Bon Accord

Interesting to learn that it's still on the go albeit in slightly different circumstances. The cover belonged to my Grandfather and he made much use of his staff travel perks for family holidays, including quite a few trips around Europe, all by rail and via BR operated ferries. He retired in 1974 after fifty years with the LNER and BR.

At least one J39 was so treated as well.

Tidying up the other day and found this.

Royal flavour? Waverley, 23/04/10.

As the development of in-cab signalling carries on and spreads nationwide, is there be any intention to leave a basic/small amount of lineside signals in situ - even if they're for long sections - just so things can keep moving to some degree should the in cab system crash/be hacked etc?

As she was in happier times.

It's exactly the same with near enough the same shops/discounts and identical websites. I was a member of both briefly until I realised - I just keep my DDS card going now.

They were still in use in the 1960s.

It's quite amazing just how much these minor mods really improve the look of the model. A vacuum bag, air pipe and some lamp irons/lamps will set it off nicely.

All their WW2 built destroyers/frigates/corvettes/cruisers still had open bridges, as did those that went before. Cruiser wise those that succeeded the Leanders e.g. Towns, Crown Colony and Minotaurs (built in 1945) were the same. The Daring class destroyers (early 50s built) were open, as were a large number of the Ton class minesweepers built throughout that decade. The Blackwood/Whitby class appearing circa '55 heralded the beginning of enclosing the thing, however that was not to provide weather protection for the crew but to ensure the bridge remained operational in case of nuclear fallout. I think Cavalier was the last "frontline" ship with an open bridge and she didn't finish until 1972. Rather strangely whilst they stuck with open bridges for the purposes of visibility, they didn't really go for bridge wings until post war which I always found an odd combination.

Shortening the bogie pivot arm and also the footplate by removing few mm in front of the smokebox would probably also enhance the look, as the bogie is too far forward the bufferbeam also projects too far.

Calmac are between a rock and a hard place as they don't own the ships or the piers, they're all owned (and built as required) etc by a third party whom they charter the assets from, that being CMAL a government quango. In railway terms CMAL is basically the equivalent of the ROSCOs and Network Rail combined as one entity. Calmac in contrast are merely the operators who run the franchise. CMAL was setup because of the need to "tender" the Calmac franchise every 8 years, so a new body was setup for accountancy purposes so as to seperate the assets. Prior to that Calmac was like BR in that everything was managed and owned "in house", e.g. the people running the ships and ports were the same people who specified the newbuild ships/ports and maintained the same. Unfortunately, in the style of classic British management, this company (CMAL) which was setup simply as a box ticking exercise - and not intended to have any real power or influence - has become a monster in it's own right. Not only do they act as if they're a real bona fide shipping company, but they're constantly trying to extend their influence/interference into Calmac's day to day operations. For an example of that attitude have a look at their website and take note of the type of language they use to describe 'their' assets. There is huge seasonal variation in traffic on most Calmac routes, e.g. rammed full in high summer but with many running near empty in the winter. It would not be cost effective to have enough capacity to carry everything in the summer as you'd then have (expensive) wasted assets lying around all winter haemorrhaging money. Fast ferries are expensive to run and to be most efficient they need to spend as much of their time as possible at speed. On most Calmac routes this would be difficult because a certain portion of the voyage always occurs in sheltered waters where there are speed limits or restrictions on wash. Fast ferries (be they cats or otherwise) also do not like bad weather, so they'd be little use in the winter months and if they were used would be very much route specific, which restricts operational flexibility in the network sense. Put all that together and the simple fact is that it's impossible to build an ideal Calmac ship - there are simply too many variables to consider. The inevitable result is a vessel which has to be a jack of all trades but isn't really outstanding at any one, it also means they'll be more expensive to build and run compared to a ship built only for a specific route or ports, i.e. a one trick pony. Calmac ports are a mixed bag in terms of age and facilities. Ownership is split between CMAL, various local councils and a number of different harbour authorities or trusts. Most of the ports are historical in terms of geography and do not exist solely for use of the ferry, they're used by fishing vessels, pleasure craft and even cruise ships. Some of them are quite literally the same old wooden Victorian piers originally used by much smaller steamers a century ago albeit much modified over the years. Standardisation of port facilities within the Calmac empire - something which would be a game changer with regard to building and operating their ships - would be monstrously expensive and time consuming to achieve, that is assuming you could get the many stakeholders to agree to the plan in the first instance. To sort out the piers and ships so as to provide standardisation, interoperability and the efficiencies that creates you're looking at not a lot shy of a £1 Billion. You might say that if that's what needs to be done from an entirely logic based perspective then get on with it, and whilst it's a lot of money it is a seriously long term investment paid back over several generations. However, then factor into your reasoning that the population of all the West Coast islands put together only comes to 40 odd thousand people. Then ask yourself that if you were a politician and had a billion quid to spend, how many folk on the mainland could you benefit with that money in the short to medium term by building schools, hospitals etc and other big ticket, big PR "quick win" items? The answer is potentially millions of people. So the choice is spend the cash on a few windswept albeit picturesque rocks on the west coast, or achieve political immortality by building a new super hospital in a city? No prizes for guessing where the priorities are.

The ITF (and it seems RMT) boarded "Spirit of Britain" a few days ago in Dover, they then made a post on Facebook highlighting their findings and included a copy of the contracts the new crews are sailing under. They're contracted to serve 17 weeks onboard (+/- 1 week) before they'd be eligible for repatriation home. The basic monthly wage for the deck crew is $961USD, which works out to approx. £170 per week. That is a consolidated rate as they receive no pay when on leave. They are contracted to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. There's no chance of even nipping ashore as turnaround times in port are approximately an hour. In contrast, the previous mostly UK crew worked 1 week on/1 week off and were salaried. ITF found the nationalities onboard to be as follows: Officers British Polish Romanian Croatian Russian Latvian Ukrainian Ratings Romanian Georgian Ukrainian Latvian Indian Honduran German Bulgarian Mauritius Emergency drills must be entertaining with that many nationalities involved, with most using English as their 2nd language. The "Spirit of Britain" indeed.

One thing which has just caught my eye is the lining on the rearmost cladding crinoline, this appears on both BR late crest V2s released but is absent on the BR black version. Wasn't this lining normally absent, i.e. that particular crinoline plain green?

Some years ago one of the members here made some modifications to their CR123 with a view to improving the looks, this included modifying the bogie amongst other things. I'm pretty sure it was Kingfisher24 as he has tackled a number of Scottish subjects both kitbashes and RTR rebuilds, however the photographs on his blogposts have been lost with the server migration. Might be worth sending him a PM?

5407 and 5305 in lined LMS black. 44871 in BR lined black (late crest). 44932 in BR lined black but with "British Railways" lettering Gill Sans on the tender. You should be able to renumber suitable Hornby versions assuming the boiler/dome/topfeed details on the base model are correct.

During Op Telic we were using Phalanx bolted onto the back of flatbed artics as a somewhat desperate last ditch measure to provide base defence from incoming unpleasantness, the systems having been robbed from the RN/RFA as I remember. Must admit I did a proper double take when one drove past!

Can these be used as a substitute for the inner coupling bars supplied with the models? I think that's part number 36-066 as used with a Bachmann 101. I managed to pull one of my 156 coupling bars apart by accident not so long ago and it was quite a fiddle for my chubby fingers to put it back together particularly with the copper wires (or at least I think I did!), thankfully there was a spare included so I'm down one that's fine and one that hopefully used but good.

A Strathclyde PTE liveried 156 also manage to reach Fort William on one or two occasions when they were short of units. Naturally it wasn't fitted with RETB and so was coupled inside a suitably fitted WHL unit.

Or Scenario C) - adopt legislation requiring all vessels operating in British waters to pay at the very least UK minimum wage so as to partially level the playing field. Additionally ensure all those operating solely on ferry runs to the continent adopt the salary scales of at least one of the countries of destination, i.e. on Dover-Calais the ships concerned can choose to pay either French or British wages. The French and Belgians proposed a similar scheme some years ago to the EU and it received support across the EU membership, however the ever helpful British government used their veto to sink it because they're pathologically obsessed with shafting our own people to the altar of the free market economy.

With regard to the P&O saga if their press releases are correct then they have indeed been losing money for some years. P&O management anticipated that a suspension of services whilst new crew were put in place would only be temporary and last a matter of days, for which they estimated they'd lose £1-2 million per day. We're nearly 3 weeks on from the sacking debacle and most of their services remain suspended with no end in immediate sight, at a cost of many tens of millions (and mounting) and perhaps near irreversible reputational damage. What I find baffling is that most of the senior management team at P&O ferries has been in place unchanged for many years and it is those same individuals that have overseen apparent continual loss making, defaulted on the pension funds (to the tune of £150 million) and have created themselves the current operational, financial and PR disaster. Yet the top men survive unscathed whilst everyone else gets a P45? Bizarre.

It was definitely '86. Many ships went over to Bermuda and Gibraltar flag initially before they slowly started to trickle over to IOM. As I remember the new employment agencies were Wallems and Dorchester Maritime (part of the Schulte empire). Later all crew were changed again to BP Maritime Services which was a post office box in Bermuda and Dorchester's managed it all on their behalf from their office on the Isle of Man. I think they changed again to somewhere in Singapore about 15 years ago and of course only a year ago there was another massive round of redundancies within the fleet with them going third party yet again. When the latter occurred there was still a slack handful of people in the fleet who'd gone through all 4 sets of redundancies/reorganisations over a 35 year period! All gone now though.

Mark, I take it Denman were in someway affiliated to the "Diamond D" and one of their arms length subsidiaries?

Exactly the same thing that happened today happened with Irish Ferries in 2005. In that case security staff (thugs) and replacement foreign crew came onboard disguised as passengers and when on passage attempted to take control of the ships - the Irish/British crews initially resisted by barricading themselves in the crew accommodations/engine room/bridge etc. and this led to something of a stand off. The ships were also reflagged from Ireland to Cyprus. With Irish Ferries that was purely a profit maximisation exercise, hence the heavy handed approach with no notice. Of course considering the atmosphere of the time it was initially thought to be a terrorist attack by some. Those with longer memories shall recall that BP also made all their seastaff redundant instantly - again with no warning - one day back in 1986, with the overwhelming majority of crews finding out about the situation due to it being the lead story on the BBC news that evening. All staff were then invited to reapply for their old jobs via offshore agencies, but with a 25% pay cut and no pension or benefits. Charming people, shipowners.

Right upto the early 80s aside from the diesels and Mk1s being painted in corporate image colours the stock and infrastructure on the Far North and Kyle lines had changed very little for 20 years. BR 16t mineral wagons and 12t vans - all in a dirty brown livery - were the order of the day freight wise. Stations still had their BR enamel totems and signage and nearly all the signal boxes were still open. It was something of a time capsule.