AMJ

Dad was speaking to Oxford yesterday and has updated the Oxford part of his website http://www.transmac.net/index.html click onto Cars button then Oxford. He was impressed by some of the pre-production models. N Scale - expected Winter 2011 - 2012 NBED001 Bedford Lomas ambulance, Hereford NBL001 Bristol Lodekka LD, Crosville NJAG9002 Jaguar MkIX, Black/Sherwood Green NMOS001 Morris Minor saloon, Lilac NPE002 Plaxton Elite, Parks of Hamilton NQ1007 Trolley bus, Cardiff (Streamline) NQM006 Queen Mary, OK Motor Services NRAB006 Scammell Scarab & trailer, British Railways NRF006 AEC RF, London RF520

Some of these were converted into steam heat vans. The K&WVR has recently scrapped the one that they had and sold the chassis on for a carriage restoration.

My fotopic replacement is as per the link in my signature. I took the decision to host it myself and design the pages.

From my archives a photo of 305mm:1' scale model (23/6/1990). Work restarts on this loco when NER H 1310 is back into trafic.

My first encounter was one of my first spotting trips. I walked over the bridge to the far side of York and there was Tulyar parked near to where the bridge to the NRM is now. During the last year of operation had a few trips with dad on an evening to York or Donny. At York one evening the regular stopper was sat in the bay with 55004 at the front. Asked driver if I could cab it and he let me fire up the engines - the noise was bliss! Cheap days out as kids spotting was a West Yorkshire Dayrover (still available). One day we were waiting to the Transpennine in Leeds to go to Huddersfield to do the Clayton West branch before it closed and the train was getting later and later. It turned up with 55011 running on one engine 55 minutes down. The thrash through Morley tunnel stood by the door with window open was music. A school friend that was with me on that trip is currently DPS sales officer!

After spending the other month in Germany and Belgium you get used to seeing rubbish/litter bins on station platforms. They now have them separated espescially in Germany into 4 bins in one for recycling. I got back into the UK and had bought a sandwich and had the packaging to dispose of. I looked round a large station to find not a single bin. I know that they were removed at the height of the IRA action but when I asked where the bins were I just got told to throw the rubbish on the floor a cleaner would clean it up! They claim that folks would put bombs into the bins. With modern Tevlar technology it would be feasible to design a bin to withstand most blasts. I think that it's a shame that we have stations with rubbish on them when you compare them to mainland Europe they are tidy by comparison.

After seeing the one at York and talking to Charlie whilst he relieved me of more money I'm nearly tempted by the idea that he floated my way! He was talking about a ficticious livery on one of the grey models as seen at York.

We might have been crying less if Siemens had supplied some of the Eurorunner's in UK spec. These seem to be quite popular, look good and work. Whilst in Germany I wondered if there might be a future for 'express' goods services that operate at much higher speeds than traditionally. Would work for long haul but there wouldn't be much gain for short haul.

In 2012/2013 at Middleton Railway we are likely to get our 1:1 scale back up and running. Work restarts on it when NER 1310 is back into traffic. One number that we have often painted on it is the Departmental 54. Anyone fancy doing a sound chip might have to wait for us to get 54 Chris I presume that you have ideas for future liveries and numbers but as expected will be keeping these under your hat.

If you ever get handy with the soldering iron then on the main board of the loco are two solder points marked SP+ and SP- that if the wires for the speaker were taken off the chip you can solder these onto. See board diagram http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/16690-1970s-pre-tops-diesels-and-electrics/page__p__164311__fromsearch__1?do=findComment&comment=164311 which also gives you advice for converting to independant tail lights. Minor comment - yes this is a question but there is a dedicated DCC area of this forum.

You might need to have a look at removing the fan as that could fould the speaker as well.

I was having a look on the web to remind myself of a journey I did in the 1980's from Hamburg to Rendsburg and there is a loop to gain height to cross the Keil canal. UK only has the one at Dduallt on the Ffestiniog deviation. The most famous ones are the loops on the DHR. There was a long thread on the old forum about triangular stations so add any other loops into here.

If the current thinking about trying to save (at least) one of ever class of loco had existed years ago then the Warships that ended up in Barry Scrapyard would have been saved now. As DELTIC ended up in the Science Museum I think that DP2 might have been an NRM loco. As more and more of the public that visit preserved railways are not old enough to remember steam on the mainline all they can remember are diesels so the like of Wensleydale etc that rely on these rather than steam will come into their element. I think that you need to be well over 50 to remember steam now as 1968 was about 43 years ago.

Some of the photos that I have recently scanned from 1987 and 1988 in Scotland show that the West Highland trains were then Mk2's. I have seen formations not change as they have worked for donkey years. There were a few Mk2 BSOT's in Scotland, I have a photo of one on a Far North train. I think that there replaced the MkI BSOT's. The West Highland line looks to be 2*SO + BSOT from the shots taken on the train, with the usual large logo 37/4. Edit: Anyone remember the Mexican Bean?

For those that don't know one of the standard gauge V tipper wagons that used to operate at the Sheffield Sewarage works is at Middleton Railway and was used for ballast until we got a proper ex BR balast wagon. Nice photos Ruston. The other year the Rolls-Royce car club I'm in organised a trip on the Appleby-Froddingham railway - we had steam. Essentially they said do not lean out to take photos. Got photos easily of many locos! Many leaning out as can be seen of the Janus dwarfed by the big shed. Probably best to look at all of the ones I have added into http://andrewjohnson...t/c1188364.html rather than paste individual links. http://andrewjohnson.fotopic.net/p42148674.html http://andrewjohnson.fotopic.net/p42148676.html http://andrewjohnson.fotopic.net/p42239708.html

I wonder if the "delivered" light shade of green was W&M's nearest shade to BR a bit like the Workington blue that was put onto the 140 by Leyland as the nearest match to BR blue.

Oooh seeing all of these reminds me that I only have to wait until Saturday to get my A2 back into my hands when I unwrap it from under the tree. Reminds me of old days when as a kid you'd get a new train on 25th December!

The only way is up - Yazz

Had an email the other day from Ffestiniog Travel offering weekend accomodation in Caernarfon and a full trip on the WHR to PM. Binned the email so can't remember the date of the first service train but see the WHR.FR website. Looking on the site on 20/2/2011 to 27/2/2011 there are trains one from PM the other from Caernarfon.

Nice photos of the works at Minnfford. FR say that when the bridge is being installed that they will run PM onto WHR rails. Had some information on the trip last weekend about Phase 5. This is classed as finishing the railway. Money to pay for Caernarfon station New trains - built to FR loading for the Snowdonia through train Station building/cafe at Beddgelert Station improvements at Blaenau Ffestiniog Signalling improvements

There is some nice footage in the British Transport Films (BTF) boxset of a crane in use on the relaying of one track in a double track section. This same film has some footage of a Ruston-Hornsby PWM650 series shunter in operation. Interesting film showing how they used to lift some sections of track and then place them onto an empty wagon then take new from another.

So who is going to go to KWVR and record and do a sound chip then? I suspect that the chip space will be the guards central area but the motor will also be in there! Not a bad price when you look at the Dapol Park Royal one and fit a chassis from one of the advertisers and it's decorated for you.

Some nice ones there. I must dig out the photos of cranes built by Smiths and also Booths (both of Rodley) The SR hand crane looks interesting - where is that one?

My supporters "first passenger train" ticket arrived in the post with timetable yesterday. Wow 2H45 for the full line single trip. Cars parked in the wrong place are not a problem - when we went out as a youth club in the coach the lads would get out and move cars out of the way! My fingerp[rints are probably on many cars in London in the 80's! WHHR will benefit from the line as mentioned earlier some people just think of full line returns. I have a problem with WHHR and that is the book shop, my credit card often finds its way into their machine!

I think that if you have more than one loco in a class that it sounds good to have different suppliers recordings in different locos as even so called identical locos can have differences in sound due to time since last overhaul etc. The KWVR WD 2-8-0 has now got a nice clank to it that I believe a lot of the well worn BR examples did have in latter years of their life. When it was fresh there was no clank.