Corbs

Ha, I see what you did there 😉

In the current range I think the grey would only work for the yellow and SLOUGH vans in that case, but there is a chance the SLOUGH one was just in GW livery inside and out.

That matches what we have at the BHR. Roof looks yellowish here but it is white IRL. I've not yet found a reference photo of a BR grey one inside. @The Johnster do you have a steer on the shade of green?

I’m not sure, it wouldn’t be exposed to the same amount of falling smuts and muck (certainly not the bit inside). But if it was painted white then since the models are not factory-weathered it should be white.

Thank you. I think white is a pretty safe bet even on the yellow one.

A question mainly for @Miss Prism but open to all. My suspicion is that all Toads should have white roof interiors. Would you agree or are there any outliers? Certainly the GWR ones have photo evidence of such, the WSR one has it, Titfield one does too. Yellow vans I am not sure as the only glimpse I can see is in shadow. Just want to check this before it gets sent to the factory.

RAILWAY MANIA PODCAST EPISODE 26 MUSIC IN MOTION with Cheryl B. Engelhardt Composer, musician and singer Cheryl B. Engelhardt may be the first person to have created an entire album start-to-finish whilst on a transcontinental railway trip. Travelling from her home in New York to Los Angeles and back, Cheryl used this time to create ‘The Passenger’, a new-age album reflecting her personal experiences. This episode, we welcome Cheryl onto the show to discuss how the idea came about, the logistics and timing of such a trip, and the creative process of making an album on a moving train. To hear more from Cheryl and to purchase her music, visit her official website here: https://www.cbemusic.com/ To listen to the episode on Audioboom, click HERE. or on YouTube here: EPISODE 27 LOVE YOUR RAILWAY with Luke Hudman The summer of 2022 has seen the return of the #LoveYourRailway campaign to social media. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway's Marketing Manager Luke Hudman joins us today to tell us the idea behind the campaign, why we should love our railway, and how to get involved. 'Love Your Railway’ brings together over 80 organisations from as far afield as Scotland, Snowdonia, Leighton Buzzard, and the Lake District in the nationwide campaign which shines a spotlight on heritage railway organisations, encouraging visitors to support them this summer. Spearheaded by NYMR, ‘Love Your Railway’ is a six-week campaign which runs over the summer holidays from 25th July to 4th September, with weekly themes covering conservation, education and research. Thanks so much to Luke for coming on the podcast! Click HERE for the link on Audioboom iOS users click here for Apple Podcasts

Technically I volunteer at a museum with a preserved railway as part of it, and yes, our running line is rather short, but one of the things I love about it is that by and large we have a single 'operating department'. If you express an interest and ask to work on something, and if you can put in the time, you can wear many hats. Last Saturday I was a fireman and then trainee guard on the Sunday. Sometimes I sell tickets on the platform, or just turn up to clean the loco in the morning and supply an extra pair of hands. It looks like we'll all need to muck in soon to do some permanent way. We also have boat crew and crane operator opportunities, and once or twice a year we can dress as dockers and get all the goods 'props' out, or learn how to use the capstan. Plus: It's a 10 minute cycle ride from my front door There are many pubs nearby The opportunities for lunch are plentiful

Imagine how this may have affected all of Britain's history. No great obstacle for Caesar's armed expedition to Britain in 55BC, perhaps more of his genocidal campaign as seen in Gaul, leading to an earlier conquest (no Boudica, maybe no Britannia). Do the post-Roman tribes like the Franks and the Alemanni expand into Britain? Perhaps a completely different relationship with the Norsemen. I wonder where the borders might end up or if N.France and Britain end up being one state, or perhaps 'Celtic Britain' evolving as everything north of the River Severn-River Welland line, and 'Gallic Area' being South of that and encompassing the Netherlands, Belgium, Normandy etc. What's the knock-on effect? Is there any point in the re-engineering of Holland to provide space when the land bridge provides it, do any of the ports develop in the same way when the access to the Atlantic and the New World involves going around the Celtic Peninsular? Do Caen and Southampton develop as the two major ports as they are in the sheltered bay area? Do we even get the modern railway, since steam traction development was so tied up in the circumstances of the Napoleonic Wars, and the need to feed the growing metropolis of London with coal? Does it come earlier?

Well it's a year later and I'm finally getting around to doing more with my Timber Tractor (Tom has his one now as he is going to apply the finishing touches). Another Oxford model gave up its wheels and radiator to the Airfix one. The truck was spray painted (the green is a wheelbarrow paint). I had masked the radiator vanes and touched them in with a pen afterwards. I am no figure painter but gave it a go with the driver - this is the Airfix soldier with his helmet removed and replaced with a mop of black hair. I've given him the impression of some work overalls over a brown shirt. He'll be inside the truck anyway so doesn't need to be too detailed. After this pic I went over with a very thin black was to highlight the shadows and take some of the shine off. To imitate my friend's tractor, I took some pics of it when it was last outside, trying to get the camera straight and level with the signwriting. I brought these pics into photoshop, cut out the writing, then copied and pasted into illustrator, using 'image trace' on the 3-colour setting, then deleting the green areas. These were resized and then printed out on the OKI laser decal printer. I did a mix of right-way-round and back-to-front to see what the better result was for the red (back-to-front was better). Decals applied with a bit of micro-set to help them grip. The roof was brush painted red (needs another coat really). Decals applied, driver glued in, then raided the recycling bin for some clear plastic, a piece of phone case packaging did the trick. Once this was glued in the roof was attached. The decals are a lot rougher than off-the-shelf items due to having been done on a laser rather than ink printer, but they do the job. The headlamp is from RT Models again, the passenger side one sadly pinged off the tweezers and now resides somewhere in my room, so I have ordered another. The whole truck will be matt-coated, likely using maskol to protect the windows.

Updated artwork of Worcester van W114751 now in BR(W) condition. As noted before, one side still closely matches the preserved vehicle.

I think the confusion was just because Rails of Sheffield post a lot of Rapido stock announcements.

Here's the pic of the 'what if' BR livery applied to 112/17925/57925 copied over from the website. The full length tender tank and Caley-style chimney/smokebox door should be correct for the condition this loco was withdrawn in.

There's some great footage of the iron ore festival on this channel. The 0-10-0 and the tri-unit electric loco are very impressive! On 24th September, Krylbo are having a steam-up day when the B Class will be in action. Sadly I will be back in the UK then :(

Electric locos. As SJ adopted electric traction so early, their steam loco development plateaued somewhat. At the museum it was fascinating to see the developments of the electric locos they had there. There are 3 class D 2-6-2 locos on-site. No.887 is a 1955-built class Da (note the rounded window corners on the front). This has been used as a parts donor and is in the scrap line awaiting disposal. This photo is from Roger Lundberg on the SKÅJ facebook page. Inside the roundhouse and in much better condition is Du2 class No.302, built 1932 as a class D and converted into Du2 (indicating the addition of multiple unit gear enabling it to work with Rc class locos too) in 1975. Note the square corners on the cab windows. You can also see the brass whistle above the cab (operated by air pressure). Out in the yard is sister loco No.424 (1936), but in non-operational condition, just parked at the head of a train. These locos had one brake compressor behind the cab at one end. Apparently the drivers preferred using the other cab due to the compressor noise. The first 245 built had wooden bodies rather than the later steel ones as seen here. Here's a photo of the multitude of contactors inside. From memory I think he said there are 16 speed settings each requiring 3 contactors. Here is one of the 2 traction motors viewed from above with the inspection plate off. No.620 is a 1944-built class Mg Co-Co and the sole survivor of this type. It was built for the tough Norrlands lines where the D types were not strong enough and the double-locos not bendy enough. Having two three-axle bogies was a departure from the rod drive of previous locos. These have two compressors (one behind each cab) with the air tanks inside the nose. Apparently this helped when working in cold climates. Unlike the D type locos this one does not use contactor combinations for speed settings. No.994 is a Class Ra Bo-Bo. It was designed to haul lightweight aluminium-bodied carriages at high speed, but those trains never really materialised. It was built in 1961 as one of 10. A few are in preservation. Unfortunately this is currently non-operational due to issues with the air system that will cost a lot to fix, although there are two spare bogies for it. Interestingly this one does have contactors. The control setup is rather modern with the deadmans handle mounted on the centre of the wheel. The dials are illuminated by a UV lamp! One of the spare bogies with the transformer wagon in the background.

Hi Dava, thank you. I have tried to annotate the google maps one as it wasn't very clear. SJ lines are in pink with the Ängelsberg-Norberg line in brown (it uses SJ metals along part of its route) and Krylbo roundhouse in blue. This also shows how close the Jularbo-Mårsbo railway was to where Krylbo is now.

Steam locos. There are currently 5 ånglok on-site. 2 are the class J 2-6-4T which have the unusual arrangement of inside cylinders but with part of the valve gear outside the frames. The J class behind me in this pic is SJ No. 1298, now known as 'Lotta'. This loco had the distinction of being one of the last standard gauge locos working in Sweden, and is of particular interest to the museum as from 1972-1977 it was owned and operated by the local Jularbo-Månsbo Railway (JMJ). All of the locos working this line were known collectively as Månsbo-Lotta, and this was the last of them. I am told that when classmate No.1401 was worn out and scrapped, the driver was hoping for a bigger and more impressive loco, but what he actually got was an exact replacement taken directly off SJ's scrap line! Directly behind Lotta is another J class loco No.1296. This one has a very good condition boiler as it was overhauled for the Swedish Strategic Reserve. It has been the victim of scrap metal thieves who stole the non-ferrous but thankfully most are stock items. It is suggested that 'Lotta' may be put back into traffic first due to the local significance, but using the boiler from her sister engine. Both the J class locos were formerly at another museum that already had working Js so were somewhat surplus to requirements. The museum has 2 class B 4-6-0 locos. The B is Sweden's equivalent to the Black 5, being a mixed traffic 4-6-0 with outside valve gear. Introduced in 1909 and derived from a German design, the working example at the museum is No.1323 from 1917, which goes out on the mainline. Incredibly the coal they are using here is STILL coming from the old Strategic Reserve stock! Undergoing long-term restoration is No.1696 from 1943. This was from a batch of 3 Class Bs built for Stockholm–Västerås–Bergslagens Järnvägar, 24 years after the previous ones! It has roller bearings on the tender and front bogie. The B class is incredibly numerous both in Sweden and elsewhere as 99 were made and many were kept for the Strategic Reserve (which ditched all its steam locos in 1990). Some have gone to other countries like the UK, Holland, Belgium and elsewhere. Roger told me that they have a tendency to waggle at speed unlike their inside-cylinder equivalents. In between the two Bs is E10 class number 1742 built 1947. Another German-derived design, this is a 3-cylinder 4-8-0 (3 sets of Walschaerts) with 4ft7"ish driving wheels. Of the 10 built, 5 were coal fired and 5 were oil fired. This is one of the latter. Our tour guide Roger was the driver on a mainline charter of empty timber wagons. On this trip they calculated that at full chat the loco was consuming 300 litres of oil for every 10km travelled! As such this loco has not been out in some time, though there is at least 1 other operational E10 in Sweden. Special mention must also go to this... ... which is essentially a locomotive boiler (similar to that used in some 0-6-0Ts but saturated and simplified) but mounted in a 4-wheel van. As Sweden started to go electric in the 1920s, the transition period was long. This wagon was used to steam-heat coaches when the electric (or in some cases diesel) loco had no train heating facility. Amazingly this next wagon is the opposite! A wooden bodied van from the 1890s, it was retrofitted with a pantograph and the transformer from a scrapped electric loco in order to supply electricity to trains if they were hauled by a steam or diesel loco!

Back in the innocent days of 2011 I stumbled across a preserved railway in my partner's home town of Kärrgruvan (Västmanland county). It's the Ängelsberg-Norbergs Jarnväg or ENJ and uses the classic Y6 railbuses in the summer months. BUT what I had not previously realised was that 5 minutes drive from where we are currently staying in Avesta (in neighbouring Dalarna) is Krylbo Lokstall. Krylbo is a pretty awesome looking station which was and still is a major junction. 2 lines come in from the North meeting 2 from the South. The station building dates from 1902. The old water tower is of a typical local design and is also rather pretty. Just to the south of the station is the roundhouse where SKÅJ is based. SKÅJ stands for Stockholms Kultursällskap för Ånga och Järnväg (Stockholm Cultural Society for Steam and Railway) and is a play on 'skoj' which means 'fun' or 'joke'. The current building is about the same age as the station. It has survived partially thanks to a refit in the 1950s and after that it became a base for permanent way maintenance. Part of the roundhouse has had the tracks shortened and the roof lowered to serve as a storage room. We popped down and managed to catch Roger, one of the volunteers, just as he was locking up for the day. He was very friendly and said we could come back the next day for a guided tour! So today we arrived just as they were using this Scania wrecker to winch a rather interesting coach onto the turntable. The deck is in the process of being replaced on one side. One of the volunteers owns this rather beautiful Volvo which I thought was appropriate. Straight away we were invited into the cab of the Type 21 0-8-0DH getting ready to shunt the coach off the 'table and into the main workshop road. The T21 is an impressive beast, built by MaK in Germany (with a larger Swedish cab). Jackshaft drive in the centre of the loco. Photo from the SKÅJ website. The coach was VERY interesting. Built in 1946, it was a pantograph test coach. As can be seen in my pic, it has a raised observation section. The outside needs a lick of paint but the inside is incredible, it's like it's literally just come off a test train. This is one of the main test rooms. I am standing directly under the observation windows..... This was AWESOME. It's a sofa on twin motorised screws so that it can be raised up into the roof. The little footrest folds down so your shoes don't dangle. Since the power was off, I clambered up and had a look out at the test pantographs... ... and back towards the Type 21. The intention is to renovate this coach for charter trains, so imagine what this would be like being towed by a steam loco! Of course there are cameras for pantograph monitoring, these feed into a massive VHS recorder which is all still intact, complete with tape. In the middle of the coach are sleeping compartments which convert into standard seats, as well as a little kitchen and office. At the other end is a boardroom complete with speedometer and filing cabinets. The report files from the last few runs are still in the cabinets! More to follow...

Gosh that's incredibly sad to hear. I too am a big fan of Rob's photoshop work and was surprised to read about his FB page. He shall be very much missed.

No CV, just some incriminating photographs.

From facebook :D https://www.facebook.com/groups/358056297614371/permalink/5260701164016502/

Wonder if that’s why there was no piping visible along the side after it was converted (assuming they found an alternate pipe run) as loading/unloading excavators etc. could damage it?

It's ok, I have the hi-res scan now (thanks to Paul). Below is revised version of verandah-left side based on the 1981 photo but using the markings from the 1979 photo as a reference. The layout and spacing of the SLOUGH.... is completely different to the other side as is the number styling (e.g. the shape of the number '2'). On the 1981 photo I can see the dates on the right hand panel but they are 1980 so would post-date the 1979 condition, so I have re-used the writing from the other side. I'm not sure, I presume there must be a market as most of the projects I have worked on have had a preserved example available (even where the preservation livery has mistakes/differences to the in-service version). I need to caveat that I am a freelance contractor and do not decide the models that go on sale. However it is always my intention to make them as accurate to the specified condition as possible, so I am very grateful for the assistance provided in this thread and elsewhere. Hi John, yes you are correct it is the Titfield van. I believe this will only be available in the Titfield pack(s) with Lion and the Loriot 'coach'.

Sorry that I am going to miss the Larkrail comeback owing to being away in Scandinavia 🇸🇪 hope it goes well!

It's a question I've been wondering about, if you take this example we have photos approx. 2 years apart but they are hard evidence of the vehicle in a certain condition. In the absence of any other photographs, should an estimation of the 1979 condition be made so that both sides match a certain time period, or should both sides differ from each other but be loyal to the photos, accepting that each side of the vehicle represents two different years? In this instance the 'most likely 1979 condition based on the evidence we have' version has been chosen.