasters during the transition period, and the makers staff that were allocate to various sheds, were kept very busy doing modifications to the supplied equipment to keep it in service, most of which BR didn't pay for. Andy G

You'll mainly be wanting the longer bodied insulators from them, I can't for the life of me work out what their short bodied ones are supposed to represent, maybe the 240V electrical insulators for o/head feeds into houses? And only use the J hangers for terminal poles, everything else should be on straight bolts. Andy G

I've got one of their AC Cars railbus kits in stock, brand new, just requiring the Ks motor to complete, and I paid about £40 for it. Lovely castings, but its a long way down the build pile. I believe they did other railbus kits (The Bristol cars one at least) and a few other DMUs too. Andy G

For some LNER instructions visit: https://dickthesignals.co.uk/onewebmedia/LNER tech instrns - sig & coms.pdf From page 49 onwards its about pole routes. Andy G

The last route on NR with open bare wires was Ely-Norwich (well Shippea Hill - Wymondham) which lasted until about 2006-7. On BT, if you look about, there are still houses fed on open 'pairs' from the final pole... The main routes went in the mid to late 80's. Andy G

Here we go: Some of the GPO EI's: C3001 Carrying capacity of poles.pdf C3251 Construction of A and H poles.pdf C3126 use of stays and struts.pdf C3501 Arming of poles.pdf C3511 Arming misc fittings.pdf C3552 Arming of wood poles.pdf C3301 Terminal and Distribution poles.pdf These should shed a bit of light on the subject, and show what poles should look like.... Andy G Edit: Some light reading on Insulators: Insulators.pdf E3035 Wiring insulators.pdf

Not so sure they are that lovely to be honest, far too many insulators on the arms (They are arms, not bars!) and why so many J brackets? No arm braces either. Its like they have never seen a pole with arms before... Now if only I could find the post that I did some years back that had scans of the Engineering Instructions of the GPO for poles, which is relevant as the railways and the GPO followed 'best practice'... Andy G

Also appeared on the Aberfieldy branch. Andy G

And theres nothing stopping anyone climbing that ladder either.... Its like the public are trusted... Wouldn't ever happen here.. Andy G

Or trying to kill his wife... Allegedly. Well that is what happened to the first of the pair of drivers I've had drive into the side of a train here. He was in a camper van, and passed a long queue of traffic waiting at the AHBC barriers, and hit the train with the nearside of the van.... Derailed the train, which was doing about 40mph at the time. Claimed to the police that the brakes failed, but when tested they were found to be working ok. Both him and his Mrs survived.... The other one happened when an elderly driver turned out of a side road near another AHBC, onto the wrong side of the road, and straight past the barrier (which was on the side of the road that they weren't) and straight into the second bogie of a 365 doing about 70mph. The bogie removed the bonnet and brought it to the station platform. The driver of the train was very shaken, so I got them to screw the unit down and come to the box for a strong coffee.... Andy G